Eleven at Abidjan

By its policy of granting independence upon request, France hoped to keep the friendship of the 13 new states that until this year comprised the French empire in western Africa. As its staunchest ally in the area, France counted on Felix Houphouet-Boigny, 55, the sly old pro who sat in five French Cabinets and is now Premier of the Ivory Coast. Last week Houphouet-Boigny assembled five Presidents, three Premiers and three ministers plenipotentiary* for a conference in the Ivory Coast's boomtown capital of Abidjan, and emerged just 48 hours later to announce "unanimous agreement" on foreign policy questions.

Limited Area. The statement sound ed more expansive than was the actuality; the delegates' area of agreement was limited to Algeria and the Congo. Houphouet-Boigny swore the delegates to secrecy until he could fly off to Paris to press the results on his good friend Charles de Gaulle. But the gist of the policy leaked. Houphouet-Boigny will urge De Gaulle to soften his terms for an Algerian ceasefire. In the U.N. the eleven states will doubtless oppose any condemnation of France on Algeria, but will support a U.N.-supervised referendum to determine Algeria's future. De Gaulle has rejected the U.N. referendum in the past, but even he should recognize that Houphouet-Boigny had gone as far toward support of France as any popular leader in Africa could afford to.

On the Congo, the prevailing voice was that of President Fulbert Youlou, the cassocked, nonpracticing priest who runs the old French Congo. Living just across the river from Leopoldville, and a fellow Bakongo tribesman of Congo President Joseph Kasavubu, Youlou rallied the other delegates to a stand that urged the U.N. to cooperate with Kasavubu. said nothing at all about Kasavubu's archrival, Patrice Lumumba.

Strong Voice. A French-educated tribal chieftain with a Tammany sachem's flair for politics, Houphouet-Boigny became a member of the French Assembly in 1945, joined forces with the Communists, but broke with them in 1950. He eventually parlayed his role as an African spokesman into a three-year succession of Cabinet posts in Paris, beginning in 1956. For the Ivory Coast, Houphouet-Boigny has wangled from France an ambitious aid program ($16.5 million this year). As a result, Abidjan is completely electrified and may be the only city in Africa where every dwelling has running water.

Houphouet-Boigny runs his piece of Africa through the African Democratic Rally (R.D.A.). Guinea's Sekou Toure once led a powerful opposition of the left within the party, but Toure opted Guinea out of the French Community and into relative quarantine. Houphouet-Boigny men from the R.D.A. now rule in the French Congo, Niger, and Upper Volta, and his voice is strong in the other states that joined in last week's conference.

The delegates scheduled a second meeting for mid-December, when they hope to lay the foundations of a customs union, a joint investment bank, and perhaps a plan to save money by sharing ambassadors abroad. Though some talked hopefully of an eventual loose political commonwealth, no real union is in sight; the Ivory Coast, oil-rich Gabon and industrialized Senegal have no wish to share the burdens of their poorer brothers. But as the Premiers and Presidents congratulated each other last week in impeccable French, the strength of the common cultural tie was clear, and durable Premier Houphouet-Boigny emerged as a moderate voice to be reckoned with in Africa.

*Senegal's President Leopold Sedar Senghor and Premier Mamadu Dia, Niger's President Hamani Diori, the Upper Volta's President Maurice Yameogo, Dahomey's Premier Hubert Maga, Mauritania's President Mocktar and Ould Daddah, Cameroun's President Ahmadou Ahidjo, plus ministers plenipotentiary of the Central African Republic, Gabon and Chad. But Mali sent only an observer; Togo, currently feuding with Houphouet-Boigny, did not attend.

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