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clamp d o w ~ n l i ~ x u ~ ymports, an
additional loss t o importers, mer-
ch,antsand servlce rades. How will
Castro car ry’ou t his ambitious pub-
lic-housing, school-buildmg, factory-
building,arsh-drainingrojects
without,money? A few token and
resegtlements have beenmade, but
how will heprovide th e promised
f a rm equipment, nimals, seed andtechnicalssistance? How pay for
theaddi tiona l and hat will be re-
quired’?Yet unless he canpromote
considerable land diversification, get
a. few more consumer industries go-ing, provideadequate food fo r he
ruralopulation and’ aegree of
economic ecurity,hes sunk and
civil liberties are sunk. T h e needs of
the people aregreat,and th e pos-
sibilities of new disaster loom even
greater.
NonethelessCuba about t h esize of England, with four times the
amount of arable l a n d a n d MO S t af
i t f a r moreertile,wlth mneral
wealth tha t ipcludes copper,, nickel,
manganese ndone of the world’s
great ironsupplies(now beingheld
in reserve by American corporations),
andwith less than seven million
population ould become one of
the wodd’s rchest a n d most prosy
perous nationsnstead sf being ablot on t11e freeworld. What itneeds is honesty, inltlative and some
outside help.
One of Castro7splans is to make
Cuba self-sufficient in rice produc-
tion ot an unreasonable dea,
given the soil andclimate;Ecuador
and Panama both accomplished i t inrecent years. But here too there
hangs a tale. Great increases n rice
and andproductionwere eriously
attempted y,Cuba in the early
thirties, bu t he much-touted reci-procity treaty with the United States
knocked therojects on the hea
Nearly all of Cuba’s rice has be
coming from Louisiana. The Cuba
wanted to keep rice and lard off t
free ist. It mayhave been pure
coincidence that he American Ambassador at t h e tlmecame rom
big rice and hog-growing plantati
family in Louisiana. Furthermo
the reclprocity treaty obliged Cut o buy almostxclusively in T
high-priced American market, pr
venting I t from takin g advantage
lower-priced goods from German
England, Japan and Italy.
Cubahas been cooperatingwith
the United State s fora long timThe wry Cu b a n saying is, whenev
the going gets rough, “Cuba is
cork; i t always loats.” But acor
can do a lot of tossing. Cubanshav
been seaslck forwoenerations.
Theyre likely to be seasickwhile longer.
De GAULLE: THE FI ST YEAR y Alexander Werth
ParisPERHAPS THE GREAT change
tha t has occurred nEurope in th e
Iast two or three weeks may best be
described by quoting rominent
Soviet official whom I‘ met a fewdays fter he nnouncement hat
Mr. Adenauer was relinquishing t h eWest German Chancellorship.
“I think tprettycertain, now,”
he said, “tha t there will be no War.”
“Did you eyer eally think here
wight be one over Berlin?” I asked,
somewhat surprised.
“Therewas always th e danger,”
the Sovietofficialreplied, “that we
might have drawn 30 near the brink
that we would havehad o esortto he kind of corqpromise which
could lead only to new incidents and
new perils. I think t h e world should
be grateful t o Britain-the press, th e
Labor Party, , theldermaston
march or showing more realism
than the rest of th e world.”
A few day,s-Jater, I met the same
official. Hesaid:
ALEXANDER WBRTH is Th e Na-
tion’s PqrGr coryespondemt
. ~ - ~ _ i ” . . .
“Mr. Dulles was becoming more
reasonable ately, but probably we
will be till aferwith Mr. Herter.
And my ountrymen redelighted
thatMr . Nixon will visit Moscow;be got oq surprisingly well with Mr. ’
Mikoyan in Washington. In general,
flexibility is making so much progress
in th e West that I think you’ll h d
Z J more flexible. There’s a fair chance
now that we may agree on apeace
treaty, with some kind of confedera-
tion of the two Germanies; on a
number of disengagementproposals
and on a U,N,-controlled West Ber-
lin.”
