The Threat of Worse

Among their Moslem neighbors at least, the Algerian rebel leaders had at last reached full respectability. Less than two years ago when five Algerians appeared in Rabat looking for Moroccan aid, Morocco's King Mohammed V received them with all the discretion of a man playing host to a clutch of wanted criminals. Last week, gathering in Tangier with the top politicians of Morocco and Tunisia, leaders of Algeria's National Liberation Front were feted as heroes. As they entered the marble and mosaic palace of the governor of Tangier, Moroccan militiamen in dress uniform snapped to attention. During a May Day parade Algerian Rebel Spokesman Ferhat Abbas and his colleagues stood alongside King Mohammed on the reviewing stand, beamed to hear the King declare: "Next year we hope you will return as representatives of a free and independent Algeria."

Putting Pressure. Taking full advantage of their new status, the Algerians talked tough: they would settle for nothing short of complete independence. "We prefer," cried Ferhat Abbas, a onetime pro-French moderate whose line has hardened, "to be 10 million corpses than 10 million subjects." They put pressure on the Moroccans by confessing that their losses had been heavy in the past three months, and that French efforts to seal the Tunisian border had been unexpectedly successful. (While the Tangier meeting was going on, French paratroops, supported by artillery and aircraft, killed 300 rebels in eastern Algeria in the biggest battle of the war so far.) Snapped one F.L.N. delegate: "Are our Moroccan brothers going to stand aside and become accessories to the French in their war of extermination against our people?"

Overwhelmed by these appeals, the Moroccans and Tunisians (officially delegates from parties, not governments) abandoned their planned caution. They agreed, as foreseen, to set up a consultative assembly to draft plans for an eventual federation of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. But they also:

P: Denounced "important Western nations," i.e., the U.S., for aiding France in its "colonial war" in Algeria.

P: Pledged increased Tunisian and Moroccan aid to the F.L.N.

P: Recommended establishment of an Algerian rebel government in exile "after consultations with the Tunisian and Moroccan governments."

Into the Dark. These were measures that seriously jeopardized the U.S. effort to moderate Arab demands. "You are taking a leap into the dark," a U.S. observer warned a Tunisian. Should Morocco, like Tunisia, now open her borders to the Algerian rebels, French forces in Algeria would find themselves faced with a second front, and France in retaliation might well cut off the financial and technical assistance that Morocco desperately requires. Even more disruptive was the threatened formation of an Algerian government in exile. The pressure of public opinion in their countries would almost certainly force both Mohammed V and Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba to recognize such a government, and this, in turn, would probably drive France to break off relations with both countries.

The sanguine hoped that the Algerians did not mean to set up an exile government immediately, but planned instead to use the threat of one to stir France into a compromise. The trouble with this strategy is that France, still without a Premier since the fall of young Felix Gaillard, is currently incapable of responding to even the most shrewdly directed goad.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.