Volume 10, Number 2 · February 1, 1968
Memoirs of a Disappointed Man
By Stanley Hoffmann
Resistance: The Political Autobiography of Georges Bidault
translated by Marianne Sinclair
Praeger, 348 pp., $6.95
This is a dreadful and sad book. It was written in exile by a man whose career deserves a place among France's many 'defeated leaders'—to use the title of Professor Binion's excellent book. Bidault, a professor of history at the lycée and a Christian Democratic journalist before World War II, with an excellent record of opposition to Fascism and appeasement, became one of the leaders of the French Resistance. He was elected to succeed Jean Moulin, the first President of the National Council of the Resistance, after Moulin's tragic death, and remained the political head of the Resistance for a long and harrowing year—from the summer of 1943 to the Liberation. He cooperated with and was accepted by the Communists in France as well as by De Gaulle in Algiers. The General after his triumphant return to Paris made Bidault his Foreign Minister. Bidault founded the MRP, France's first nationwide Christian Democratic party, was twice Premier, in 1946 and 1949, and held the post of Foreign Minister or of Vice-Premier almost without interruption until Dien-Bien-Phu.
Review, 1752 words
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