WHAT DO WOODROW WILSON AND GEORGE W. BUSH have in common? They both aggravated the French with their attitudes in the same way. Philippe Roger's 2002 book, The American Enemy (L'Ennemi Americain) reports that the French conservative Maurras said

The Americans, for whom "dollars and cannons are the way to stifle the least murmur hostile to their position, are collectively seized of a very headiness of power, reinforced in their president by a religious neurosis.
(p. 402, my inexpert translation. Les Americains dont les "dollars et canons [sont] en mesure d'etouffer le moindre murmure hostile a leur avis" sont collectivement saisis du meme "vertige de la puissance" renforce chez leur president par la nevrose religieuse.)

Wilson was something of a multilateralist, of course, but that took the form of thwarting the desire of France to dominate Europe. What bugged the French was his Presbyterian piety, his self-righteousness, his evident desire to unselfishly help weak peoples and countries, his sudden appearance on the world stage, and his power.

Mr. Roger's book has some interesting things to say about the Marshall Plan (p. 418). A year after it started giving millions of dollars in aid to France, a U.S. State Dept. study found that only a third of non-Communist French supported the Marshall Plan. Why? Communist propaganda is a large part of the reason-- and we should not forget that France still has a large number of real, live, ex-Communists who are "ex" only because the formal Communist Party has become unfashionable since the 80's.

[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.07.05a.htm ]

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