SOME GENERAL COMMENTS, ENTRE NOUS...

"I WILL deny everything I have not written myself," De Gaulle once told an aide. That was just what he did last week in his reply to a question about his having said that he wanted to see Britain "stripped naked." "This is one of the phrases attributed to me," he said. "It seems that one even makes books of them, but they are only a distant reflection of my thoughts and words."

A lot of Frenchmen do not believe that, and the reason for their disbelief is that someone has indeed made book of De Gaulle's sayings over the years. The book is La Tragedie du General, now the No. 1 bestseller in France, and its author is Paris-Match Political Editor Jean-Raymond Tournoux, who conducted more than 1,000 interviews with several hundred people who had talked with De Gaulle over a period of 20 years. In a recent Paris-Match article, Tournoux quoted De Gaulle as saying: "England--I want her in the nude," meaning shorn of all economic and political power before admission to the Common Market. And like most of his bons mots, insists Tournoux, this one has been used by De Gaulle over and over in private conversations. "I was told this one by two ministers who are still in the government, by one minister who has since resigned and by two senior officials in the Quai d'Orsay. Moreover, Le Monde published the remark, quoting an ambassador, on May 19."

Such diligent documentation also characterizes Trageedie's rich farrago of Gaullicisms. De Gaulle may indeed disavow everything in the book, but nearly every acerbic quip and egocentric rumination has the ring of authentic Gaullist hubris. The general emerges as imperious in private as he is in public, but he seems even more petulant and petty. A sampling of his views:

On Mankind: The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.

On France: I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.

On the Americans: You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

On the French and the Americans: The French are weak, cowardly, intelligent. The Yanks are strong, brave and dumb.

On Everybody Else: The English are a nation of flunkies, the Germans a nation of pigs. Italy does not exist.

On Churchill: Churchill is a fighter, but not a true statesman. And then whisky clouds his moral sense.

On Truman: That little bastard imagines himself a patriot. It was really his street-fighting instinct that got him to react to the invasion of South Korea.

On Khrushchev: It is unpleasant to be dealing with a government whose leader is first presented as a demigod, then as a featherbrained, lamentable puppet.

On Johnson in 1963: The first act of his presidency was to announce that I would visit him in Washington. Johnson needs me for his reelection.

On the Marshall Plan: If the Americans pour so much money our way, it is to keep De Gaulle at bay.

On Viet Nam in 1951 (then Indo-China):We must learn how to suffer and not let go of Asia. We must stay in Korea and stay in Indo-China. It is possible to leave but these are solutions of defeat. For my part, I do not accept them.

On Ultimate Standards: Before giving a speech or making a major decision, I always ask myself: "Would General de Gaulle approve of it?"

On Retirement: The big thing in politics is to know when it is time to leave.

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