Christian & the Serpent

Feather and the Salmon, a fairy tale written some years ago by Christian Pineau, now France's Foreign Minister, tells of a little boy who is carried on a salmon's back to an island inhabited only by birds and a man-eating serpent. The boy, undismayed at the sight of the bones of previous victims, succeeds in establishing good relations with the serpent.

With all the other reading they have to do, it is unlikely that any of the shapers of U.S. foreign policy ever took time out to read Feather and the Salmon. Last week as elegant, 51-year-old Christian Pineau arrived in the U.S. "to coordinate our policies," it was apparent that they might have missed something.

Banker in Buchenwald. Six months ago, when Premier Guy Mollet named Pineau, rather than mercurial Pierre Mendes-France, as Foreign Minister, most of France's Allies were delighted. Here was a Socialist who had strongly supported EDC, staunchly resisted popular-front talk, and was given to saying things like "The American people must know that we love them." The son of an army officer and stepson of playwright Jean (The Madwoman of Chaillot] Giraudoux, Pineau had jumped from a promising banking career into the Socialist labor movement after the Bank of France fired him for trying to unionize its employees. With the fall of France in 1940, this soft-looking ex-banker became one of the organizers of the resistance. Twice arrested by the Gestapo, he escaped the first time, but on his recapture was sent to Buchenwald, there spent 18 months. Yet for all the wrenching of body, mind and heart in Buchenwald, he was still a good European when he was liberated.

Link Between Blocs. Barely had Pineau moved into the Foreign Ministry, however, when his penchant for negotiating with serpents asserted itself. Two hours after an announcement that he and Premier Mollet had accepted an invitation to Moscow (TIME, March 12), Pineau unleashed a stinging attack on France's Allies for their failure to come forth with a "policy of peace." Said Pineau: "I shall systematically orient French policy toward cultural exchanges between East and West." In another speech Pineau gave France an even stronger push toward neutralism. Said he: "We want to remain a link between the blocs without renouncing our friendships."

Though the concept of France as a "link" was promptly and publicly disavowed by Mollet, Pineau continued to plump for greater trust in Russia, with more fervor and eloquence than any other statesman in Western Europe. Last week, on the eve of his departure for the U.S. (his twelfth visit since the war, his first as Foreign Minister), Pineau said that it is wrong to wonder if Soviet leaders sincerely desire peace. "In diplomacy," he observed, "facts are more important than intentions." He went on to argue that the West must take immediate steps to "liquidate" the cold war. Then, suiting action to words, he followed up with a major shuffle of French ambassadors and Foreign Office brass designed, at least in part, to fill key diplomatic posts with men amenable to the Pineau policy of negotiating with the Reds.-

Since "the Soviet Union attaches a great importance to the lifting of the Iron Curtain," said Pineau, "it would be maladroit of us to seek to maintain the Iron Curtain." Almost as an afterthought, he added: "Of course we must take precautions."

*Herve Alphand, able head of the French U.N. Delegation, became the new French Ambassador to Washington, and was succeeded at the U.N. by Bernard Cornut-Gentille, 46, former Governor General of French West Africa but no experienced diplomat.

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