View from the Pique

After the Arabs and the Soviet Union, the most frustrated diplomatic casualty of the Middle East warfare was Charles de Gaulle. Even though his longtime friend and ally, Israel, had won its victory by the skillful use of French planes and tanks, the French President felt that he had been doublecrossed. "I told them: 'Don't be the first to attack,' " he remarked bitterly to a French Deputy. "Despite that, they did attack first. I hold it against them for having done that."

To make matters worse, the Israelis were not the only people who seemed to be studiously ignoring De Gaulle's advice. The Soviets scorned his appeal for a four-power conference on the Middle East. The U.S. spurned his counsels on Viet Nam. And then Red China unexpectedly exploded an H-bomb, ample proof that it had moved itself far in front of France in the nuclear sweepstakes.

After days of sulking, le grand Charles took out his pique in public. From the Middle East crisis to China's H-bomb, the cause of all the world's troubles, he declared, is the war "unleashed in Viet Nam by American intervention." Peace in the Middle East is only possible once conflict has ended in Viet Nam, he said, and that end can only be achieved "by America's pledging to withdraw its forces within a specified time." As for Israel, "France accepts as final none of the changes effected on the terrain through military action."

Gibes & Outrage. The response to such diatribes was as quick as it was predictable. In leftist Algeria, where France has a big stake in oil production, the semiofficial newspaper lauded De Gaulle's "customary lucidity," his "striking lesson of wisdom and political courage." L'Humanite, the French Communist daily, praised the President's stand. And the official French radio network ecstatically reported that "all eyes" in New York had suddenly swiveled toward Paris.

But the ludicrous sight of a disappointed politician trying to talk himself into a position of prominence only made material for cartoonists' gibes. Everyone was quick to recall how France had continued to supply arms to Israel right up to the moment that fighting began--and perhaps well after. And even as President De Gaulle decried world tensions, his high-pressure salesmen were doing their best to contribute to another arms buildup--this one in Latin America of all places--by trying to sell their newest antitank missiles and supersonic jets to Peru.

The French people, who are overwhelmingly in support of Israel, were outraged at De Gaulle's cynicism. And they made their displeasure known. Even the usually Gaullist daily, Paris Presse, reported that De Gaulle was being accused of "an acute attack of visceral anti-Americanism, megalomania, soliciting of Arab customers, and sabotage of the Johnson-Kosygin meeting." The editors' conclusion: "Not everything is wrong in these explanations."

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