WORDS THAT CHANGED THE REPUBLIC

WORDS THAT CHANGED THE REPUBLIC Three Letters That Cleared the Way for De Gaulle

Auriol's Conditions

To return to power legally and with broad support, De Gaulle needed the Assembly votes of the Socialists. The Socialist terms, expressed in a personal letter to De Gaulle by Vincent Auriol, 73, first President (1947-54) of the Fourth Republic:

WE have in the past clashed, and even been hurt [but] what do such personal differences matter in the drama that today tears apart the motherland?

Your direct reply to the men in revolt against national sovereignty in Algiers has aggravated the sickness that already weighed on the nation . . . It is no longer a question of that national excitement and of that surge of brotherhood which once moved you. It is a rebellion against the institutions and laws that France has freely given herself.

I am convinced that in the clear light of events you will do your utmost to call back to their sense of duty those general officers or senior officers who have disobeyed their supreme commander . . . If you break all solidarity with those who have created a seditious movement, you will regain the confidence of the entire nation.

With confidence between you and the republican people thus restored, it will be possible for you to obtain from the responsible men of the Republic quick agreement and loyal cooperation to achieve with full powers a limited program in a limited time.

The nation could then be called to pronounce freely and in sovereign fashion on the constitutional reform that the higher interests of democracy demand.

De Gaulle's Reassurances

In a reply to Auriol, De Gaulle reassured but also warned the Socialists:

THE events in Algeria . . . broke out and developed in my name without my being in any way involved in them. Things being what they are, I proposed to form by legal means a government that I think could rebuild unity, re-establish discipline in the state, particularly on the military side, and promote adoption of a renovated constitution by the country.

However, I find myself up against determined opposition from the [Parliament]. Since I could not consent to receive power from any other source than the people, or at least their representatives (as I did in 1944 and 1945), I fear we are proceeding toward anarchy and civil war. In that case, those who. through party considerations incomprehensible to me, shall have prevented me from pulling the nation once again from its difficulties while there was still time, will bear a heavy responsibility. As for me, there would be nothing left for me but to withdraw into my sorrow until my death.

Coty's Ultimatum

In an unprecedented message to France's Parliament, President Rene Coty, 76, threatened to resign unless the Assembly accepted De Gaulle as Premier:

OF all the true democracies, the French Republic is, on the one hand, the one that is assailed by the most redoubtable problems and, on the other hand, the one whose governmental institutions are the most fragile . . . Whatever may have been the merit and the patriotism of the men who have succeeded each other in power, the state has continued to disintegrate.

Now we are on the verge of civil war. After having fought so much against the enemy in the past 40 years, will Frenchmen tomorrow fight against Frenchmen?

In the hour of peril for our country and the Republic, I have turned to the most illustrious of all Frenchmen, to the man who, during the darkest years of our history, was our leader in the reconquest of liberty and who, having secured national unanimity around himself, refused dictatorship in order to establish the Republic . . . I am asking General de Gaulle to confer with the Chief of State and to examine with him what, within the bounds of republican legality, is immediately required for a government of national safety, and what can be done within a reasonable period of time thereafter to achieve a thorough reform of our institutions.

Should a failure of my attempt show that I made a mistake . . . the only road open to me would be to transfer immediately all my powers to the president of the National Assembly.

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