Hal Vaughan Portrays WWII Victory for Amateur Diplomacy [video 62min]

In his book, FDR's 12 Apostles: The Spies Who Paved the Way for the Invasion of North Africa, Hal Vaughan tells the story of 12 men appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to be vice consuls to North Africa in 1940. These men, who Vaughan describes as amateurs, worked inside the French Vichy government to encourage resistance to Vichy and German rule in North Africa. According to Vaughan, they helped prepare for the 1942 joint British-American invasion of Morocco and Algeria. Shortly after the invasion, the French joined the Allies in North Africa. Vaughan is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, a documentary film producer, and a journalist who has worked for Voice of America, ABC News, and the New York Daily News. He is also the author of Doctor to the Resistance: The Heroic True Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied Paris.