MAN IN THE MIDDLE

In the wings stood the waiting Charles de Gaulle, but doggedly holding the center of the parliamentary stage was Pierre Pflimlin, new Premier of France and head of France's 25th government since the war, in whose hands lay the fate of the Fourth Republic.

Early Life. Born Feb. 5, 1907, in the bleak industrial city of Roubaix in the north of France, the son of an Alsatian textile worker. Pflimlin means "little plum" in Alsatian dialect and is pronounced by the French fleem-lanh (London headline-writers have nicknamed him "Mr. Plum"). Studied law at the Catholic Institute of Paris, later earned his doctorate at the University of Strasbourg. With a lively law practice in Strasbourg, became expert in economics and agriculture.

World War II. Fluent in German, he served as an interpreter with the French army in Belgium until the Nazis captured him. After his release he. fled to the Alps, there joined the resistance, won the Croix de Guerre.

Political Career. Won a seat in the Constituent Assembly in 1945 as a member of the Roman Catholic M.R.P. (Popular Republican Movement). Has held office, usually as Minister of Agriculture, in 15 different postwar Cabinets. In 1949 he abruptly quit the Cabinet of his fellow Popular Republican Georges Bidault, sometime Foreign Minister in the De Gaulle Cabinet (1944), in protest against the government's failure to keep up the price of sugar beets. A year ago Pflimlin wrested the M.R.P. leadership from Bidault, an increasingly bitter man who alone in his party advocates a tough policy in Algeria. Pflimlin's last post before becoming Premier: Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs under outgoing Felix Gaillard.

Attitudes. An Alsace man through and through, Pflimlin ardently championed the European Common Market, won an international reputation as the author of the "green pool" plan, which he hoped would do for agriculture what the Schuman Plan (also sponsored by an Alsatian) had done for the European coal and steel industry. Though his party played a prominent part in the overthrow of Premier Mendes-France who tried to ease French policy in North Africa, Pflimlin himself is regarded by the right as much too liberal, is called "the Mendes-France who goes to Mass." He was one of a group of leading Catholics to protest against French atrocities in Algeria. He now favors "a liberal policy in Algeria starting from a position of strength."

Personality. Eloquent and hardworking, he gets to his office at 8:30 each morning, has been known to make as many as 16 speeches in a single day. Has a rapid walk, fastidiously precise diction, and a temper that can erupt over the slightest clumsiness on the part of a subordinate. Married to the daughter of his former Strasbourg landlady, he eats sparingly, drinks scarcely at all, likes long walks, the opera and Russian novels.

Mission. In an emergency broadcast, Pflimlin proposed to defend the republic by changing it peaceably: "It is necessary to make a profound reform in our institutions," he said, "but the changes must be carried out in a state of legality and respect for our public interests. If they were carried out by violence, our country would be torn tragically apart. Order and the laws of the republic are the sole safeguard of the unity of the nation."

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