Shambles

Even Frenchmen who are tolerant of governmental didoes were disgusted. The nation's top military officer was openly urging sabotage of the Premier's policies, the Defense Minister was defiantly declaring disagreement with the Premier's decisions, army officers and ministers were flouting the Premier's instructions.

The issue was Premier Edgar Faure's desperate attempt to provide a policy for rebellious Morocco. Two weeks ago, his Cabinet had announced agreement on a program of which the chief features were removal of Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa and his replacement by a three-man regency council. President Coty himself sent a letter to the Resident General, Lieut. General Pierre Boyer de Latour, for delivery to Arafa; a French destroyer stood by to carry the aged Sultan to sanctuary in Tangier.

Off to the Virgins. In the two weeks since, the government of France has all but fallen apart. Foreign Minister Pinay objected that he had not been consulted on the wording, and President Coty's letter was withdrawn. The Defense Minister, retired Gaullist General Pierre Koenig, declared his opposition to the whole plan. Deputies demonstrated in the Assembly, and Pierre Montel, chairman of the Assembly's Defense Committee, flew to Morocco to urge Sultan Arafa to refuse to leave the throne. Marshal Alphonse Juin, NATO's Central European commander and France's top military man, publicly denounced Faure's plan as "appeasement" and rallied other old North African veterans to his cause. Summoned to a Cabinet meeting, De Latour angrily stomped out, complaining that every time Minister of Tunisian and Moroccan Affairs Pierre July told him to do one thing, Minister for Veterans Raymond Triboulet warned him not to do it. De Latour was at liberty, Triboulet explained, to obey whichever Minister he considered his superior.

In U.S. terms, it was roughly as if President Eisenhower, having decided on the removal of the Governor of the Virgin Islands, found Secretary of Defense Wilson announcing his opposition, Senator Richard Russell flying off to St. Thomas to advise the governor to defy his orders, NATO Supreme Commander Alfred M. Gruenther urging fellow officers to resist the project and Secretary of the Army Brucker contradicting orders sent out by Secretary of Interior McKay.

The ostensible snag was merely the selection of a third "neutral" member of the three-man regency council. Faure picked Brigadier General Si Kettani ben Hamou. Kettani declined to accept until he consulted Juin and Brigadier General Jean Lecomte, Koenig's chief of staff, and an old North African friend of Juin's. Lecomte told General Kettani to refuse Faure's appointment. He did.

Agreement by Silence. This was too much for the M.R.P. members of Faure's shaky Cabinet. "If I were Premier for 15 minutes, I'd give Juin 60 days in the guardhouse," snapped M.R.P. Minister Pierre-Henri Teitgen. To Faure he served an ultimatum. "We'll share the responsibility for government policy, but we won't share in shilly-shallying. We want a decision right away or we hand in our resignations." Goaded to action, Faure called a quick Cabinet meeting, demanded carte blanche for himself and July in issuing instructions to De Latour. Then Faure looked around at the 18 Cabinet members and said: "I'm now ready to accept the resignations from those who disagree." There was silence. With this agreement "in a technical sense," Faure sent De Latour back to Morocco--but only after De Latour had extracted freedom in a "wide field of action." De Latour, too, had been talking to Marshal Juin.

But Faure's opponents were far from through. The Gaullist ministers bided their time. "Faure is determined to carry through his plans at any cost," said one Gaullist executive baldly. "Therefore, I think our ministers should stay in place in order to thwart his action." At week's end, Puppet Arafa was still on his throne, the third regent still unnamed, and France's government a shambles of bickering men.

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