CBS D-Day1300

The art times, this morning, a few hours before the landing began. This dispatch warned the American people not to expect too much of the French resistance movement. It pointed out that great difficulties under which the French must operate.

The American decision to withhold full diplomatic recognition from General De Gaulle and the French Committee is therefore being put to its first practical test. And if the resistance movement does not live up to the hopes that some of us have placed in there may be a temptation to blame that on General De Gaulle, rather than on the French

situation as a whole. If, however, the French resistance movement does prove effective, then General De Gaulle and his French Committee will have scored a double triumph. They will have prevailed not only against the opposition of the Germans, but against the doubts and hesitations of President Roosevelt and our State Department.

The people of the other occupied countries with their exile and their exile leaders will also follow events in France with passionate life and death interest. They'll see first how strong we are, then they'll see how much authority an exiled leader carries, and if General de Gaulle cannot rally the French people around him with all his contacts in the French underground,

then the exiled leaders of Belgium and Holland and perhaps of Norway too may have reason to believe that from now on the leaders of the resistance struggle will be found inside Europe and nowhere else.

The Russians will also watch the course of the invasion, with just as much interest as we are watching it over here, perhaps even with more interest. And this is why, ever since the Germans invaded their country nearly three years ago, the Russians have been clamoring for a second front in the West.