I QUOTE hisauthoritativeSovietviewbecause i t seems to sum up
the reasons why there’s ground foroptimism on both sides. A curious
anomaly is de Gaulle’s belated self-
identificationith th e Adenauer
policy of no clisengagemgnt of any
kznd. But heway hingshave de-
veloped lately, i t seems unIlkely tha t
France will beable tostand alone
for a wholly rigid attitude, especially
after the recent DebrC visit t o Lon-
don, where Macmlllan partially won
himover Debrkwasnot all th
pro-Adenauer, anyway)ohe
Britishviewpoint. So some ethink
ing is going on at he op in Pa
a t the moment.
Not that, on the face o tbing
the Frenchublic seems to are
muchone wayoranother. ndeed,
after a year of de Gaulle, one could
argue that he Frenchpeople ha
become apolitical, preferring t o lea
everything to th e “great man” wh
while not infallible, is “better nd
morehonest thananybody else.”
Paradoxically, there is still a stro
prejudice n favor of deGaulle
the Left. True, he is not popular
the hysterical way ‘Hitl er. wasGermany, or General Boulanger wa
m France. There is nothing emotio
l or even irrational in the worsh
of him. His publicppearances
‘arousenopopularenthusiasm.But
nearly everybody somehow imagin
that to suppor t de Gaulle is rearo
able because he epresents a co
promisebetween twoextremes; b
cause he represents not a revoluti
but merely the preservation of
(slightlymodified) 5tatzcs qvo.
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doubt, heconstitution of the FilthRepubllc is a monstrosity; but so
lpng as de Gaulle is in charge, there
is llttle t o worry bout.Andyou
wilI flnd old-fashioned iberals whoexpress atisfaction at he hought
that,af ter all, since deGaullehas
Taken over, personal reedoms Seem
to be more respected than they were
‘;n ‘the bad ast fewmonths of theFourth Republic. M TrCno, the
witty, whimsical editor of the Ca
nard @tclzfl..il~e’ theestatirical
weekly in France, oldme ecently
that he had far less trouble with t h eautlloritiesodayhanreviously,
and tha t he sales of hispaperare
soaringnow that hebulk of the
press ad ecome compIeteIy on-formist. ndeed, M. TrCno toldme
that d e Gaulle himself tookgreat
pleasure, every Wednesday, in read-
ing he ann ld ’~wisecracks ’and n
try ing to figure out who had “leak-
ed” t o the pap er inside nformation
about the last cabine t session.
AND WHO cares here about Berlin?
No doubt, there’sa kind of tongue-
in-cheek att itud e oward he ques-
tion: everybody realizes that France,
thebulk of whoseorces reied
up in Algeria, is in no good positlon
to play at a great European policy.
WhetherdeGaullehadany nten-
tlon originally t o revert t o his 1944-
4 5 “between-East-and-West” olicy
(which Moscow was hoping for), he
had ittle choice but to stick to the
AtlanticPactand NATO assummg
a t the same time a r ather independ-
ent air by playing off Western Ger-
many against Britain. But most ob-
seniers believe de Gaulle’s show of
independence is littlemorehan
camouflageor rance’sopelessly
weak ,military position in Europe;
and he gang-upwithAdenauer is
Vot necessarily anymore enuine
than the almostopenbreachwithMacmdlan.A ewobserversdiffer,
however, with hisview. A leadmg
British diplomat spoke in a11 serious-
ness tome of de Gaulle’s genuine
apbitios to make the present Franco-
Germqn repprpcheqe zt the basis for
9 new 66 Charlemagne’s Empire”-a
crazy ormuladeGaulle conceived
back in 1951, ButdeGaulle hirn-self implicitlydenies any such de-
signs; lje is talking biq abou t a much
greater Europe embrac in4 the vyhole
w m 95?
Slav world,urging Khrushchevnot
tobe “sdly’3 about so unimportant
a matter as Berlin In fact, he even
went urther:he dismissed all th e
quarrels over Germany and Berlin as
‘insignificant, andrged a global
reconciliationwiththeaying of
man” a s theultimateoblect, an,d
wlth France forming, a s it were, the
center of this world-saving system.Only, as Beuve-M6ry of L e Mo.nde
wrote on the followmg day, all this
appeal for Man and €or Human Dig-
nity would sound a little more con-
vincing if it were to meetwithan
immediateresponse in Algeria,
“where, in themidst of blood and
tears, nd theprice of terri ble
mutual degradations,an ncreasing-
ly meaningless and senseless war is
continuing.” This wa r is now costing
France 1,000 billion francsyear.
