THE TRANSITION TEAM

De Gaulle named a veteran French diplomat and a recently jailed Moslem businessman to preside over Algeria's difficult transition to nationhood.

Christian Fouchet, 50, becomes French High Commissioner and "Custodian" of French power until full independence, between three and six months from now, with responsibility for defense and the maintenance-of law and order "in the last resort," i.e., against the European terrorists of the S.A.O., who have already decreed Fouchet's death. A strapping, six-foot athlete with a cannonball serve in tennis and a fondness for quoting the plays of Jean (The Madwoman of Chaillot) Giraudoux, Fouchet has a reputation for plain speaking and personal honesty. He escaped when France fell, served as a Free French paratrooper. He has been a dedicated Gaullist ever since, worked for Le Grand Charles as propagandist, diplomat, watchdog in the National Assembly, and for the past eight months as chairman of the Fouchet Committee on European unity while at the same time serving as Ambassador to Denmark. Fouchet managed to keep the respect of other diplomats from Common Market nations even while arguing De Gaulle's unpopular notions of French sovereignty and his opposition to the idea of supranationality in any form. As the new High Commissioner packed his bags to go to Algeria, he said of his new post only: "C'est pas drole" (It's no joke).

Abderrahmane Fares, 50, is chairman of the twelve-man French-Moslem Provisional Executive charged with responsibility for Algeria's administration and the conduct of the referendum (probably in June) in which Algerians are expected to vote overwhelmingly for "independence in cooperation with France." A rotund bon vivant as fluent in French as Arabic, Fares comes from a Berber family (his father was killed fighting with the French army at Verdun in World War I), and at 25 became the first Moslem notary public in Algeria. After the rebellion began in 1954. the French government sent Fares on a lecture tour of the U.S., where he proclaimed Algeria's deep attachment to France. With his Berber wife and three children. Fares moved to Paris in 1956, because he no longer felt safe in Algeria. In France, the government sometimes used Fares for secret approaches to the F.L.N. Last November, however, Fares was arrested by the French and charged with being the F.L.N.'s "banker," who had helped transfer rebel funds to Swiss banks; reportedly he handled $1,000,000 a month. Released last week from Fresnes prison near Paris, he will be able to work for what has always been his passionate ambition: "The conciliation of the French and Algerian points of view."

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