DR. SHMUEL ARIEL   *When Ariel came to Paris he began slowly to carry out a diplomatic mission: to win the support of the French Government for our political objectives.   ***The emergence of the Irgun as a force pursuing a policy utterly and incisively independent of British influence, dedicated indeed, in unswerving purpose, to the expulsion of British rule from Palestine, created a common interest with France more compelling, as Ariel laboured to demonstrate, than the strong pro-Arab tradition long embedded in French foreign policy.   The recognition of a common interest would be projected into the relations between France and the Jewish state that would yet arise on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean Sea.   In forthright conversation and lucidly-phrased memoranda Ariel was constantly broadening the areas of French official sympathy.   By the Autumn of 1946, when I arrived, he had established excellent relations on several levels with the French authorities.   An erudite doctor of philosophy, who had learnt French in his native Rumania, Ariel’s wide knowledge of French literature and politics and an easy identification with the French way of life, provided excellent personal credentials.   The close cooperation afforded him by Madame Claire Weyda, an ex-French resistance fighter, who directed an organization to aid Jewish refugees and who had easy entrée in many quarters, gave him useful initial contacts which he developed considerably.   Madame Weyda never officially joined the Irgun but the speed with which an intimate knowledge of Irugn ideas and purposes penetrated the consciousness of the directors of French policy and the comparative facility with which Irgun agents worked in France, were due in the first place to the many doors she opened for Ariel.   *It was understood between Ariel and the French authorities that the Irgun could freely, if discreetly, work in France, for organization, political contacts and general staff work as well ads for mobilizing help from private sources.    *He had undertaken that the Irgun would not carry out any direct anti-British action on French soil.   Of close mobilization of members for the Irgun in France itself there was little.   A comparatively small number of young people, French born and newcomers from Eastern Europe, organized as a Betar movement, trained clandestinely in the use of small arms and served in auxiliary capacities.   It was through these that Ariel had any contact with the impressionistic rank-and-file of the organization in Paris.   It was this that touched off the crisis that led to one of the instructions I had brought with me: the suspension of Ariel from his post.   Ariel, in the pursuit of his mission, had adopted a standard and a mode of living far removed from the very modest regulations laid down by the Irgun.   They made it difficult to maintain a sense of discipline in the young people in the local organization who were in contact with him.   The Irgun to them was a manifestation of self-sacrifice and, if for no other reason, its financial poverty dictated a personal regime of self-denial to its servants.   It was impossible for them to reconcile this with the seemingly sybaritic way of life of the man they knew was senior representative of the embattled Irgun.   To the High Command in Palestine reports had come that Ariel was living “like a lord.”   Indeed together with the order for his suspension had come orders for the holding of an inquiry into the source of his finances.   The inquiry established conclusively that, far from squandering Irgun money, Ariel was living entirely at his own expense.   He had found private lucrative work of his own which moreover did not interfere with his activities for the Irugn.   The suspension however, remained in force.   It was Ariel himself who told me of the message I had brought.   He defended his way of life vigorously.   The work he was doing could be done only if he could meet French personalities on equal social terms.   That meant a good address, it meant lavish entertainment, and it meant that these appurtenances must be natural and permanent.   I disagreed.   I could not believe that the political significance of the Irgun’s struggle could be heightened in anybody’s eyes by a display of insouciant lavishness.   Nevertheless, I believed it was quite wrong to dismiss him.   It would have been more reasonable, and more practical, simply to limit his functions to his paramount field: the diplomatic campaign.   In this he was irreplaceable.   For more than a year Ariel remained “unemployed’ by the Irgun for any work of significance.   He maintained his contacts – and his good humour.   He was to make a dramatic return.   The drama of the Altalena began that last week in March.   On the 25th Dr. Ariel, in the name of the Irgun, handed in to the French Foreign Ministry a memorandum proposing a secret agreement between us and the French Government.   It outlined the common interest, on which such an agreement would be based, “between France and a Hebrew Palestine as the Irgun envisages it.”   The Irgun, for its part, could offer only future goodwill in return for the practical help we proposed France should accord us.   We had two specific immediate requirements.   ***We asked that France provide “the necessary facilities for the organization of a base for training and, for the time being, for concentrating one brigade in its metropolitan or colonial territory.”   ***We asked that she provide “the armament and the supplies necessary for the modern equipment of two infantry brigades.”  “One of these” said the memorandum “is in Palestine.  The other will be concentrated in French territory and should reach Palestine about 15 May.”   This memorandum was the culminating set in the diplomatic campaign Ariel had for two years been waging in a number of departments of the French Government.   His unfortunate suspension at the end of 1946 from his post in the Irgun had not discouraged him.  He had, too, been invited in the meantime to work for the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation.  As they built up the French branch of their League for a Fee Palestine they were well served by Ariel’s excellent political connections.  His personal relations with the Irgun officers had also not been impaired.  Lankin and Eli were both in friendly touch with him.   ARIEL MAINTAINED A LIVELY CONTACT PARTICULARLY WITH THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR WHERE, TOGETHER WITH MADAME VAYDE, HE OBTAINED PERMISSION, OVER THE PERIOD OF THEIR ACTIVITY, FOR MORE THAN TWENTY THOUSAND “DISPLACED PERSONS” TO ENTER FRANCE.   During the tensions surrounding the Exodus 1947 at Prot de Bouc in the summer of 1947, Marc Pages, Head of the Aliens Department in the Ministry (and – as far as I can ascertain – the first senior French official to respond to the Irgun thesis of the common interest propounded by Ariel) and his assistant Francois Rousseau, warned Ariel of a tendency in the Jewish Agency to succumb to British pressure and debark the passengers.   Ariel, accompanied by Eri Jabotinsky, went post-haste to press the Haganah officer responsible for operations in Europe, Shaul Meiroy, against such surrender, and to convey the strongly-held French official opinion on the subject.   Towards the end of 1947 Lankin had restored Ariel’s status as the Irgun’s diplomatic representative.   WITH THE DIRE DEVELOPMENTS IN PALESTINE AND OUR DESPERATE LACK OF MATERIAL, ARIEL LOST NO TIME IN PRESSING UPON HIS CONTACTS IN THE FRENCH ADMINISTRATION THE PROFOUND IMPORTANCE TO FRANCE THAT THE JEWS REPEL THE ARAB ONSLAUGHT, AND THE VITAL NEED FOR IMMEDIATE HELP.   At last, on 23 March, Jacques Boissier, Charge de Mission in the office of the Foreign Minister, proposed that Ariel set down the proposal in writing for the Minister.   On 27 March, the day I arrived in Paris, Boissier wrote Ariel that he had communicated the memorandum to the Minister who “would no doubt study it and discuss it with his colleagues.”   TEN WEEKS LATER THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT GAVE US THE ARMS WHICH WERE LOADED ON THE ALTALENA.