VICHY CLIQUE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1941, Page 5

VICHY CLIQUE

PROPAGANDA ON BEHALF OF NAZIS IN THE UNITED STATES. SAID TO BE DIRECTED . BY AMBASSADOR. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, August 31. The New York “Herald-Tribune” sensationally published a story of the operations of a clique of Vichy agents “working under the direct control” of M. Henry Haye, the French Ambassador to Washington, whose activities are allegedly designed to create sentiment for the Nazi new order. The Washington correspondent of the paper says the men of Vichy there have actually thwarted British military moves. For instance, he says, advance plans of General de Gaulle’s illfated Dakar expedition were smuggled to Vichy via New York; likewise a list of French officers aiding the Free French movement. The present programme of Vichy’s underground organisation in the United States specifically aims at the creation of a net work to bring Vichy’s message of defeatism before the isolationists. There is evidence of such activities being financed through United States willingness not to freeze French funds and placate Vichy, hoping somehow that the Petain Government will be won away from collaboration with Herr Hitler. The “Herald-Tribune” learns that the amount unfrozen exceeds 1,000,000 dollars monthly.