US collaboration with Vichy France before December 1941

I'm reading about the fascinating life of Hannah Arendt and I came across a reference to her being saved by a US vice-consul in Marseille named Harry Bingham, whom I had never heard of. Bingham apparently saved thousands of Jews by issuing them with visas to the US in defiance of his own government's desire to restrict immigration and remain on good terms with Vichy France. Bingham seems like a truly exceptional and honourable character. But it's that such instinctive stuff like saving Jewish refugees was 'exceptional' at the time has me thinking some more about the reality of the US role in Vichy France before December 1941.

Anxious to limit immigration into the United States and to maintain good relations with the Vichy government, the U.S. State Department actively discouraged diplomats from helping refugees. In Marseilles, as elsewhere, foreign service staff usually showed little flexibility or compassion towards the desperate refugees. However, American rescue workers soon noticed that "Harry" Bingham was an exception. Bingham personally toured some of the wretched internment camps and sought American aid to improve conditions. He helped many refugees to avoid internment and prepare for emigration and freely issued Nansen passports, a useful form of identity for stateless persons.

However, when it was discovered that he was doing this, according to Bingham's above Wikipedia entry: 'In 1941, the United States government abruptly pulled Bingham from his position as Vice Consul and transferred him to Portugal and then Argentina.'

This gives a less flattering impression of the US role in WWII before it joined in December 1941. Very surprisingly, the US also gave full diplomatic recognition to Vichy France, and essentially regarded the Résistance as terrorists, while both Roosevelt and the US Ambassador to France, Admiral Leahy, were deeply hostile to De Gaulle and more intent upon stirring up division among the political opposition to Vichy.

To what extent did US policy facilitate Vichy France and its crimes before December 1941?

Manach

My understanding, latest reading from the period Boyd's DeGaulle, was the US Administration recognised that Vichy France was the legitimate Government and regarded the Free French as non-entities. Hence there was the normal diplomatic interactions between the two states prior to US entry into WWII.