The Wide Table

The placid citizens of Geneva take international conferences in stride, and scarcely looked up as the black limousines containing Russian, American and Chinese delegates swept by on their way to the Palais des Nations. But it was more dangerous to have the Algerian rebels in their midst.

All week long Geneva's newspapers reported threatening letters received by the police from French right-wing activists, and cafe sitters all but flinched in anticipation of the explosion of a plastic bomb. As the Algerian F.L.N. delegation moved into the luxurious tile-roofed villa belonging to the Sheik of Qatar, nervous Swiss soldiers crouched low behind sandbagged defense posts. One panicky recruit fired a burst over the 'head of a photographer who was aiming his camera.

The F.L.N. delegates plan to fly by helicopter each day across the lake to the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains, where, in the Hotel du Pare, at a table purposely made so wide that it will be physically impossible for delegates to shake hands with their opposite numbers, the Algerian rebels and the French will at last try to negotiate an end to the six-year-old Algerian war.

The Negotiators. The French delegation is headed by Algerian Affairs Minister Louis Joxe, 59; the F.L.N. by small, tough Belkacem Krim, 38. A former French army corporal, Krim rose from guerrilla fighter in his native Kabylia to become field commander of the entire rebel army. Krim, five times sentenced to death in absentia by French military courts, is the only one of the nine "historical leaders" who began the insurrection in 1954 still at large (four were killed; four are French prisoners).

Like most F.L.N. chiefs, he is in poor health from years in the underground, and last week was still convalescing from a recent gall bladder operation. His top assistants are also "moderates": burly, talented Lawyer Ahmed Boumendjel, 53. whose brother "committed suicide" while in the hands of French paratroops, but who is himself, nevertheless, a devotee of French culture, with a French wife and a passion for Paris; and Left-Winger Saad Dahlab, 38, a former merchant and a member of one of Algeria's wealthiest Moslem families.

On leaving Tunis last week, Belkacem Krim was agreeably surprised when representatives of the U.S. and British embassies were at the airport to see him off, thus reflecting the F.L.N.'s swift change from a pariah to a recognized organization. On landing in Geneva, Belkacem was welcomed by the ambassadors of Communist China and North Vietnam. Between these extremes lies the F.L.N.'s choice for the future.

Eased Out. Krim and his colleagues are shrewd and tough men who may be expected to give a good account of themselves at the wide bargaining table. But Krim's once authoritative role in F.L.N. counsels has diminished in the past 18 months, and he seems to have given ground to two younger and more hardbitten leaders--Communications Minister Abdelhafid Boussouf, 34, and narrow-eyed Interior Minister Abdellah ben Tobbal. 37. Heading up the so-called "Chinese faction" in the F.L.N. leadership, Boussouf and Ben Tobbal have remained at headquarters in Tunis, but have planted their own representatives on the delegation--a pair of obscure F.L.N. officers with the nominal rank of major--to keep an eye on Krim. Should negotiations succeed, Boussouf and Ben Tobbal can think of themselves as architects of Algerian independence. If negotiations fail, Belkacem Krim can be made scapegoat for having urged that talks be undertaken with France.

As the first meeting got under way at week's end, France's Louis Joxe opened with an announcement that De Gaulle had ordered 1) the liberation of 6,000 Algerians detained in camps, 2) the transfer of the prominent F.L.N. leader (and close friend of Belkacem Krim), Mohammed ben Bella from his island prison in the Bay of Biscay to a comfortable chateau in the Loire Valley, and 3) a cease-fire for the French army in Algeria, effective for one month. The French stipulated that the cease-fire would not apply in the border zones of Tunisia and Morocco, where the F.L.N. gets its supplies of men and munitions, nor would armed and uniformed F.L.N. bands be permitted to move about freely in Algeria.

Nevertheless, the package made a handsome peace offering. Now it was up to the rebels.

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