Shot Across the Bows

Off the Algerian coast one day last week a Russian Ilyushin 18 turboprop airliner cruised along in the early afternoon sunshine. Alone in the blue skies at 28,000 ft., it had aboard the Soviets' figurehead of state, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Leonid Brezhnev, 54, on his way to visit Guinea via a stopover in Morocco. At precisely 2:18 p.m. the Ilyushin got company.

Lazing alongside were three French air force "Mistral" jets. One waggled its wings as if to signal to the Ilyushin. The Russian pilot stolidly pursued his course, and for eight minutes the jets merely kept pace. Then, suddenly, one of them whooshed ahead, turned and opened fire in the Russian plane's path. "International banditry," howled Moscow's pro test to France. The Ilyushin had been 82 miles off the Algerian coast at the time of the incident, declared the Russians. It had cleared properly with Algiers control, cried Moscow: the attack had been entirely unprovoked.

"Regrettable incident," the Quai d'Orsai conceded. But why had the Ilyushin failed to respond to radio and visual urgings to get back on proper course? Reason for the intercept and the warning shots across the bow was that the Ilyushin had strayed inside what the French have marked off as their 80-mile "zone of responsibility" off Algeria. There the embattled French, trying to prevent infiltration of arms and men to the Algerian rebels, insist on the reserve right to control air and sea traffic. Furthermore, said the French, custom had been violated by the Russians' failure to give notification of the presence aboard the aircraft of a high personage. Whatever the merits of the case, France at week's end formally offered the Russians the French government's "sincere regrets."

Landing in Rabat in his unscathed plane, Brezhnev found Moroccans in a mood to credit the Russian version of the incident. Tearfully, Moroccan Minister of Information Ahmed Alaoui recalled the French capture four years ago of a planeload of Algerian leaders on the way back to Tunis after a conference in Morocco. "Every time Morocco has guests, France refuses to respect the rules of good will," he complained.

Brezhnev can expect to harvest even more sympathy at his next stop, Sekou Toure's anti-French Communist-lining Guinea.

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