Man of Moderation

Last week the 97 elected delegates to Tunisia's first constituent assembly met in Tunis, less than nine miles from the ruins of once proud Carthage, which boldly challenged ancient Rome for world supremacy. Now, in long subjected Tunisia, a new nation was being born. Opening the inaugural sessions, the spade-bearded, well-tailored old Bey of Tunis gracefully bowed to the new spirit of democracy, dispensed with the traditional custom which once decreed that every Tunisian present should kiss his hand in token of submission.

The delegates had but one choice for Tunisia's first Premier as an independent nation. It was Habib Bourguiba, the hawk-nosed, voluble lawyer who led his country to sovereignty through 26 years of agitation, exile and imprisonment.

In his triumph and new post, Bourguiba would need all his prestige. In the south, extremists led from Libya by Salah ben Youssef and backed by Egypt defied the new nation's authority, organized sporadic terror bombings against the Neo-Destour leadership. Next week Tunisian delegates headed by Bourguiba himself will fly to Paris to thresh out the final terms of "interdependence" with France.

Bourguiba has annoyed the French lately by insisting that neighboring Algeria, too, should receive its independence. In Paris Bourguiba will demand for his own country several things that the French are disinclined to grant: "full and sole responsibility" for Tunisia's internal order, complete control of its own diplomatic service. Also, though Bourguiba concedes that Tunisia is too poor to pay for its own defense and can neither live or defend itself without French help, he strongly objects to a French-led Tunisian army patterned on the Arab Legion in Jordan.

France recognizes that in Bourguiba it is dealing with the most moderate and responsible of Arab nationalist leaders. He has a French wife and an admiration for the products of French culture. He conspicuously resists the anti-Western line of Egypt's Nasser, and disdains Nasser's brand of opportunistic neutralism. In fact, he wants Tunisia to become a member of NATO. Then the French base at Bizerte could be converted to a NATO base, manned by French forces not as "imperialists," but as partners within the NATO framework. Says Bourguiba: "There is not, and must never be, any question of where our sympathies lie."

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