Vive Chicago!

All the way up lower Broadway, shredded phone books and chopped newsprint spewed from high windows that opened over the motorcade. At city hall, the Army band shook the ticker tape from its tubas and blew a manful Marseillaise, while the trip hammers of nearby street wreckers and a 21-gun salute shattered the Manhattan noon. To France's visiting President Charles de Gaulle, it must have seemed as if New York City had emptied its wastebaskets on his head and blown up the seat of government by way of greeting.

But if the trappings of welcome were a little wild, the tone was as warm as the friendly, familiar "Hi, Charley!" that sounded so often from the crowded curbside. All week, whether it was on Broadway or San Francisco's Market Street or New Orleans' Canal Street, the U.S.'s admiration was extravagant and obvious, and in its warmth, austere Charles de Gaulle noticeably thawed.

"Merci, Merci'." In Manhattan. United Nations' Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, Democrat-at-Large Adlai Stevenson. New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller and ex-Governor Averell Harriman paid homage at the general's hotel suite in what the New York Herald Tribune called a "little summit.'' Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., honored De Gaulle in his own language; Mayor Wagner, not to be outdone, quoted from Victor Hugo; and the New York Times ran the complete text of De Gaulle's speech in French. For dinner, the Waldorf's candlelit Grand Ballroom was crammed with the high-angled names of the city's society. At the "April in Paris'' Ball at the Astor, socialites shelled out $150 a ticket only to find themselves at a party snubbed by its hoped-for guest of honor. (Said an aide: "The general does not like to attend empty social affairs.") And for a touchy moment or two, pickets carried placards crying "Liberez l'Algerie," but minus his eyeglasses the nearsighted general never noticed.

San Francisco added clusters of balloons to ticker tape, as citizens turned out in numbers that Chief of Police Thomas Cahill said hadn't been matched in 30 years. De Gaulle stood upright in a pale-blue convertible, chopping the air in two-handed greeting and murmuring "Merci, merci" as he bobbed his head from side to side. His aides had to brush off the confetti as he pulled up at the city hall for the Marseillaise and a word from Mayor George Christopher. Returning from a chilly tour of San Francisco Bay aboard a Coast Guard gunboat, he was greeted by nine-year-old Brownie Scout Dara Woods, her bare knees knocking in the cold. Gallantly, the general bent like a great, gawky crane to accept a bouquet of flowers. "Merci,'' he said. "Thank you." And hours later, as he finished a speech at the Civic Auditorium, the visitor was still stirred with emotion. He spread his arms and shouted "Vive Chicago!'' -- a temporary geographical lapse that his translator promptly straightened out.

"The Honorable Governor." After such well-organized confusion, New Orleans was like an all-night block party. Shirtsleeved crowds jostled down Canal Street, as the motorcade crawled across the balmy night -- through the French Quarter and on toward St. Louis Cathedral. At the head of the parade, invited but unexpected, rode Louisiana's Governor Earl Long in his own convertible. Ole Earl, less than a year away from his revolving-door visits to a clutch of psychiatrists, beat time with his straw hat when he could hear the band. On the reviewing stand he showed up once more to chat with the visitor, once grabbed De Gaulle unceremoniously by the lapels -- "something," as an aide put it, "that probably hasn't happened to him since Saint-Cyr."

At the civic luncheon next day Ole Earl was back again, slipped into a chair next to De Gaulle and began to jaw into his ear. De Gaulle turned away and appeared to hear nothing. Miffed, Ole Earl stalked off, later left the hall in the midst of the ceremonies. De Gaulle noted during his polite speech of thanks that "the honorable Governor has unhappily left us before the end of lunch." When the house roared, De Gaulle seemed surprised.

Almost a Rest. He went on to sum up his eight-day visit to the U.S. in earnest, austere praise: "Seeing you, I have seen the truly superior value of a regime of freedom. I leave convinced that it suffices if free people remain firm, wise, and united to lead the world in the path of good sense and peace."

Thus, in speeches and loud, littered pageantry, De Gaulle's week wore itself out. He flew out of New Orleans for a passing visit to French Guiana, then was bound for home, where the problems of preparing for the summit might seem almost a rest for the weary traveler.

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