March 11, 2003
BECAUSE THEY BROUGHT THE WHINE? (with apologies to Anne Perry)
A reader, well, actually, a good friend of mine, writes to ask "How the [heck] did France get a seat as a permanent member of the Security Council?" I know part of the answer. I know that "United Nations" was the formal name for the alliance that won WWII. I know that, although everyone involved disliked De Gaulle, the French government after liberation was treated as a full member of the alliance. I know that the French were given zones in Germany and Berlin. I assume that the permanent seat and veto came as a perk of alliance, but why we were so generous to France is a mystery to me. Did we think very highly of France or not much of the UN? Any thoughts?The United Nations fight for freedom
Posted by David Cohen at March 11, 2003 2:52 PM
It was, of course, Alger Hiss and the rest of the Communists:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/12-30-2002/vo18no26_un_rigged_print.htm
Cold War "realpolitique". France had the habit of equivocating between the East and West culturally and politically. To maintain unity in the West, the U.S. accomodated French sensibilities by supporting their demands for a seat at the post-war table.
Posted by: Tom C. at March 11, 2003 3:16 PMNonsense, Orrin. France was given status as a major combantant from 1942, not because of Hiss, but because the U.S. wanted the French Empire on the Allies' side.
For your theory to work, people like Robert Murphy would have had to have been agents of the Kremlin.
Churchill swallowed France to safeguard the imperial principle, even if he choked on DeGualle, and Roosevelt swallowed France in the name of a United Nations -- not of a United Nations Organization.
It all turned out to be a fantasy and a mistake, but people in the 1940s still imagined France to be a Great Power. Heck, they still imagined Italy to be a Great Power.
Some people still think so.
But, Harry, why France and not Denmark or Belgium or any of the other countries that either fought Germany or bravely resisted occupation? Even if we do give France credit for its resistance and the efforts of the government in exile, why does France get a permanent seat on the Security Council rather than, say, Norway or Greece?
Posted by: David Cohen at March 11, 2003 5:27 PMFrance had an empire and was a major player in European politics. Norway and Greece didn't and weren't.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 11, 2003 5:42 PMSo, if I understand you, having oppressed colonies was France's qualification for a Security Council veto?
Posted by: pj at March 11, 2003 5:59 PMIndeed.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 11, 2003 7:25 PMWell, that does help elucidate matters.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 11, 2003 7:52 PMThat's it. Read DeGaulle's memoirs. The funniest book written by a Frenchman since Penguin Island
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 11, 2003 9:11 PMI found it for $5 in the Dartmouth Bookstore basement and was crying it's so funny. He is just completely delusional about the "glory" of France.
Posted by: oj at March 11, 2003 9:31 PMHarry:
If you mean this Robert Murphy, he was at least objectively an agent of the Kremlin:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/BERLIN_A/BOC.HTM
Poland had more troops fighting the Nazis than the French so its amazing that the nation England went to war to defend was turned over to the Russians while France became Vichy and tried to decide who was going to win and got a seat at the UN.
Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson at March 12, 2003 12:09 AM