Le Putsch a Froid?

In Algiers last week, an average of ten people a day were shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death. Between murders, the city rocked to the explosion of plastic bombs and to the dishpan clamor of Europeans who poured into the streets shouting "Algerie Franfaise!" and "De Gaulle au poteau!" (De Gaulle to the gallows). Once the bitter war in Algeria was fought between the French and the Moslems.

Now it is fought mostly between French and French--those who back Charles de Gaulle in his desperate efforts to negotiate an agreement that will hand over Algeria to the Moslems, and those who are fanat ical followers of France's ex-General Raoul Salan and his so-called Secret Army Organization, dedicated at all cost to keeping Algeria in the hands of its big (1,000,000) European population.

Distrusted Guards. The few French policemen and officials remaining loyal to De Gaulle are no longer the hunters but the hunted. Changing cars frequently, they move from one hiding place to the other and are surrounded by armed guards that they cannot always trust. The real government of Algiers seems to be in the hands of Salan and the S.A.O., which can apparently commit any crime with impunity. The few who are captured and brought to trial expect--and get--clemency from their intimidated judges.

The S.A.O. last week reached out be yond the borders of Algeria. At Alenc,on in Normandy, an S.A.O. gunman murdered a Communist Party organizer who had formerly lived in Algiers; in Paris a carload of S.A.O. terrorists shot up Communist headquarters and wounded a night watchman. An S.A.O. theft of 297 Ibs. of plastic explosive from a U.S. Army base was followed by the seizure of small arms and munitions at the French army's Camp Satory, near Paris.

Then the S.A.O. turned to Italy. Last summer they had sent a death warning to Italy's top industrialist, Enrico Mattei, because they suspected that he had made a deal with the rebel Moslem F.L.N. to exploit Saharan oil once France pulls out of Algeria. Last week, at Rome's Urbe airport, mechanics warmed up Mattei's sleek, twin-jet executive plane to carry him on a flight to Morocco to dedicate a new oil refinery at Mohammedia, where the top leadership of the F.L.N. was meeting. Hearing a peculiar noise in one of the French-built jet engines, the mechanics found that a heavy, twisted screwdriver had been taped to the inside. The screwdriver was meant to loosen in flight and be sucked into the jet's moving parts, causing a midair explosion. Mattei canceled his trip.

At first, the Moslem F.L.N. rebels had airily dismissed the S.A.O. as no concern of theirs--it was. they said, simply an affair between Frenchmen. But with the mounting murders, this attitude changed last week. Premier Benyoussef Benkhedda, Vice Premier Belkacem Krim, and the rest of the F.L.N. cabinet met in Morocco, then issued an official communique bluntly declaring war on the S.A.O. and warning that S.A.O. activities could "jeopardize" the interests of the European minority in Algeria.

Was the S.A.O. getting ready for a grand uprising to prevent Algeria's turnover to the Moslems? Many thought so. On the other hand, a new term was heard in French political conversation: le putsch `a froid. In a "cold putsch" the S.A.O. would simply continue its detailed terrorism indefinitely, until (or so S.A.O. supporters hoped) the French government's authority was totally destroyed and the fanatical rightists could take over.

At week's end the S.A.O. increased the pressure by a broadcast over a secret radio transmitter urging all Algerians to stockpile two months' food supplies and to immediately withdraw their bank savings. The broadcaster signed off with an ominous-sounding code message: "The orange trees will soon blossom anew."

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