Plain Talk

Two hours after the French government announced that Premier Guy Mollet had accepted an invitation to visit Moscow in May, his fellow Socialist, Foreign Minister Christian Pineau, unburdened himself of the sharpest talk any French foreign minister had directed at France's allies in years. Addressing the Anglo-American press club, Pineau declared bluntly: "I am in deep disagreement with the policy followed by the Western nations during recent years." His thesis: "We have made an enormous mistake in deciding that security problems were the only international problems we had to worry about. Of course we need security. Of course we need strong armies. But need we talk of this all the time?"

Pineau pointed to SEATO's recent naval and military maneuvers off Thailand. "Do you really think that, in this atomic era, this handful of ships will give the impression that the West is the leader of the world? The Bulganin-Khrushchev tour of India was much more important. If the West does not make an effort in the direction of propositions of peace, we shall be beaten first on the field of propaganda and then on that of policy."

As for France's friends, "despite alliances, despite affirmations, there is no real common French-British-American policy today," said Pineau. He pointed to North Africa, where France blames much of its troubles on tacit U.S. support of the Arabs. "We have the impression that behind certain forms of rebellion and of propaganda there lurks the desire of certain powers to swallow up the heritage of France." Turning on the Americans present, he reproached the U.S. for backing the government of Ngo Dinh Diem against the French: "Each time you Americans do something wrong, you do it with the best of intentions. If there had been full cooperation on Indo-China, we would not have arrived where we are today."

Pineau spoke with the acerbity of a Frenchman sick and tired of hearing only criticism from his allies. His speech made no stir in France, a nation oppressed by long years of retreat and humiliation, and all too ready to believe that the fault must be somewhere else.

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