Small Signs

North Africa's jail doors creaked open last week for 1,300 political prisoners. Men of 28 different nationalities were freed--Czechs, Russians, Poles, De Gaullist Frenchmen and other allies of the United Nations. Still jailed were more than 5,000; their release was promised within two months.

There were other small signs that U.S. and British pressure was slowly improving the complexion of General Henri Honore Giraud's North African Government:

> Ex-Vichyite Marcel Peyrouton, Governor General of Algeria, promised to reestablish and share authority with Algeria's Superior Council of 60 members--29 appointed, 31 elected. Peyrouton also outlined a broad plan of economic reform, and took pains to identify his regime with President Roosevelt's leadership in "the defense of human liberties."

> General Giraud fired pro-Vichyite General Henri Jean Etienne Boisseau, whose department of Oran had remained a hotbed of hostility to the Allies long after military resistance was quelled.

Outspokenly anti-Vichy, anti-Axis Charles Brunei, intimate friend of Fighting French General Georges Catroux, was appointed head of Peyrouton's important Council of War Economy. A former mayor of Algiers, Brunei escaped arrest during a De Gaullist roundup last December only by virtue of his prestige. His son Jacques was in jail until last month. Out as propaganda secretary went pro-Axis Jean Rigaud, to be replaced by distinguished General Rene Michel Jules Joseph Chambe, a soldier and writer untainted by Axis collaboration.

These steps corrected some of the most flagrant conditions in North Africa and showed a desire to placate democratic opinion abroad. If the improvement continued and turned out to be more than skin-deep, Americans might yet be able to look upon their North African protege without embarrassment.

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