Accord at Last

At long last the French leaders in Algiers completed a formula for unity.. The final, seemingly immovable obstacle between General Charles de Gaulle and Gen eral Henri Giraud had been the issue of Army control and reorganization. Now the Committee of Liberation pushed aside the obstacle:

> General de Gaulle was directed to preside over the Committee's political discussions, General Giraud over military discussions. This was a Gaullist victory.

> General Giraud was named commander in chief of all French forces, as the Allied High Command had insisted (TIME, July 5). This decision did away with the separate Gaullist and Giraudist armies.

> As commander in chief, General Giraud was made responsible to the Committee of Liberation, which received the power "to direct the general conduct of the war." This, too, was a clean-cut victory for General de Gaulle, who had stood for subordination of the military to the civil arm.

> General de Gaulle was named president of a new Committee of National Defense, charged with the study of "general conditions" for fusing and organizing French forces. Other defense committee members: General Giraud; a new Army Chief of Staff, General Gilbert Leyer; a new Navy Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Andre Georges Lemonnier; and Air Force Chief of Staff, Rene Bouscat.

Washington and London had expected Generals de Gaulle and Giraud to tangle disruptively over the Liberation Committee's recent purge of elderly and ex-Vichyite officers. But the French leaders were more concerned with the war's trend, and in their concern De Gaulle won a signal diplomatic victory--still without benefit of tact. France's united front was a bid for recognition and participation in any Allied peace negotiations with Italy. Said Commissioner of Information Henri Bonnet: "I hope [the new accord] will have a good effect on ... the U.S. and Britain. . . . Nonrecognition will not prevent us from becoming stronger."

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