Counterpoint

To change the Communist fist into the open hand of simulated friendship, as rapidly as Moscow does it, requires not only political spryness but a kind of unabashed acceptance of duplicity and falsehood, so deeply ingrained that it becomes almost a reflex action, like breathing. In Paris last week the Communists, without visible embarrassment, were showing the fist and the open hand at the same time. Reason: the French satraps had been ordered to help along Moscow's new peace offensive, but their old orders to stir up trouble and sabotage EGA had not been canceled. TIME'S Paris Bureau Chief Andre Laguerre reported:

Roland Boisvin, aged 53, a mechanic, left his home in the Rue de 1'Exposition after an early lunch. A World War I veteran, he was going to join comrades of the Association des Anciens Combattants who were to lay their traditional Armistice Day wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe.

A thick mist made visibility poor. As he marched up the lower half of the Champs Elysees, preceded by groups representing former prisoners of war and deportees, Communist youth organizations and the Franc-tireurs et Partisans (Communist-controlled guerrillas who had fought the Nazis), Boisvin could only just see the nose and steel helmet of Georges Clemenceau, peeping through the fog. Crowds lined the street.

Above the Rond-Point subway station the parade was met by a cordon of police. An inspector reminded the leaders that the law permitted no demonstration in the upper half of the Champs Elysees without special authorization. To reach the Arc de Triomphe, they must make a detour.

The parade halted. Leaders indignantly shouted back to their followers, "Les flics ne veulent pas qu'on passe!" (The cops won't let us pass.) The answer was a sullen rumble.

Meantime, foreign correspondents in Paris received elegantly printed invitations asking them to a "cocktail de la paix" to be given the following evening, from 6 to 8,-in the offices of the Communist daily paper, L'Humanite. Eyebrows shot up, for it was the first time "L'Huma" had ever done anything like this. Few foreigners ever get past the guards at the entrance of the paper.

In the Champs Elysees, the police asked the paraders to disperse. They refused. Then one of the young Communists up front yelled the old revolutionary slogan: "Aux barricades!" Demonstrators grabbed wooden trestles placed along the sidewalks to contain the crowds and laid them across the road. Iron chairs from Fouquet's and other open-air cafes were added. Paving stones were ripped up. Soon a stout barricade was built. The police did not move.

A group of former guerrillas tore down a steel tube scaffolding. They broke it up, then distributed the bars to demonstrators, who brandished them defiantly. The paraders were excited by their leaders, who made angry speeches against the government and the "murderer," Jules Moch, Socialist Minister of the Interior and head of the police. Among those who listened were many women. One wore a bulky fur coat. Most shivered as the raw mist bit through their worn clothes.

The waitresses at L'Humanite's peace cocktail party wore neat, black dresses and crisp white aprons. They served only one drink --a pale yellow liquid which tasted vaguely like a martini. About a hundred foreign newspapermen, including only a handful of Americans, showed up at the party on the seventh floor of the building. The official host was stooping, white-haired Marcel Cachin, director of L'Humanite, whose attacks on the U.S. have been among the most violent and slanderous. He greeted U.S. journalists with great cordiality: "How nice of you to come!"

All the party big shots were there. Maurice Thorez, rosy-cheeked and beaming, wearing a grey business suit, slapped guests cordially on the back. Jacques Duclos, dapper in a black jacket and grey pants, cracked jokes, took no offense when a guest asked him, "What, no vodka?" Duclos cracked, back: "No, and no American whiskey, either." Andre Marty, the salty old mutineer, solicitously handed around plates of sandwiches, salted almonds and cookies.

When six carloads of reinforcements arrived on the Champs Elysees, the police, with truncheons and rifle butts held high, charged the barricade.

It gave way at the first impact. Fighting was fierce. The fog was now very thick and mud-colored, so it was hard to tell friend from foe. The police hit hard. When four or five police got a single demonstrator in a corner, they beat him without mercy. The demonstrators' most effective weapons were the paving stones they had ripped up. About 20 police retreated with badly bashed faces.

A woman stood on the remnants of the barricade and screamed insults. A garde mobile knocked her off with his rifle butt. She lay still on the road.

Marty, who, has probably led more riots than any living Frenchman, murmured that the salted almonds were good. So they were, when a U.S. correspondent told him that his personal ambition was to retire in ten years' time and spend the rest of his life fishing, Marty replied, "I feel the same way --in fact, I feel like doing it right now." Thorez, still beaming, jingling loose change in his pants pocket, was surrounded by a group of newsmen. "Truman's idea of sending Vinson to Moscow was very smart," he said. "It made a deeper impression on the American people than the political experts thought." 'Everyone laughed and smoked; the room was warm.

In the Champs Elysees it was very cold. The fog was thick and dirty and it added to the nightmarish quality of the scene. It choked men, so they stopped fighting to cough, and then were knocked down while they coughed, and fell to the ground, still coughing.

The most horrible thing was a little girl, about 13. She stood on the sidewalk with some other kids, just a few yards from the savage fighting. Her nose was running, her flaxen hair was wet and bedraggled, and she had a sore under one of her eyes, which were pale blue and showed no emotion or even comprehension of the scene. With the other children, she was chanting, "Jules Moch, assassin, Jules Moch, assassin, Jules Moch, assassin . . ."

Duclos was in great form, he grabbed two American correspondents and said they must drink to peace. He raised his glass and shouted, "Here is to peace! The whole world wants peace . . . France needs peace . . . the American people want peace, they've shown it at the elections . . . a la paix!"

The battle on the Champs Elysees reached its worst phase just before nightfall. A gang of Communists surrounded a police car, tried to set fire to it. The gardes started shooting. Some fired in the air, but one or two shot blindly into the fog. By direct hit or ricochet, four men were wounded. Panic seized the Communists and they fled.

Marcel Cachin, all smiles, bowed out the correspondents. With his farewell handshake he said: "It was really a great pleasure to have you here. I know we are all working for peace, in France and the world."

Because of the Communists, there will not be peace in France this winter.

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