Advice to the U.S.

The French colonialists last week gave a classic example of too little & too late. They held elections for the Consultative Chambers of Commerce and Agriculture --French Morocco's powerless, pale imitation of a parliament--and generously broadened the electorate 15 times (to 150,000). A decade ago, the nationalists would have cheered such a concession. Last week, the nationalist Istiqlal party warned all Moroccans to boycott the election : it wanted nothing less than complete independence.

In Casablanca, mobs rushed the polling places, and heaved paving blocks. Before election day was over, six Moroccans were dead from police bullets, the polling places were deserted, the election was a flop, and the French moved in Senegalese troops to seal off the native quarter.

No Hiding. France, like Britain in Iran, had made a serious mistake in not yielding to the nationalists at a time when moderate concessions might have been acceptable. Now, what could France and the West do? Last week, from France's Resident General in Morocco, General Augustin Guillaume, came strong advice: "I ask all free countries to support our policy in Morocco, and not hide behind a cautious neutrality, nor to have contacts with our worst enemies--who are not mere nationalists, but wild religious fanatics. . . I would like to see Washington give its diplomatic and consular representatives in Morocco instructions that would result in the same close cooperation we have in Germany. And I ask for these instructions now . . . You must support me in North Africa."

This was the strongest straight talk in years, publicly addressed by an ally to Washington. It came from a man who commands respect in France, and deserves it elsewhere. Guillaume (rhymes with he home) is a French hero of two world wars, who has served in Morocco since 1919. During Vichy days he secretly trained a corps of 10,000 Berber tribesmen, and later led them through Italy, France and Germany. After the war, Guillaume, as military attache in Moscow, took a close look at Russian might, then became French commander in Germany. He has the dash that the French like in their generals: fellow officers remember him, wrapped in his Moroccan djellaba, reciting Dante in Rome, singing a song of Schubert's as he crossed the Rhine.

Just a Dream. By week's end, Guillaume's outburst seemed to have cleared the air a bit. Paris got word from its Washington Embassy that if the Arabs put Moroccan independence on the U.N. agenda this week, France could count on U.S. support. The U.S., with a network of air bases in Morocco, has a big stake there. A Quai d'Orsay spokesman who had been muttering that the U.S. courts allies in Europe but disowns them in Africa, announced that the misunderstanding was now resolved. Guillaume smiled and said "It was all just a bad dream."

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