Not only is it having a fairly serious
effect on the standard of living here,
but i t is weakening France nterna-
tionally,and is costingheraround
one hundred young men a week.
I t ir begiwz ing t o threaten t he
de Caz d le r e g i m e i t rel f . De Gaulle
is vaguelyaware of this. He knows
thatheConstantine Program for
thedevelopment of Algeria,predi-
cated on largeFrensh rivate in-
vestments i p Algeria, is meeting with
increasing opposition from Big Busi-
ness, whlch is not ready o risk its
money as long as the war continuestoendernvestments ighly re-’
carious. Big Business (or, at ny
rate,asubstantialpart of i t ) is in
favor of winding up the Algerian
war, iE possible. And, as the recent
municipal elections showed, the elec-
torate, despite outward appearances,
IS farromndifferent t o Algeria;
and i t is now obvious th at t he votes
for deaulleuheeptember
seferendum and for the “Gaullists”
In the November election were large-
ly ictated yhe hope tha t eGaullewouldnd t h e war.ince
nothinghadhappened by the ime
of t h e municipallectionspur
montlls ater, heelectorate ended
to tur n against heGaullists, if not
againstdeGaulle himself.Cornmu-
nistswhohadvoted ordeGaulle
in the referendumnowwentback
to voting Communist. In bout a
quarter of th e bigger provincial con-
stituencies the Socialists, sick of Guy
Mollet, ganged up wlth the Coqmu-
nists, so much. so that i t was possibl
for the first time in ma ny ye ar s to
speak of a Popular Front eviving
inrance. No doubtherewere
mental eservations on both side
but the fact that a high proportion
of Sociallstswas n o longerwilling
to obey Mollet’s orders t o “keep ou
the Communists” at any plice (even
at th e price of lettmg in the Gad lisandeactionaries) was slgniflcan
Th e “anti-Fascist” movement, which
faded so lamentably t o materializ
when theourthepublicas
threatened with extinction last May,
washowing igns of coming int
being--lf onlyasaprotestagainst
th e’ Algerianwar.
And I f the left-wingvictory wa
not amoreweeping ne, it va
because there continiles to be a wide
spread belief that, in the end, d
Gaulle is determined to mak e peac
in Algeria, though on whaterms
stillremains ;L mystery.
The big press we 0 de Gade OW
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comer n o t ‘from he Left but fromt h e e x t r eme Right By this I do nor
mean Big Business, which is essen-
t~ al ly Gaullist,” bu t from the large
Fascist ringe of theEuropean Al-
gerians and of the Army.
Some observers, like Claude Bour-
der, think i t not improbable that, to
appease th e Army and the extremlsts,
de GauIlc will give the right-wingandro-Fascist elements-particu-
larlynhe Army-a muchreer
hand in Fra nc ek re tu rn for a peace
settlement in Algeria. Another’pos-
sibility is th at the Berlin crisis (when
it comes) will’ give deGaulle n
excuse for proclaiming an emergency
situation in which the prksent free-
dom of the press, for example, wouldbeabolished-much to the satisfac-
tion of the Algiers u tms wh o have
formonths been screaming or th e
suppression of the “treason press.”A more ptimistic view .is t h a t
de Gaulle will refuse t o surrender
to the Army and the Algiers ultim
but will waituntilgeneral dissatis-
factionw~lllhave grown sufficiently
(because of economic difficulties,
Algeria, etc.) t o enablehim t o dis-
solve th e present National Assembly,
with its incredibleight-wingnd
71Lt.r.nmajority, and to hold new elec-
tions which ‘would produce a left-
wing majority. This would be more
representative than he present As
-
sembly (in which the 200 odd“Ganlhst” ‘deputies represent 19,000voters each, as against t h e ten Corn-munist depuries represgnting 4OO OOO
voters each)’. F o r ,what it.ls worth,
the atest ofiinion -poll shows tliat
63 per -cent of the French wa nt a
n’egoriated peace ili Algeria; this
.widh’is certa inly nbt reflected in the
compositionI of &e, pr isent Assembly.
