Description
As They Were offers an insightful and evocative glimpse of France during the “phony war” period between the September 1, 1939 German invasion of Poland and the Nazi attack on the Netherlands, Belgium and France in May 1940. A. Peter Dewey, a young reporter for The Chicago Daily News, deftly chronicles the daily routines of life in Paris as its citizens, suspended between the world that they knew and an inevitable war ahead, tried to maintain the equilibrium of the French capital. Dewey went on to serve with distinction during and after World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, the American espionage agency that was replaced in 1947 by the Central Intelligence Agency. Dewey was killed in 1945 while on an OSS mission in Saigon, the first American government representative to die in postwar Vietnam. His service is recognized, along with that of other fallen American espionage agents, in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. “Cochinchina is burning, the French and the British are finished here, and we ought to clear out of Southeast Asia,” Dewey advised a fellow OSS officer not long before his death. Astute and prescient advice, sadly ignored twenty years later when President Lyndon Johnson unwisely sent American combat forces to war in South Vietnam.
—PHILIP TAUBMAN, former New York Times reporter and editor, author of In The Nation’s Service, The Life and Times of George P. Schulz
After a childhood that included several years spent in France, Poland, and Switzerland, Peter Dewey participated in some of the most dramatic and important episodes of World War II. A graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Yale University, Dewey was in Paris in September 1939 when France and England declared war on Nazi Germany. Dewey covered the war as a reporter on the Chicago Daily News Paris desk and then joined the Polish Army as a member of the Polish American Volunteer Ambulance Service. During and after the war, he served in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the CIA. He was killed in 1945 while on a mission in Saigon.
From the introduction by Peter’s daughter, Nancy:
My father, Peter Dewey, participated in some of the most dramatic and important episodes of World War II. As They Were opens a window onto daily life in France during the “drÔle de guerre,” “phony war,” “sitzkrieg,”—those months of nervous waiting for war to begin that many have forgotten or have never known about.
Peter was in Paris on September 3, 1939, when France and England declared war on Nazi Germany. As US nationals were advised to leave France if they had “no urgent reason to stay,” Peter accompanied his parents, Charles and Suzette Dewey, home to Chicago. However, he “was determined to return to my stricken love, my second land,” France. He had graduated from Yale that May, been an editor of the Yale Daily News and was writing a novel set in France. A tip from his brother Bud (Charles S. Dewey Jr.) helped him find a job as a cub reporter in the Paris office of the Chicago Daily News. Before the end of October, Peter, aboard a Pan-Am Clipper, a flying boat, was crossing the ocean again. Upon landing in Lisbon he wrote, “Across a long gangplank I walked (back) into Europe.” . . . .
There is a sadness that comes in reading this book, knowing that five years later Peter’s own story would end. As They Were, (printed here in its entirety) fascinating for those who want a sense of daily life during the “drÔle de guerre,” introduces the young man that Peter was on his way to becoming. . . . After Peter’s assassination in 1945 in Saigon, this book was assembled from the writings he left behind, and published by his friends and family. His distinct voice comes through on each page: high-spirited, unafraid, observant, sensitive to those he encounters, it’s the voice of a young man who was growing up fast. He writes with feeling about what he sees, sometimes with humor, sometimes with scorn and outrage. Here is the rationing of food, and here too the great meals (with plenty of butter) still available in the great restaurants. Here are damp, penetrating cold, bats dying in the walls, hot water and gasoline shortages, his friends’ fears, the feverish gaiety in Paris, the refugees, the sadness but high resolve among the Polish troops. War is coming ever closer. And then, it bursts upon them.
Peter’s wartime assignments required him to write frequent intelligence reports. One of his last, to a fellow member of the Office of Strategic Services, contained what was almost a throw-away line: “Cochin-China is burning, the French and British are finished here, and we ought to clear out of Southeast Asia.”
But we did not.
And he did not.
—Nancy Dewey Hoppin
May, 2024
