Love Affair

The reception that France gave Peru's visiting President Manuel Prado y Ugar-teche last week lived up in every aspect of official warmth and splendor to that given President Eisenhower last December. Bunting in Peruvian red and white floated from every government building, crowds cheered Prado in the streets, a 101-gun salute honored him at the Foreign Ministry. To the Parisian in the street, who did not necessarily know who Prado is, it may have seemed an outsize greeting, but beneath the hoopla was a serious, meaningful gesture, and back of it was Charles de Gaulle.

The love affair between France and Peru is built of many links. Rich, aristocratic President Prado, 70, is a lifelong admirer of France. During his first term of office (1939-45) he was Latin America's first President to recognize De Gaulle's Free French government; after his term ended, he exiled himself to France, stayed there eight years before returning for Peru's 1956 election and his second term. In office this time, he supported France's Algerian policy in the U.N. De Gaulle sees Peru as a diplomatic lever to open doors in South America for his "third world force"--a concept that, in the words of Paris' Le Monde, includes "the affinity between European and South American countries in their common desire not to be crushed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union."

Prado and his wife Clorinda, 54, whom he married two years ago, arrived aboard a special Air France flight, and were met by Culture Minister Andre Malraux, who had delivered France's invitation while touring Latin America last year. Top social event was a state banquet given by De Gaulle at Elysee Palace. Mrs. Prado, superbly gowned, won such compliments as Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville's "You are a real Parisian woman!" She confided that her only worry was "making too many gestures. I don't want to look like a demonstrative South American woman."

At visit's end, France promised Peru credit to buy Mystere IV jets, military helicopters and electrical equipment. The Prados then flew to Rome. On the agenda: an audience with Pope John XXIII, visits to Britain, Holland and Germany, and an unofficial return trip next week to his beloved France.

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