A Letter from Ike

Behind the glass doors of Paris' Elysee Palace one day last week, France's Cabinet wrangled for a record eleven hours. Twice during the discussion angry right-wing ministers stalked out to unburden their grievances in private audiences with France's genial President Rene Coty, who well knew that if they quit, it would be his job to find another Premier. While Coty did his best to smooth their feathers, harried Felix Gaillard, France's youngest (38) ruler since Napoleon Bonaparte, stalked the corridors of the Elysee palace, nervously lighting one Gitane cigarette off another.

Cause of this stormy marathon was, as usual, France's most divisive topic: Algeria. When a French Premier wants to take a necessary but unpopular step, he usually waits until the French Assembly is in recess so that he cannot be thrown out of office immediately. But the right-wingers in his Cabinet, who oppose any concessions in Algeria, were committed to quit in a body if Gaillard misstepped, and thus even in parliamentary recess his hands were tied.

Ready to Fail. The issue was whether to let the Anglo-American "good-offices" mission fail. For seven weeks, since the French aerial bombing of the Tunisian village of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef (TIME, Feb. 17), U.S. Diplomatic Troubleshooter Robert Murphy and Britain's Harold Beeley had been trying to mediate the quarrel between France and Tunisia. They cleared away many brambles, but on one point no agreement seemed possible. Keenly aware that his own people would almost certainly repudiate him if he shut off all aid to the Algerian rebels, Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba flatly refused a French proposal of a neutral commission to patrol the Algerian-Tunisian frontier. France's right-wing Independents, clinging blindly to the conviction that France can and must suppress the Algerian rebellion, were equally insistent that, if Bourguiba refused, France must reopen its complaint against Tunisia in the U.N. Security Council, even if the East River air should be rent by abuse.

By early last week even some of Good Officer Murphy's assistants were privately calling the good-offices mission a failure. Then came a personal letter for Felix Gaillard. The writer: Dwight Eisenhower. Its reported contents: an appeal to Gaillard to give the good-offices mission another chance--a warning that the U.S. does not want to be forced to choose between France and Tunisia. Diplomatically as it was phrased. President Eisenhower's letter was a clear threat that, if France took its quarrel with Bourguiba to the U.N., the U.S. would do nothing to avert the one thing the French dread--a full-dress Security Council debate on the Algerian war.

After Sundown. The effect of this "friendly warning" on the Gaillard government was electric. When the crucial Cabinet meeting opened at 9 a.m., right-wing ministers were breathing heavily over U.S. "interference in French affairs," adamantly proclaiming their determination to resign rather than agree to "excessive concessions" to Tunisia. But two hours after sundown, when liveried footmen finally flung open the doors to mark the end of the session, florid right-wing Agriculture Minister Roland Boscary-Monsservin told waiting reporters: "There have been no resignations. The government has reached a decision in principle."

The decision: France will resume negotiations with Tunisia, but "reserves for itself the right to bring problems concerning control of the Algerian-Tunisian border before an international body." In plain French, this meant that, although France might yet take its case to the Security Council, the charge would be temperately phrased and would not include any demand for U.N. "condemnation" of Bourguiba.

On Guard. Thanks to Ike's intervention, the good-offices mission had won a reprieve, but neither it nor Felix Gaillard was yet out of the woods. In exchange for their agreement to renewed negotiations with Bourguiba, the right-wingers had obliged Gaillard to call the National Assembly back two weeks early from its Easter vacation to pass judgment on the new policy. This week France's parliamentarians converged on Paris, ready to make sure that no French Premier retreated one step from their determination to seek a military solution in Algeria, at whatever cost.

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