| Show iJ 1 i. i I J 4 Mme Laval still loves man whom France calls traitor ti W re f. f FP fanCe I Spare laY av By l MEL MOST S PARIS Oct 13 UP Gray P-Gray- Gray Gray- haired motherly Mrs Pierre Laval broke a lifelong political silence I Saturday to plead for the life of the man she loves Distraught with fears for her condemned husband she bared in intimate intimate in in- memories of married life Ufe in an effort to show that Laval had sought to- to temper to-temper temper collaborationist collaborationist collaborationist extremism and would have attempted to turn power over to the il allies ies if the Germans had not carried him of off forcibly Mrs Laval repeatedly Indicated that her husband turned to paths of opportunism only after the Munich pact shattered his dream of maintaining a chain of steel around Adolf Adolt Hitler's Germany Earnestly the year old wife wite of ot the former Vichy chief chiet of state told how she had spirited Jewish friends from the nazi occupation zone and smuggled out money for them by oy concealing It in her girdle Mrs Laval was sewing in the library of ot her daughters daughter's apartment apart apart- ment ent when newspaper men arrived ar ar- ar- ar rived She was wearing a simple black house dress Under tremendous personal ten ten- See Page 2 2 Column 3 S PLEA FO fOR LAVAL Continued from Page Ono One slon sIon she traced her life lite with Laval from the days when she was his childhood od sweetheart In an Auvergne Auvergne Auvergne Au- Au vergne village All Europe was with him in 1935 when he wanted to encircle Germany He made one front from Mo Moscow cow to Paris Bucharest Budapest Belgrade and Home Rome she he said But they destroyed it all in less than three years years the the same people who got France Into war so un un- un- un prepared Bitter Against Munich They pushed Italy toward Ger Ger- many Then they drove Russia away by Munich My husband was wasso wasso wasso so bitter against Munich We Ve went to o war without Russia without Italy without Yugoslavia with no Austria or Czechoslovakia left And Saturday they want to keep my husband from talking It should hould not be a matter of defending Pierre Laval but of at throwing light lighton on these questions Correspondents found in her words an explanation of ot Laval's visible disappointment at his trial when all aU charges Involving prewar activities were withdrawn as he lie began beban to present testimony covering covering cover cover- coverI I ing ng the period Her hands nervously ly stroked her daughters daughter's little Eskimo dog dogas as Mrs Laval went on to the Vichy da days s saying flayIng c It w wasn't my h husband n who chose Petain My husband w v was s snot snot not in th the government He wanted wanted want want- wantI I ed cd everything done constitutional constitutional- lYe ly y He told me he was afraid of dictatorship Laval considered himself as M a receiver of a a. bankruptcy at Vichy and tried to oppose the Germans while protecting France as much muchas as ash Ii co could rd she said Got Wrong g Impression That was the time there were almost n no communications between countries she added The whole world got a wrong impression In the the final days Mrs Laval said my husband wanted to stay at his post to hand oer o'er oyer power to those who were coming Everybody Every Every- bed bod body saw him taken away by y force the the prefect the ma mayor or every every- body Y Why y dont don't they say anything anything anything any any- thing I wasn't taken I went with him ilm I would go with him to a alife alife life Ufe term prison colony if I had to She said that in German lands they were kept in castle with a crowd of super collaborationists collaborationists collaborationists col col- col- col so 50 disgusting that the tha sought s seclusion in their little flat After that came detention in Spain's Montjuich Montjuich Mont- Mont julch fortress and finally return to France and imprisonment for tor two months In Fresnes prison At that time she was cleared by bythe bythe bythe the high court examining commission commission com corn mission which reported that at Vichy she refused to eat at the same table with Germans and was in in her husbands husband's words words a a de I 1 was so worried while in prison I thought Id I'd go crazy Mrs Laval recalled |
