"It's Got to End"

The Europeans of Algeria last week were neither soothed by words nor pacified by bullets. From every quarter came appeals to reason. Pope John XXIII wired Archbishop Leon Duval of Algiers, lamenting the "sorrows striking the populations of this land so dear to us" and begging "God to restore concord and end the fratricidal combat." France's High Commissioner Christian Fouchet made a moving radio appeal to the "French of Algeria," asking them not to separate themselves from the homeland. But the Europeans mostly followed the stern orders of the Secret Army Organization's gunmen, who ordered them into the streets time and again to resist the inevitable force--and logic--of the decision of Charles de Gaulle.

Dainty Step. In Algiers, a crowd of European demonstrators marched down the Rue d'Isly, defiantly chorusing the stirring S.A.O. anthem, Chant des Afri cains. Facing them was a line of 30 young, battle-weary French soldiers, ten of them Moslems. Shots rang out from a corner balcony, and a soldier dropped to the street. Instantly, the others emptied their machine pistols at the marchers.

An old man was cut nearly in half. A woman wearing dark glasses screamed, "Stop firing! My God, we're French . . .!" Then she stood quietly, holding her side, while blood flowed beneath her topcoat and down her legs. Her glasses started to fall off, and she reached up and carefully replaced them. Suddenly, she toppled, dead.

The street was littered with 50 slain Europeans and 150 wounded. The line of soldiers who had fired, pulled out the empty clips, reloaded and fired again, now stood speechless and dazed. Their steaming machine pistols lay on the pavement where they had dropped them. Four soldiers were sobbing, and the rest, said a spectator, looked "like boys who have been caught smoking behind the barn." In the hard-pressed morgue, the naked bodies were laid in rows, men and women intermingled. Lacking refrigeration, morgue attendants were limited to hosing down the corpses with cold water. In the middle of the night, the bodies were moved out to Algiers' four main cemeteries.

Algiers has lived so intimately with violence that well-dressed women are accustomed to step daintily over the bodies of murdered Moslems with scarcely more than mild distaste. But the slaughter in the Rue d'Isly seemed unbelievable--for the dead this time were French middle-class civilians, shot down by French soldiers. Votive candles flickered where the demonstrators had fallen. A bloodstained raincoat and a pair of women's shoes were placed at the foot of a tree, flanked by bouquets of red carnations and white daisies. Bitterness remained: a hand-lettered sign read, "The real assassin is De Gaulle." Flight to Death? The suburb of Bab-el-Oued, where fighting had first broken out between S.A.O. terrorists and French troops, was sealed tight for six days by a cordon of 10,000 soldiers. House-to-house searches turned up 1,000 weapons as well as stocks of ammunition, grenades and plastic bombs. Over 3,000 suspects were arrested, but the army admitted that top S.A.O. leaders had escaped the dragnet.

In Oran, the army had better luck. Troops searching an apartment block turned up a bearded man with curious credentials; after hours of interrogation, he admitted that he was ex-General Edmond Jouhaud, the S.A.O.'s No. 2 man. Jouhaud was promptly flown to France for the trial that might cost him his life.

In Paris, President Charles de Gaulle, on a nationwide broadcast, said the struggle in Algeria "no longer makes sense." The new Algeria, he declared, "will respect the interest of our country and provide the necessary guarantees for the community of French stock." On April 8, the voters of Metropolitan France will say yes or no to De Gaulle's solution of the Algerian problem, and he asked that the nation reply "affirmatively and massively." Virtually every political party has rallied to De Gaulle's support. Socialist Leader Guy Mollet said flatly, "The sense of our 'Yes' is to make the criminals who want to prevent peace in Algeria understand that the French nation is unanimously determined to crush their enterprise." Communist Boss Maurice Thorez complained that De Gaulle had stolen "our policies" but said that Reds would vote yes because "it's peace that counts."

Double Jeopardy. During its transition period from French possession to independence (an estimated three to six months), Algeria will be governed by a twelve-man Provisional Executive headed by Moslem Businessman Abderrahmane Fares, 50, released only last month from Fresnes prison, outside Paris. A helicopter touched down last week at the administrative center of Rocher Noir, 25 miles from Algiers, and out stepped Fares, a stooped, balding man in a rumpled grey suit, followed by his attractive French wife and his teen-age son and daughter (another son is a soldier with the F.L.N.).

Fares told newsmen that he thought Rocher Noir a "delightful place" and that he had spent a beach holiday there when he was eleven years old. "But when I say it's delightful," he added. "I don't mean we intend to stay here an eternity. I intend going into Algiers as soon as possible. Algeria without Algiers, is nothing." Fares, like the other members of the Executive, knows he is a priority target for the S.A.O. Dr. Jean Mannini. one of the three European members of the Executive, lost a leg in an F.L.N. attack in 1958. now risks his life against the S.A.O.

Where words and bullets have failed against the Europeans, economics may succeed. Shopkeepers and factory owners face ruin as the result of prolonged strikes, failures in communications, and war damage. Fruit and vegetables lie rotting in trucks and on farms. Stocks have fallen so low that it is impossible to buy such ordinary staples as shoelaces, but the S.A.O. still insists that all Europeans meet special "tax" levies. An Oran restaurateur says. ''Of course I'm proud of my support of the S.A.O., but it's costing me $800 in business each day, and I can't go on forever." Movie theaters, cafes and hotels are virtually empty. Department stores are closing down charge accounts, and many Moslems long ago stopped paying bills in anticipation of independence.

The tough young Europeans enrolled in S.A.O. last week continued to kill 10 to 20 Moslems daily and to shout their defiance of the French Army and De Gaulle. But Europeans over 40, mourning the loss of beloved friends and relatives in the bloodshed, watching the slow death of long-cherished businesses, and sensing the decay of human decency around them, could only say, "Il faut que cela finisse: It's got to end."

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