FRENCH VISITOR

The week's most distinguished visitor to Washington is France's Premier Guy Mol-let, a Socialist, who has just set a record in office of twelve months and 26 days, longer than any other French Premier of the Fourth Republic.

Born: Jan. 2, 1906, in Normandy, son of an impoverished weaver and a concierge in a savings bank (who still phones her son to complain of the "mean and wicked" things they say about him in the papers).

Education: Scholarship boy who got through to his B.A. by selling sheet music and singing songs (most spc-cessful: Ramona) on the quais of Le Havre; became lyceee (high school) professor of English and Latin at industrial Arras.

Early Politics: Joined Socialist Youth at 15, organized apprentice teachers; became secretary of Teachers Union in 1932 and lost his job. Married Odette Fraigneau, Arras post-office employee and ardent Socialist.

World War II: Mobilized as medical aide, seriously wounded and taken prisoner (in German prison he completed writing a textbook on English Grammar and pronunciation), later was returned to Arras in prisoner exchange. Joined resistance, worked for four years in network called Libre-Nord under nom de guerre Laboule; three times arrested by Gestapo who failed to break him, last time released when condemned friend (executed next day) refused to identify him as-Laboule.

Postwar Politics: Elected mayor of Arras and Deputy for Department Pas-de-Calais in 1945; still holds both jobs. Challenged Socialist Party leadership because it had "lost touch with militants"; succeeded to secretary-generalship, won complete control in 1946; served as minister without portfolio under Premier Leeon Blum. As a Socialist, stoutly opposes Communists ("They are not left but East").

Attitudes: Supporter of the Atlantic Alliance and European unity, maintains that if the U.S. had had troops in Europe in 1939 as it has now, there would have been no World War II. In 1954, elected president of Euro pean Assembly in Strasbourg. Sound but not brilliant speaker, consistent but not spectacular political leader.

Personality: No socialite, prefers to dine alone in kitchen of his one-bedroom Paris apartment near Bois de Boulogne; still drives black Citroen which he has had since 1945; weekending in Arras he plays billiards or belotte with old friends in favorite bistro. Madame Mollet keeps tabs on his mayoral duties; they have two daughters, Jacqueline and Dolly, one grandchild. A confessed Anglophile, he chain-smokes Player's and admires British "fair play" (a phrase which, he points out, has no counterpart in French); in first three months as Premier lost 15 Ibs., has since regained nine.

Government Record: Though a doctrinaire Marxist, he has achieved only a little that is specifically socialist doctrine. Campaigned hard against war in Algeria, but on visit there (cursed and showered with rotten vegetables and manure) he yielded to irate French settlers, decided for pacification first, solution later. Overriding fierce opposition in Cabinet and Assembly, he called up conscripts for service in Algeria and put France on war footing, a policy which pleases right but affronts the moderates. The Suez attack can be explained by Algeria: Mollet lost no votes over it. He stays in office partly because, in the present combination of Assembly votes, it is almost impossible to form a government without the 100 Socialist seats, and Mollet tightly controls the Socialist machinery. His most affirmative achievement: improved relations with Germany, including the Saar settlement; he hopes to top this with the European Common Market.

Mission: "I will ask for nothing in Washington and expect nothing," says Mollet, even though the war in Algeria is costing almost $3,000,000 a day and France is in an economic crisis. His main ambition is to re-establish good relations with the U.S. after Suez.

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