Alliance Politics

Abstract

Abstract THE ONLY THING WORSE than having allies, Churchill once said, is not having them. When it came to de Gaulle, Roosevelt was not so sure. His continuing drive for political power after Casablanca seemed to jeopardize wartime and postwar goals: it created instability and the danger of civil strife in North Africa; it raised the possibility of a postwar dictatorship in France; and it threatened to bar the United States from a say in Dakar and Indochina, which Roosevelt believed essential to postwar security in the Americas and Asia. During the Trident Conference, Roosevelt and Hull had told Churchill that continued British backing of de Gaulle would cause serious friction with the United States. But Churchill, who appreciated that de Gaulle had wider French support than FDR believed and considered de Gaulle an indispensable symbol of French resistance and a potential ally against postwar Soviet expansion in Europe, asked Roosevelt to suspend judgment until de Gaulle and Giraud completed pending negotiations in North Africa. The de Gaulle-Giraud discussions in Algiers beginning on May 31, 1943, increased Roosevelt’s antagonism to de Gaulle. Though de Gaulle agreed to the establishment of a French Committee of National Liberation under his and Giraud’s shared control, he also demanded power over all French forces and the removal of Pierre Boisson, the Vichyite Governor General of \Vest Africa. Roosevelt at once advised Eisenhower and Churchill that he would not “remain quiescent” in the face of such developments. He might send troops and naval vessels to prevent de Gaulle’s control of Dakar, he declared, and he would not allow him to endanger Anglo-American forces in the Mediterranean by controlling the French Army in North Africa.