The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-03

the Qeal which Lieut.-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower made with Admiral Darlan in North Africa. The deal unuues- tionably made possible the speedy American occupation of North Africa and it saved thousands of American casualties. But in trying to reconcile de Gaulle to this course of action, the Americans and the British have to negotiate with most difficult personality. That is where much of the trouble comes in.
 The Washington grapevine on de Gaulle is that he has become exceedingly hard to get along with. Even some of his most ardentAfol- lowers say he now surrounds him. self with pictures of Napoleon and has a complex. Furthermore, he has supposedly become terribly sus- picious of everyone. Various peo- pie who have seen him at his Syrian headquarters have come away tre- mendously unimpressed.
 HE WHO GETS SLAPPED
 Actions of the British towards de Gaulle have in recent months given the impression that London would be willing to see the Fighting French leader eased out of his po- sition. British action in stopping Fighting French broadcast from London, in opposition to Darlan, is typical slap in the face for de Gaulle. There have been reports that the British offered him com mand of a tank force in the Near East, which he refused-and why notP There have been reports de Gaulle has said he would accept a command under General Giruad, which might be solution, if Dar- Ian would do likewise.
 But in all this belittling of de Gaulle, one of the greatest diffi- culties is that de Gaulle has be- come symbol He was the first aand almost the only French gen. eral with guts enough to fight At time when other so-called French leaders were collaborating with the Nazis all over the place, de Gaulle wanted to keep on hating Hitler, and you can't kick man around too much for that.
 If there had been no Charles de Gaulle there. might have been no figures of stature large enough around which to rally the Free French movement. Now known as the Fighting French movement, it has its official headquarters in Lon- don and operates through French National Council. This Council is organized like government, but it is not a government in any sense of the word and it has no standing in France and no full diplomatic rec- ognition from any of the United Nations.
 THE TIPOFF
 All the members of this French National Council are known as counselors instead of ministers. But if you were asked to name any one of these top men, you couldn't do it to save your life and that is the tipoff on how much standing the Fighting French movement would have If de Gaulle, as its head, were Topped of. All these members of the Council are in the same position as Tom Jefferson Jim Madison or the Adams boys back in l776. What standing would they have had if there hadn't been George Washington around whom they could rally?
 It is not disrespectful to suspect that the men in the French Na- tional Council in London may not be of the stature of Jefferson or Adams, for many of de Gaulle's own troubles would seem to stem from the pulling and hauling among his counselors. When de Gaulle was first organizing the Free French movement. he had no political ambitions. All he wanted to do was fight Germans. which is certainly one of the noblest of all human desires.
 But since he was a symbol and the only hero the Fighting French had to rally around. it was per haps natural that he should be- come the head of movement and fall into the clutchs of the poll ticians who would insist that he demand recognition and start yanking him around. in svsry di- rection.
 General de Gaulle's troubles probably began there.