On Good Behavior

In Paris, where cynical politicians have heard everything, even the most unsurprisable wore the slightly dazed air of men who have just heard a mallard endorse a shotgun. After years of unwavering hostility to Charles de Gaulle, French Communists abruptly abandoned their denunciations of his Algerian policy and made it known that they were eager to shake his hand.

The new party line was obviously a special dividend to De Gaulle, who insists that Russia has not yet paid enough for a summit (TIME, Nov. 2). By delaying a summit, De Gaulle hopes to be able to ensure Russia's good behavior during the U.N. debate on Algeria. Fortnight ago summit-hungry Nikita Khrushchev swallowed hard and publicly proclaimed: "President de Gaulle's recent proposal that the Algerian problem be solved on the basis of self-determination . . . may play an important part in the settlement of the question." Until then, French Communists had dismissed De Gaulle's offer as "a political maneuver . . . intended to deceive democratic opinion," and the more rabid Chinese Communists called it "sugarcoated poison."

Last week, two days after Nikita's speech, the French Communist Party arose from one of those crow-eating feasts of "selfcriticism" that used to be held more regularly in Stalin's time. The French party's original stand, it now conceded, "was not quite in tune on certain points with the general analysis of the Algerian problem made . . . at the party's 14th and 15th congresses."

For the first time in a decade, French Communist papers, instead of referring to De Gaulle brusquely by surname alone, prefaced it respectfully with the title "General." But this was not all. Abandoning a longtime boycott on social affairs attended by De Gaulle, eight Communist Deputies showed up at a glittering reception given in the general's honor by National Assembly President Jacques Chaban-Delmas, and maneuvered through the crowd until they managed to place themselves directly in De Gaulle's path. Just as they were about to meet face to face, suave Jacques Chaban-Delmas, responding to advance warnings from Socialists, deftly steered the shortsighted general off in another direction. But it was an unsettling portent. Glumly, the organizers of every public affair that De Gaulle is expected to attend in the next few weeks braced themselves for a rush of unwelcome Red guests.

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