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A week ago a lot of Frenchmen were pretty worried, among them was Mr. M. Daladier. Here he was, just back from Tunis and Algiers, very popular as a result of his successful tour, which had been not only a personal success for him but a brilliant demonstration of the idiocy of the Italian claims on Tunis and Corsica. Not a single Corsican, or Tunisian, or Algerian wanted to become Italian. Even the Italians in Tunisia had hastened to apply for French citizenship-- 25,000 out of about 95,000 in the last two months-- since the row in Rome started. The French empire had never displayed its loyalty to France with greater vigor. It was a great triumph for M. Daladier.

The article focuses on the prevalence of concept of polycentrism, which is gradually being accepted by various countries in Europe. The fact of polycentrism was first established by Tito in 1948, and the word was coined by Palmiro Togliatti, that very remarkable man and thinker who, until his death in 1964, had for many years headed the Italian Communist Party. One of the slowest in the West to accept "polycentrism" was the French Communist Party which, under the leadership of Maurice Thorez, remained firmly subservient to the concept. But Thorez died in 1964, and his successor, Juan Waldeck-Rochet, has moved the French party (second in size only to the Italian in the countries of the capitalist West) more and more toward polycentrism.

The article discusses the Russian invasion in the Czechoslovakia in 1968, including issues such as Czech public opinion of the invasion, political resistance to Russian foreign policies, and Soviet party leadership. Czech President Ludvík Svoboda and politicians Alexander Dubcek are mentioned, as well as communist public opinion in Europe and liberalism in Czechoslovakia.

This can, obviously, be only a preliminary report on those three or rather, four weeks that shook not only France but the whole of Europe, and after which nothing will ever be the same again. The financial and economic consequences are at the moment totally unpredictable, except for the now general conviction that, after the steep rise in wages following the de facto general strike, which at the peak involved as many as 10 million wage earners. France's competitive power within the European Common Market has been thrown out of gear. Only a few weeks ago, the prestige of the French franc was such that unlimited sums could be taken out of the country, and when a panic seized the bourgeoisie, hundreds dashed in their cars to Switzerland, with trunks filled with 500-franc banknotes.

According to the author, a World War II experience of his illustrates, he thinks, an important psychological aspect of the Soviet Union's success in the Arab world. In December 1943, soon after the Teheran, Iran Conference, and while nothing very important was happening on the Russo-German front, the author had the opportunity to get a free ride in an American Embassy plane from Moscow, Russia to Teheran, Iran, and then to Cairo, Egypt. Cairo was then under British occupation. The atmosphere in Egypt was unpleasant. The contempt shown by the British on every occasion and at every level deeply offended the Egyptians, and the Russians were fully aware of it. The newly appointed Soviet Minister in Cairo, Nikolai Novikov, invited the author to launch; several Egyptians were also guests. Among Egyptians this made a tremendous impression. For variety of reasons, this budding wartime friendship between the Soviet Union and Egypt did not burst into flower after the war.

There is something terribly chancy about jubilees, and the present Soviet Union Government is lucky that the half century anniversary falls in 1967. Two factors are of the utmost importance to the quality of life in present-day Soviet Union. First, the people are offered an absolutely free and highly efficient medical service. The country's infant mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world, and Soviets now live so long that the many millions of old-age pensioners have become a major financial problem for the state. The second factor is education. Soviets now gives the impression of being perhaps the best-educated, most literate nation in the world, one seized with a genuine passion for education and "culture."

This article describes the trip of Soviet Union Prime Minister Aleksey Kosygin to France. The visit was colorless, as it were, not very different from dozens of other Soviet top diplomats and functionaries who had visited Soviet Union earlier. True although he is only head of the government and not head of state, he received head-of-state treatment, French premier driving to Orly airport to welcome him. Kyosgin's visit to France has not produced anything world shaking, plenty of good will, but no agreement, so far on nonproliferation, or on Germany.

This article describes the concern of the Soviet Union on the Vietnamese conflict. Soviet Union today is a flourishing economic concern and, having lost 20 million people in a war that ended only twenty years ago, there is nothing its people hate more than the thought of another which would-to say the least-ruin. Once again its hard-won prosperity. That is why, even in the holiday atmosphere of August, the war in Vietnam is causing the greatest anxiety. Everyone in the Soviet Union hopes that Vietnam will resist long enough to make a switch in the U.S. opinion inevitable.

The article presents information on the book "Akhmatova: Tragic Queen Anna," by Alexander Werth. The book discusses Anna Akhmatova, who was not only a great lady but also a great queen. It was during the last years of her life that she was fully "rehabilitated" by the Soviet establishment and was elected to the Presidium of the Russian Writers' Union two years ago. She was allowed to receive belated recognition abroad; last year she was awarded Italy's Etna-Taormina Prize and given an honorary degree at Oxford.

