The Juin Affair

The only living Marshal of France was sacked for flouting orders and openly attacking government policy. The Premier of France was roughed up in a mob scene beneath the Arc de Triomphe. For 20 miserable minutes the Minister of Defense was surrounded and threatened by a muttering, gesticulating gang of Parisians. That, in brief, was what was going on in Paris while on the other side of the world, at Dienbienphu, soldiers of France fought to glory.

The man who lit the fuse was seven-starred Marshal Alphonse Juin, 65, first 'soldier of France, vice president of France's national defense council, commander in chief of the Central European forces of NATO. For publicly and roundly condemning the proposed European Army (which he was likely to command if it should materialize), blunt, impetuous Marshal Juin was summoned personally by Premier Joseph Laniel to the Hotel Matignon to give an account of his actions.

Juin refused to come. How about Thursday? Laniel suggested. "Impossible," said Juin. "I have to go to Germany."

The Premier, swallowing his indignation, then wrote: "Come to see me Wednesday," and sent the summons by messenger. But the messenger did not hand it personally to Juin, and the Marshal lost his temper at this breach of etiquette. "Another day," he retorted, "not tonight."

Laniel waited, nevertheless, confident that Juin would change his imperious mind and obey at the last moment. A clock chimed 7 p.m. No Marshal Juin. 7:15 p.m.: a bustle in the courtyard, and Defense Minister Pleven arrived. At 7:45 p.m., Laniel and Pleven walked out to the Premier's car. "Is Marshal Juin coming?" a waiting newsman asked. "No comment," said Laniel. The ministers drove to the Elysee Palace to confer with President Coty. Afterwards, Laniel summoned an emergency Cabinet meeting.

Ears & Guts. At 11:30 that night, 22 ministers somberly gathered at the Elysee. They were just in time to hear a full report on a cavalry officers' banquet held that same evening in the Bois de Boulogne. There, in splendid regalia, Marshal Alphonse Juin had made another speech --even more mocking than before. He did not take back a word about EDC. Marshal Juin, a graduate of St. Cyr (where he was a classmate of Charles de Gaulle), was utterly opposed to handing over the army of Napoleon and Foch to the dubious control of a hybrid international command. "I have always thought what I think now," he said. Like the Gaullists, Juin professed to favor German rearmament in some other form. But, like most other right-wing opponents of EDC, he left unexplained how a France which fears to rearm Germany with EDC restrictions would be persuaded to let Germany rearm without such restrictions.

To great applause, the Marshal announced that he was speaking for the good of France, to force the Cabinet to put EDC to a decision. Standing at ease at the banquet table, his epaulettes glittering, his voice tinged with a sneer, he slapped at the government. "What we really need is to have a government." Cabinets "without continuity" can do nothing, he complained, and appeals for, action are lost on "administrations without ears and without guts." His voice rose. "We are a great country which still has some good cards to play, but must know how to play them."

The Challenge. That did it. With a flick of his dress gloves, France's first soldier was challenging the authority and assaulting the integrity of France's civilian leaders. The Cabinet could not treat the challenge lightly. Marshal Juin is France's military hero, an idol of its officer corps.

A peppery disciplinarian with a splendid combat record (five times cited in dis patches, twice wounded, three times deco rated in the field), he is the only French man to hold one of the four top Euro pean commands in NATO. Tough and wiry, a born soldier and a patriot, he has a flair for fast horses, smart uniforms, brandy, and resounding candor. It was his candor and his refusal to curb it that proved Marshal Juin's undoing.

'As soon as he heard the report of Juin's speech to the cavalry officers, Defense Minister Pleven delivered an ultimatum: "Either he goes or I do." The Cabinet sided with Pleven. By 1 a.m., it 1) canceled Juin's right to advise on promotions of army generals, 2) removed him from the defense council, 3) deposed him from his position as chief adviser on military strategy. The State Secretary for War personally drove to Juin's home to tell him of the decision. "He will get this message personally, at least," a minister is reported to have said sarcastically.

Jostled Premier. All France rocked at the news. Gaullists booed and catcalled; Communists discovered that "militarist Juin" was really a fellow citizen resisting EDC. Premier Laniel had to stand before the excited National Assembly to justify his government's decision. "There is no question of being for or against EDC," he explained. "It is simply a matter of whether a servant of the state owes obedience to the state."

Laniel read some correspondence between himself and Juin. In one letter, Juin had written: "I will not be called on the carpet like a simple bugler . . ." Another: "I don't want to come to the Hotel Matignon and run into a crowd of newspapermen . . . waiting with curiosity for a man who is about to be thrashed with saddle straps." Said Laniel to the Assembly, with a sigh: "I told him he could use a side entrance, but his mind was made up." The National Assembly laughed--in sympathy with Premier Laniel and with civilian government. It supported the sacking of Marshal Juin. Juin indicated that he would quit his NATO job--but not until he was assured that another Frenchman would get it.

Outside, in the streets of Paris, the affair did not end so smoothly. At week's end, bands of right-wing students, veterans, followers of General de Gaulle and monarchists began parading and shouting, "Vive Juin!" Laniel and Pleven went to a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe for the fallen soldiers of Dienbienphu.

At the end of the ceremonies, a glowering, hostile crowd surrounded Laniel and Pleven. Gaullist hooligans lunged at them, shouting: "Resign! Resign!" Leaflets showered down: "They fired Juin today, will they arrest De Gaulle tomorrow?" A man shook his fist in the Defense Minister's face. Officials helped Laniel elbow his way to a police car. Police had to link arms and plow a path before Pleven could make it to his own car. "This is the first time such a disgraceful and disagreeable scene has ever occurred at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," said an official.

The demonstration was shocking enough, but the reports that went out to France and the rest of the world were even more shocking. Correspondents (including those of the Associated Press, United Press, New York Herald Tribune) reported colorfully, and in varying detail, that Pleven had been slapped, his hair pulled, his glasses knocked off, and that the Premier of France had been kicked--one said in the pants. "Both were jostled badly," said one of the demonstrators later, "but not hit. I am sorry Pleven was not mauled."

So the Marshal of France was fired. But his supporters had no intention of letting him fade away. Though he had often disavowed any political ambition, it remained to be seen whether Soldier Juin would become a power on the turbulent French political scene.

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