Dorothy Thompson

Spokesman-Review/September 11, 1939

August 22.

There was a get-together dinner last night with free champagne and merrymaking and dances until early in the morning. I had that oppressive feeling that never fails me—a sense that the air is heavy on my chest. My hours were spent listening to the radio in the barman’s pantry. So I got the news of the Russian-German pact.

I wondered whether you were still in Vermont and whether you had heard about it. I remembered our last talk together. You said that something dreadful was being cooked up in Russia to torpedo the democratic front. I said a pact between Hitler and Stalin would have been a good alibi for a democratic do-nothing policy. But neither of us had the energy to be pessimistic to the bitter end.

So all the rats are together. In a way, it’s a rare opportunity. We will fight the first round of the world war, I hope, by getting rid of Communism and Fascism in our own country. It happens only every thousand years, I think, that the line of the battlefield coincides with the one that marks the boundaries of reason and justice.

August 23.

Last night the radio was in a pocket—so we could not get any news. We are going slowly toward the Mediterranean. Will it mean war? There is nothing I can do here except try my lifejacket before the mirror. It is scandalously unbecoming. The sea is beautiful. I spend long hours on the deck. The ship is moving very slowly. I am floating between war and peace.

August 24.

There are peaceful spots on board. A bunch of Protestant missionaries, boys and girls, just out of some Methodist college in the Middle West, sing all day long songs in praise of the Lord. “The Lord Is My Strength and My Salvation.” They don’t even listen to the radio.

August 25.

The radio is working perfectly again. From Moscow I heard the text of the pact. The transmission ending as usual with “Proletarians of the World Unite.” And I heard Halifax’s speech and everything that was said in the House of Commons. I also heard, from New York, that Earl Browder thinks the pact is marvelous. He will be soon organizing a League Against War Against Fascism.  A commentator from London said the reaction of the man on the street is simple, “This kind of thing can’t go on.”

Possibly I am crazy, but I think Hitler has committed two incredible mistakes.

One, he thought that the memory of Munich would determine a greater and better Munich. In this way he has offered Chamberlain and Daladier an examination on the same textbooks which they flunked last year.

Two, the Soviet-Nazi pact will be the ruin of both of them. Both will lose their international support. They have thrown away the ideological mask and now show the ugly face of cynical, tyrannical nationalism.

The two mistakes have the same reason. Hitler has underestimated human nature. He did not foresee the reaction of the man on the street, not only in London but everywhere, even on this boat. He and Stalin did not realize that there are limits to sentimental allegiance, party discipline and human idiocy.

Where are our fellow travelers? Again, reality coincides with logic. It is the end of an era of false alliances. Maybe the end of a decade of idiocy and madness. Maybe the end of the world.

August 28.

In spite of all, we are on the Mediterranean. I hoped until the last minute that the boat would be called back to New York, but we move steadily forward.

I do not know what kind of answer has been brought to Berlin by Sir Neville Henderson. I fear Hitler still believes in his technique of repetition. We will realize some day that his lack of imagination is only equaled by his impudence. Hitler is afraid to negotiate, because a mobilized democracy is more powerful and threatening at a conference table than a mobilized dictatorship.

Tomorrow night I land in Marseille. I imagine it will be rather tough, but I hope to get through. I do not know what is going to happen, but I am thankful that Europe will save itself without mesalliances.

Paris, August 30.

I arrived in Marseille last night, and I jumped into the first train to Paris. In the few hours spent in Marseille and on the night train and here in Paris during the whole day I talked with every single human being whom I could approach. Nothing will ever tell you the overwhelming impression of strength that the Frenchmen give. There is no bragging, no shouting and no weeping. From everybody you hear the same words: Oui, c’est la guerre. It could not go on like that, they say. That fellow is going to have the beating of his life.

There is not a trace left of the old charming French disorder. Everything is running smoothly, and yet all available men have gone to join the army. Yesterday, to have a trifling repair made on my watch, I had to go into I don’t know how many shops: “Sorry, sir,” they were saying, “our men have been mobilized.” I think that on the train from Marseille to Paris the only trainman was the engineer, as not a single conductor showed up.

You have the impression that this tight, smoothly running order has always been there, and it has been reawakened at a moment’s notice. Of course, the French are too intelligent to be well ordered all the time. But there are no doubts now; never has the nation been so united. You breathe it in the air.

Another thing. I did not hear a single time the word “Boche.” Only Hitler seems to be hated.

A little old woman this morning told me, at the Buffet de la Gare: “It is all his fault, not of the Germans. If the French women could get hold of him!” I think they would solve the problem of the splitting of the atom.

I will leave Paris on Sunday.