Her Own Mistress

At Ankara's airport, President Charles de Gaulle's opening remarks were lost on his hosts--because the official assigned to turn on the public-address system was asleep at the switch. Then De Gaulle noticed that his interpreter had got ahead of him. Nudging the man, De Gaulle growled, "I did not say that." Finally, the Turkish security police were no match for rampaging photographers, one of whom got his camera within two feet of the general's nose during the playing of the Marseillaise.

The five-day state visit was clearly off to a bad start, even though penitent Turkish authorities promptly sacked the security chief and promised to send the forgetful official to some Turkish equivalent of Siberia. That night at dinner, President Cevdet Sunay gently reminded his guest that Turkey intended to remain a staunch member of NATO. Formerly, he said, Turkey had worked as hard as France for an East-West detente, but the occupation of Czechoslovakia had "unfortunately shown us that our optimism was too great."

Pink Satin and a Red Veil. In Istanbul during the next two days, De Gaulle found the pomp and circumstance he most enjoys. Attending a reception in the vast, marble-columned hall of the 19th century Dolmabahce Palace, De Gaulle sat with Premier Sueleyman Demirel on pink satin cushions atop a gold divan. Beneath a seven-ton chandelier, long tables were weighted with 30 different kinds of food and 35 desserts prepared by 70 chefs.

De Gaulle also cruised aboard the 6,400-ton presidential yacht, whose opulence included deep Turkish carpeting. De Gaulle was attended by a nubile Turkish blonde clad in a red veil, blue tunic and diaphanous harem pants. Local wags had suggested that De Gaulle had an even chance of sighting a Soviet warship en route to join the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. Though nothing was said about the impressive Russian naval buildup, De Gaulle had ordered a fat file on the Soviet fleet a week before the trip.

Public Wish. In private talks, De Gaulle reportedly only echoed his public wish that Turkey "remain her own mistress" and conceded that Turkey's special "geographic, strategic and economic position" required it to remain an active NATO partner. That, for De Gaulle, was in itself quite a concession. Had the Czechoslovakian invasion not occurred, the general would certainly have done his best to persuade his hosts to drop out of NATO.

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