Three-Legged Hope of Peace

In a low, stucco building in the hills behind Zurich, Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba was ostensibly taking a "nature cure." Actually, he was hard at work--as an invited friend of both sides--directing the elaborate maneuvers designed to bring an end to the six-year-old Algerian war.

For two weeks Bourguiba had dutifully followed his medical instructions by drinking a pint of apple juice a day and taking brisk walks in the Swiss woods (though he passed up the clinic's vegetable dinners in favor of juicy steaks sent in from a nearby hotel). But his hospital room was piled with newspapers and books, alive with the ring of telephones and crowded with visitors. In the clinic's driveway, diplomatic limousines came and went. On his orders, diplomats scurried on a triangular course running from Zurich to Paris to Tunis and back. Early this week Bourguiba is scheduled to leave his hospital retreat and journey to rural Rambouillet, outside Paris, for a meeting with France's Charles de Gaulle.

To Build a State. Bourguiba's role as "honest broker" between France and the Algerian rebel F.L.N. began three weeks ago, when De Gaulle gave a reception for 230 members of the diplomatic corps in Paris. Tunisia's young charge d'affaires was overwhelmed when he was ushered into a small reception room to find De Gaulle waiting for him. De Gaulle asked him to tell his government that De Gaulle would like to see the Tunisian President in the interest of Algerian peace. Bourguiba picked as his emissary Information Minister Mohammed Masmoudi, who called on De Gaulle at the Elysee palace, told him that the F.L.N. leaders still smarted from memories of last June's talks with French representatives at Melun, where they had been virtually treated like prisoners. "Melun?" snapped De Gaulle. "There wasn't a Melun." Things would be different this time. "Nine-tenths of Algeria's Moslems are nationalists," said De Gaulle flatly. "They have created a nation that previously did not exist. Now they must build a state." Was De Gaulle ready to negotiate personally with the F.L.N. leaders? His reply: "I will talk to President Bourguiba about that."

Night Attacks. In Zurich, Bourguiba told reporters: "For the first time, French public opinion knows that, sooner or later, Algeria will become independent. Talks between De Gaulle and the Algerians should first determine how peace can be restored, then examine what Algeria's future relations with France should be." The "provisional" Premier of the Algerian Republic, Ferhat Abbas, and his F.L.N. Foreign Minister, Belkacem Krim, cut short their tour of Southeast Asia to rush back to Tunis for discussions with Bourguiba's man, Masmoudi. Burly Ahmed Boumendjel, who had headed the F.L.N. delegation to the Melun fiasco, flew from Tunis to Switzerland, was reportedly in direct touch with a De Gaulle representative at the French embassy in Bern.

But mutual good will and diplomacy on the wing might not be enough. "Part of the danger," Bourguiba admitted last week, "stems from the ultras in both camps." In Algiers, bombs are exploding at the rate of three a day, invariably planted by European activists in front of government buildings and the homes of French "liberals" or pro-De Gaulle Moslems. From Tunisia and Morocco, diehard F.L.N. troops mounted savage attacks on the fortified borders of Algeria. They killed 14 French soldiers but suffered a reported 126 dead before breaking off the suicidal attempts to remind the French that the F.L.N. still commands an army in the field.

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