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I can see in my mind's eye this luncheon table very clearly, with Marshal Petain, a sweet looking old man, with a bald head and white hair, a white mustache, not walrus, but not clipped and pointed up - a rather large white mustache. He looked so benign, with beautiful blue eyes and the most pacific, calm look. It was hard to think of him as the great Marshal of France, the great leader of military forces, the great planner of the military defenses. That was why he was Marshal of France. Historians now know much more about Marshal Petain's role in the First world War than they did then. At that time he was supposed to have been the great hero of Verdun. According to the French he saved France in the First World War. I wasn't an expert on that period and I took that at face value. If they told me he saved France, I was sure he did. However, it seemed very hard to think of him as a great military genius, a great strategist, and so forth. He looked so benign and so gentle. He was very attractive, very kind and pleasant to me. He had extremely pleasant things to say about the Americans. He went out of his way to say what wonderful soldiers the Americans had been in the First World War, how he admired our President and so forth. He asked me to take back his personal regards, but all