Narrowing Breach

In response to an insistent but mysterious luncheon invitation, a shoal of ex-Premiers and other top politicians assembled at the home of a former Cabinet minister in Paris one afternoon last week. To the astonishment of most of them, the principal guest proved to be Moscow's Ambassador to France--busy, birdlike Sergei Vinogradov, one of the new Soviet breed of laughing-boy diplomats. Even more astonishing was Vinogradov's chosen topic of conversation: maintenance of French power in North Africa.

Vinogradov began the discussion by saying his government was convinced that it was only a matter of time until the U.S. openly intervened in the Algerian rebellion and took over from France as the dominant power in North Africa. Artfully he recalled what happened when France, in dealing with the Communists, was obliged to give up its fight for Indo-China. The upshot of the 1954 Geneva Conference, he declared, was that the U.S. got control of South Viet Nam, the Chinese Communists got North Viet Nam, and "all we Russians got out of it was bills." This, Vinogradov confided, did not strike Nikita Khrushchev as an extraordinarily happy state of affairs.

Fact was, said Vinogradov, that in order to prevent Russian exclusion from North Africa at the hands of the U.S., the Kremlin had a vital interest in seeing France retain its position in the area. When one of the French guests suggested that Russia could contribute mightily to this goal by publicly endorsing a "strictly French solution" and "telling the Algerians to quit fighting," Vinogradov affected to find the suggestion both novel and impressive. "Hmm," he said. "I'll communicate the idea to my superiors right away. We are serious about this Algerian business. Don't be surprised by anything we do."

Invisible Participant. Transparent as it was, Vinogradov's attempt to detach France from its U.S. alliance was a measure of the breach made by the Algerian war in the free world's diplomatic defenses. But in fact, last week for the first time in many months, there were signs that the breach might be narrowing. Flying in from foreign refuges as various as Damascus and Switzerland--and carefully avoiding flights that might make an emergency landing on French soil--top leaders of Algeria's rebel National Liberation Front converged on the Moroccan city of Rabat. There, surrounded by Moroccan plainclothesmen, they sat down with representatives of Morocco's dominant Istiqlal Party and Tunisia's Neo-Destour to lay the groundwork for a formal conference in Tangier this week. Prime topic to be discussed at Tangier: prospects for formation of a North African federation composed of Morocco, Tunisia and an independent Algeria.

The U.S. would not be represented there in fact, but would be very much present in spirit. The U.S. is, as the Russians charge, increasing its diplomatic activity in North Africa--not against the French, but in the interest of seeing that events get no further out of hand. In informal backstage chats, U.S. diplomats show their support of Arab moderates. They hope the Rabat conferees will abandon any thought of establishing an Algerian government in exile--which Tunisia, and perhaps Morocco, would be forced to recognize; such a step, the U.S. is convinced, would drive France to break off all relations with them. But for the idea of a North African federation the U.S. has nothing but enthusiasm. In such a federation, linked to France by some kind of commonwealth arrangement, lies what the U.S. regards as the best hope of an end to the Algerian fighting.

Encouraging Setback. The federation scheme is anathema to French right-wingers, but it has long been accepted in principle by some French moderates, and in Paris last week it was the moderates who were gaining ground. Waspish Georges Bidault, the first aspirant to succeed fallen Premier Felix Gaillard (TIME, April 28), could not even persuade his own Popular Republican Party to support him in forming a government; in fact, only one of the party's 75 members in the Assembly had joined him in voting to bring down Gaillard. Having given Bidault and his policy of even harsher prosecution of the Algerian war a chance, President Rene Coty next turned to big (6 ft. 2 in.), earnest Rene Pleven, a middle-of-the-roader who has suggested that the ideal relationship between France and her former colonies would be "a federation of republics."

At the news of Pleven's nomination, Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba promptly announced that he no longer intended to reopen Tunisia's U.N. Security Council complaint against France over French air force bombing of the village of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef (TIME, Feb. 17). Said Bourguiba: "Monsieur Bidault's setback is an encouraging sign. His failure shows that there does not exist in the French Parliament . . . any majority for an extremist policy."

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