Le Monde at Bay

Among Paris' 14 French-language dailies, one paper--Le Monde (circ. 150,000) --stands head & shoulders above the rest. Though "neutralist" in politics, its devotion to responsibility in journalism is such that it is often called the New York Times of Paris. A fortnight ago Le Monde readers got a shock. Many of them, who fear that the U.S. will leave France holding the sack if the Russians ever invade Western Europe, found a piece of "news" that confirmed their worst suspicions.

Le Monde printed excerpts from a report supposedly written by U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William M. Fechteler, which asserted that 1) the Soviets could overcome Western Europe in three days and the West would be forced to pull out, 2) war with the Soviets is inevitable before 1960.

Newspapers the world over picked up the story* and denials came from everybody from Fechteler himself to Churchill. But Le Monde stuck to its story. Le Monde's Editor-in-Chief Andre Chenebenoit said that British intelligence had intercepted the "document" early this year, and that Le Monde had bought it from Jacques Bloch-Morhange, who runs his own private newsletter in Paris. Despite this dubious source, Editor Chenebenoit and Le Monde Director Hubert Beuve-Mery ordered the letter printed without consulting the paper's other editors. Said Chenebenoit: "We wouldn't have printed it . . . had there been any doubt" about its authenticity. The explanation was not enough for the paper's top editorial writer on domestic affairs, Remy Roure. Roure resigned because his bosses "did not exercise the most extreme prudence and reserve" in so grave a matter. Other staffers backed him up, demanded in the future Le Monde have its top staffers pass on all important copy before it is printed.

Then came the payoff. In Amsterdam last week, Albert Besnard, a naval affairs editor, of the daily Algemeen Handelsblad, read Le Monde's "document" and thought it had a vaguely familiar ring. Digging into his closet, Besnard found some old copies of the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. In the September 1950 issue he found an article by Commander Anthony Talerico, U.S.N., entitled "Sea of Decision." Almost word for word, many parts of it were identical with the so-called "Fechteter report." Instead of being a state paper, the arguments were the hazy theorizing of an unknown junior officer in an unofficial publication. Caught with a fake, Le Monde sadly concluded that there was "a great, similarity" in the documents, and added: "The 'Fechteler document' was not new."

*Headlined Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker: PARIS, LONDON IN UPROAR OVER EXPOSE OF U.S. ADMIRAL'S CYNICAL WAR PLAN.

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