Evening star., 1941-01-18
Our Food, Our Life Is in Your Hands . q.
Americas Help Needed in Crisis Marshal Peton Declares
In Plea for Stunned and Despoirng French Nation

This eTcluSiDe tnterDielD 1Cfth
Marshal Petnin is the only one
he has granted to a foreign
neUSpdperman since he became
head of the French state SeUen
months ago. The ,Driter is q
noted American foreign corre-
spondent 1Dho has had much er-
perience in both Europe and
Northern Africa. He recently
interviewed Gen Marine Wey-
gand in French Morocco.
BY JAY ALLEN.
VICHY, France, Jan. 18 (By
Wireless to NANAD.- Marshal
Henri Philippe Petain received this
correspondent yesterday and for
more than an hour talked for Amer
lea of the condition of his country.
He talked of the great decisions
taken in the midst of the catas-
trophe last June and of the man.
moth effort of reconstruction ac-
complished in the last six months.
OF the future he spoke with re-
straint and confidence-of the ma
tional revolution" that is in the
making and of the organization of
the continent of Europe which will
come "unavoidably" after the war
And at the end of the talk, with
quiet dignity, he appealed to the
United States to do what it can to
send food supplies to France.
The 84-year-old chief of state
(chief of L'Etat Francois that is
sued in July from the ruins of the
Third Republic) received me in the
apartments in the Hotel du Pare
where he has taken refuge from the
brutal cold of the unheated Pavilion
de Sevigne, his official residence on
the banks of the frozen Allier.
In detail he answered four ques-
tions submitted in advance and then
in conversation elaborated on his
written replies, and on much else.
1t was the first interview he has
given to any foreign newspaperman
since he took the helm seven months
ago and the only interview of such
scope that he has given to any one
In these months.
Conscientious Effort.
In the written answers typed and
worked over in the marshals own
firm hand. one sees the results of
conscientious effort-rare among the
great-to fulfill his obligations
under the contract that is implicit
in an interview. as compared to
mere "handout" In his own simple,
mellow French. which the people
have learned to identify and like
to contrast with the arid jargon OF
many politicians, he reflects gener-
ouSly in these replies the mind and
the will that, as he himself says,
are responsible only to history"
OF the decisions of the tragic
month of June, 1940-the armistice,
notably-the marshal talked sadly,
but as one talks of things long past,
saying that had France tried to
carry on the war from North Africa
she would have paid dearly for 1t.
The entire country would have been
occupied And no one knows how
effective further resistance might
have been. He said
"A nation vanquished cannot
without presumption cherish too
many hopes. But a nation van
quished has still the right not to
regret what would have been an act
of despair"
OF all that has been accomplished
in the way of material and moral
reconstruction made possible by the
armistice, he spoke with quiet salts
faction bordering on pride.
I'VE find ourselves having stood
the trial." he said France has
survived. She has recovered her
unity"
AS to the future of postwar Eu-
rope, as to "the organization of the
continent and Frances role in it
as the bridge between the New
World and new order in the Old
World-what the marshal said had
best be left as he said it, prudently,
with each word carefully weighed.
He talked then with sorrow for
the past. sati-f action for what has
been done and is being done, and
with serenity for the future. But
when he spoke of the moment, of
the suffering that a cruel winter has
ground down still further into his
people, his profound distress and his
apprehensions showed through his
calm.
There will be empty cradles
100000 Frenchmen, which is pre-
cisely half of the men between the
ages Of 20 and 40, are in German
prison camps and now, "our race,
already endangered by the absence
OF its prisoners, faces the prospects
of cradles with sick babies alongside
of the cradles that are empty
France" the marshal said, "is
reluctant to cry out her apprehen-
sions and her distress. She is not
in the habit of begging = but
to the traditional, never-failing
generosity of America, she addresses
a sober, yet urgent appeal. Her
food, her life, is in your hands"
Down the long corridors of the Ho-
tel du Pare, where the Foreign min
istry and the information services
are housed $50 to speak,, apprehen-
sions and rumors eddy and swirl on
the drafts, among the flower of the
Quai d'Orsay's career men, guards
In uniform and the usual identifi-
ables with protruding ears.
Fro none such corridor it was
startling to step into a spacious cor
ner room filled with light, warmth
and the serenity of its occupant.
Marshal Petain, in a dark, double
breasted suit. got up from his work
table In the middle of a salon done
In gray and yellow and the mongrel
Louis XVI Of hotels. He held out a
big, gnarled hand, shook mine warm
ly and got down to business. On his
table were my questions and his
answers.
Il have prepared everything" he
said. Nov you will sit here (he
drew up an armchair to card table,
and we will 60 over it all together"
He sat down, adjusted a she'll
trimmed pince-nez and read over his
annotated replies while 1 followed
vV,u rNnu rTbara n r,orl ic