Odd Man Out

Flying into London last week for a 36-hour visit with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, French Premier Michel Debre had one clear purpose: to take a peek up Britain's sleeve and see what, if any, further undeclared cards the "flexible" British were planning to slip onto the table in the forthcoming East-West negotiations. In the process, Debre gave the rest of the Western alliance its first good look at him.

Little known to his countrymen, 47-year-old Michel Debre is even less well known abroad--and what Western statesmen did know of him was scarcely calculated to delight them. Short, stocky and black-haired, Debre has the face of an irascible chipmunk, and in the past has often sounded like one. A brilliant lawyer and civil servant before World War II, an organizer of the Gaullist Resistance during the war, Debre after the war became known in the French Senate for his scathing attacks on the leaders of the Fourth Republic, his nationalistic outbursts against European integration, and his attacks on France's British and U.S. allies. His other claim to fame was his key role in writing De Gaulle's constitution for the Fifth Republic.

In London he proved more soft-spoken and diplomatic than the British had expected. In his university days he had been a passionate student of British history. Gazing last week at the portraits of every British Prime Minister since Sir Robert Walpole, which decorate the staircase of 10 Downing Street, Debre mused aloud: "Just imagine how long a staircase it would take in the Hotel de Matignon to hang a portrait of every Prime Minister France has had in the same period!"

More important than his ability to turn a compliment was the fact that Debre showed himself well-informed, quick on his feet and willing to listen to argument. To the infinite relief of his British listeners, Debre did not inflict on them the sweeping reflections on France's "grandeur" which they find so hard to take from De Gaulle. Above all he displayed, within the policy limits laid down by De Gaulle, considerable independence. "We kept looking for the string reaching back to Paris," said one British official. "Sometimes it was there. But sometimes it wasn't."

In the end, the talks were described as "cordial and frank," which is the diplomatic way of saying that neither side changed its position. For all his courtesy, Debre emphasized that the French are not so keen as the British to make concessions to the Russians, and are determined to avoid any appearance of dealing with Khrushchev behind the back of the West German government.

Surprised by the strength of the new "Bonn-Paris axis," keenly aware of the suspicion of British motives silently felt by De Gaulle and loudly proclaimed by Konrad Adenauer fortnight ago (TIME, April 20), Britain was increasingly aware that it stood in danger of becoming odd man out in Western Europe. "It can safely be said," declared a French TV commentator on the eve of Debre's visit to London, "that the Entente Cordiale is dead." Actually, the half-century-old "understanding" between France and Britain was hardly dead, but it was no longer so cordial.

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