WILLIAM C. BULLITT
(William Christian Bullitt Jr.)
A few days before the Germans had bombed a few places around Paris. The French President and high officials after stating that they would defend the city against the Nazis ran out of town to the South. Then the city officials all ran including most of the police officers. All the foreign diplomats followed except for Ambassador Bullitt, a close personal friend of President Roosevelt. When he sent this cable, he and his staff had 2 revolvers and 40 bullets and asked FDR to send him some sub-machine guns to help him maintain order in the city. When the Germans arrived, there was not a single Frenchman who tried to stop them. The French Army had already run from the Battlefield outside of Paris. It is this dreadful, cowardly showing of the French which plagued De Gaulle and other French Patriots for years causing a great exaggeration of the extent of the French Resistance which was indeed heroic but only involved few Frenchmen and women. Fortunately, there was almost no looting of civil breakdown and the Germans arrived and took over. Bullitt never had to use his “armaments”.
Wilson was very emotional and passionate in his relationships with his first wife who was very close to him both emotionally and intellectually she reviewed and critiqued all of his speeches. It was a side of him that a few people know about.
William Christian Bullitt Jr. was an American diplomat, journalist, and novelist. He is known for his special mission to negotiate with Lenin on behalf of the Paris Peace Conference, often recalled as a missed opportunity to normalize relations with the Bolsheviks. He was also the first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and the U.S. ambassador to France during World War II. In his youth, he was considered a radical, but he later became an outspoken anticommunist.