IT S E E M S that.a large part of thenon-Communist ,Left,JS -hoping €or
an early dissohtion of ’parlialnerit.
Is this‘theresult of wis&ful thiok-i ? Wh at’ does the,non-Com‘munist
Left re‘preseht, anyhay? Ubw big a
force can i t become without join-
ing forces with the Communists who,
in a general election ‘ tod,ay, would
again have over ive million votes?
Instinctively,growingproportion
of Socialists, though istrustful ofthe Communists, have been pre-
ferring an alliance withhemo
toeing theGu y Mollet line; this
process P o d d undoubtedlybe in-tensified;iif the Fascistmenace became accentuated. The role of Men-
dksiErance is of doubtful importance
at he Moment; he epresents no t
a political orce but atheran in-tellectual attitude. I n any case heis certainly not seeking a rapproche-ment with the Communists, r any-
thing resembling a PopularFront.
Other left-wingers,” ostensibly le
hostlle to he PopularFront, clai
tha t the , impossibility of’ Laving on
mpst be attributed ‘to the ‘domina
role the Communists would’want ‘
play ; i t (which, numerically,
any ’ rate, is understandable); i
truth , the Communist “obstruction
has, n fact, been greatly exaggerate
nQtably in the pro-Bevan pressEngland.Otherstill,ikeCIaude
Bourdet, hold th$t any alliance wlt
th e Communists (even “acainst fas-
cism”) is doomed to failure, so lon
asThorez s “still a Stalinand no
a Khrushchev.” In reality, it seemthat the futur e of the Popular Fron
largelydepends on de ‘Gaulle him
self. If he gives in to the Army and
the ultrar and a serious Fasci
th reat in France develops, there w
be aPopularFront,whatever th
intellectuals may say. If de Gaulbehaves in a reasonably liberal rnan
ner, keeps the Army inorderand
holds out theprospect of. an Algeria
settlement before very long, and
also economic conditions do not d
.teriorate disastrously, then there w
be no need for one.
Meanwhile, watch out for May 1th e anniversary of the “.revolution
Somethingmay appenhat ay.
Anotherevolution?No . B u t ,pe
haps some kicd of showdown force
by the Right.
v
WE, AMERICANS have been neg-
lectingur iherkage. Seduced by
such riviaasnatlonalsecurity, the
education of our children and he
explorationof’
uter space, we haveallowed th e tr ue essence of America
t o ’ sicken near unto death.
Minor-leagueaseballlubs are
losipg money. Many small boxing
arenasare being forced intobank-
ruptcy.Television as ltered th e
delicateinancialmachinery which
ROBERT COULSON is c1 member
of the Illi x State L e g i d a t w e
t h e state represeated in the Ameri-can Eeague b y those p e r e m i d mw
mers-up the Chicago WhiteSox
4 45
once permitted fortunes to be wominthe minor leagues of sport. Soon,
unless we act quickly, wisely and
courageously, the salaries and bo
nusespaid to players ‘will diminish,promoters will turn heirattention
toothermatters nd thletes willbecome champions merely by eating
Wheaties.
T h e loss of money is not important ; the promoters, impresarios and
managershave. assured us of that.
What +lorries Ithem is thegradual
loss of.’skill whith will afflict our
minor-league athletes.nevitably,
thequality o€-play in ’the larger
arenas will deteriorate. Our future
boxing. champions will suffer from
comparison wit h he champions
old. Major-league baseball gam
will have more errors, fewer hits an
less curve-ballitching. Worst
all, the performerswho might havbecome champions will abandon the
sp or t o become coaches, salesme
laborersor andidates orpolitical
office.
It is this last spec ter which haun
rhe impresarios, andprompts hem
to appeal t o Congress and he S
preme Court for special rulings, ne
laws and personalexemptions rom
the Constitution which defines t
rights of the rest of us. If we fail
save baseball and boxing from t
competition of free‘ tdevision, t2 5 NC T
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