One of the few people who agreed with any of this was Colonel William Donovan. And so far as Donovan was concerned, C. Holds worth Martin, Jr.” was the ideal man to be Disciple for France. He had spent more than twenty years there, knew the country and its leaders better than most Frenchmen, and, with very few exceptions, cordially detested most of them.
Over luncheon and golf, Donovan had learned from him that Martin detested most of the French as much for their chauvinism as for their inept army. His success with his wife’s firm, because it was an “American” and not a “French” success, earned him more jealousy than respect among his French peers. His wife’s late husband’s family, for instance, referred t him as “le gigolo Am,@ricain. On January 11, 1942, C. Holds worth Martin, Jr.” entered the service of the United States government, at the usual remuneration of one dollar per annum, as a consultant to the Office of the Coordinator of Information. Three days later, C. Holds worth Martin III, a 1940 graduate of the Ecole Poly technique in Paris, by enlisting in the U.S. Army as a private “Leon Blum, First Socialist Premier of France, 1936-1938. soldier, entered the service of the United States government at a remuneration of twenty-one dollars per month. Although he acted, and sounded, like a French boulevardier, C. Holds worth Martin, Jr.” was almost belligerently an American. Now C. Holds worth Martin, Jr.” was engaged in a description of what he referred to as “I’affaire du vieux amir al vicieux” (“the old, vicious admiral”), by which he meant Vice Admiral d’escadrejean-Philippe de Verbey. When the war broke out, Admiral de Verbey was recalled from retirement. He was assigned to the French naval staff in Casablanca, Morocco, and had there suffered a heart attack, which nearly killed him. By the time he’d spent nine months in the hospital, France had fallen and an upstart, six-foot-six brigadier general of tanks, Charles de Gaulle, who had gotten out of France at the last minute, had appointed himself chief of the French government in exile and commander in chief of its armed forces. The majority of French officers still on French sod considered themselves honor-bound to accept the defeat of France and the authority of Marshal P6tain, the aged “Hero of Ver dun” who now headed the French government in Vichy. Admiral de Verbey did not. He considered it his duty as a French officer to continue to fight. He managed to pass word to de Gaulle in London that he approved of de Gaulle’s actions. He announced further that as soon as he could arrange transportation (in other words, escape house arrest in Casablanca), it was his intention to come to London and assume command of French military and naval forces in exile.
So far as the admiral was concerned, it was as simple as that. Once he reached London, he would be the senior officer outside Vichy control.
He had been an admiral when de Gaulle was a major. If de Gaulle wanted to pretend that he was head of some sort of government in exile, fine.
But the commander of Free French military forces would be the senior officer who had not caved in to the Boches-in other words, Vice Admiral d’escadre Jean-Philippe de Verbey. Brigadier General de Gaulle was not pleased with the admiral’s offer, which he correctly believed would be a threat to his own power. De Verbey’s very presence in London, much more his assumption of command of Free French military forces, would remind people that de Gaulle was not anywhere near the ranking Free French officer and that his self appointment as head of the French government in exile was of very doubtful legality. He couldn’t have that. Admiral de Verbey shortly afterward received orders-signed by a major general, in the name of Charles de Gaulle, “Head of State -ordering him to remain in Casablanca, “pending any need for your services to France in the future.” Early in 1942, de Verbey, furious, took the great risk of offering his services to Robert Murphy, who was American consul general in Rabat. The Americans, he told Murphy, could use him in any capacity they saw fit, so long as it was concerned with getting La Boche out of La Belle France.