The article presents information about international politics. The firemen's strike in New York City was absurd; it was also inevitable under the conditions the union faced. The history must be taken into account. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen is no aggregation of hastily organized, downtrodden workers. It was founded in 1873, at the height of the railroad age, and American labor generally owes much to it and the other rail unions. But it has fallen on evil days. The wives often the widows of Americans serving in Vietnam have been receiving in recent months abusive, jeering and threatening phone calls. The incidents have risen into the hundreds, but thus far not a single one of them has been traced, and in the absence of information it is difficult to conceive what sort of diseased personalities are perpetrating them.

This month, the Common Market crisis, which had dragged on for more than half a year, at last came to a reasonably satisfactory end. Weighing up the pros and cons, all the six decided that it was in their interests to let the Common Market continue. During the campaign, French President Charles de Gaulle became acutely aware that if France strongly approved his foreign policy in respect of NATO, Atlantic Alliance, Vietnam and rapprochement with the Russians, the country, particularly the French farmers, was made exceedingly nervous by the thought that the Common Market might disintegrate if de Gaulle persisted in his tough policy, as illustrated by the June 30 break-up at Brussels.

France had generally assumed that General and statesman Charles de Gaulle, would run for President in the December 5, 1965 election. Not that the French people as' a whole had been uncritical of de Gaulle But they foresaw a long period of political, unrest and confusion if he did not stand. The voting, one may be sure, will be marked by a certain emotionalism, and public opinion polls, for what they are worth, suggest that the women's vote is more wholeheartedly "Gaullist" than the men's. Hence the eagerness with winch de Gaulle's government hastened to show interest in birth control, after M. Mitterrand the rival "Left" candidate, advocated the repeal of a 1920 law tin banned birth-control propaganda and services.

This article presents the author's experience of twentieth anniversary of Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, Soviet Union. The celebrations were both a commemorative ceremony to honor those who had died in the World War II and a self-congratulatory ceremony to celebrate the great postwar reconstruction and economic progress. The ceremonies were also intended as a special tribute to the army. The one thing of which the Russians are absolutely certain is that, what with Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, the United States is rapidly becoming the most generally detested country throughout the Afro-Asian world and will shortly be as heartily loathed throughout Latin America.

Funny things are happening about religion in Russia. Most of the churches seem to be used as warehouses, and there are no signs of much Sunday churchgoing. "Bezbozhnik," the anti-God paper, and the whole of it was devoted to indignant denunciations of the Nazi persecutions of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany. There were several long articles on the subject. Clearly, the Russian administration is working for the greatest unity among the Russian people, and anti-religious propaganda is one of the things which has completely vanished since this war began. However, the volte-face of the "Bezbozhnik" is just a trifle blatant.

The tragic results of the U.S. President's loyalty program in terms of needless suffering, wrecked careers and a sabotaging of traditional American liberties is nowhere more succinctly covered than in the recent pamphlet "Loyalty in a Democracy" published by the Public Affairs Committee. Summarizing various viewpoints, the pamphlet reviews the abuses, which have developed in legislative and private investigations and in the enactment of loyalty oath requirements. If the experience thus far shows anything, it holds, it is that grave abuses are almost inevitable once one begins inquiring into men's minds and possible motive.

The article focuses on the attitude of Scandinavian countries towards the Atlantic Pact. Sweden and Norway both have Socialist governments, but Norway is wholeheartedly in favor of the Atlantic Pact and Sweden is politically and temperamentally neutral. Norway has strong pacifist traditions, and neutralist currents can be seen even within the Labor Party. Denmark is ruled by a coalition of Agrarians and Conservatives but has an effective socialist opposition. All three countries are in the process of rearming and caught in the dilemma of rearmament versus better living standards.

The article presents some political updates. It highlights that by suspending for ninety days the operation of the Kem amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act, the U.S. National Security Council has postponed a near debacle. But only postponed it. With the fire-eaters in the U.S. Congress already shouting treason and sellout, the U.S. government will have to move fast to produce a workable substitute plan within the three months' period of grace. The Kem amendment would deny American aid to all countries that continue to ship to countries in the Soviet bloc any of a vast catalogue of materials whose export to that area have been banned. The list includes thousands of items whose relationship to war could not be discerned even by the eagle eye of a Republican Senator.

The article focuses on the political challenges faced by French Government under the Prime Minister M. Pleven. A vague resentment is felt everywhere against Pleven for two reasons. He refused to do anything about the economic difficulties, trying instead, to square the circle of electoral reform and his foreign policy could not have been more timid or less imaginative. The cost of living increased, bus and taxi fares in Paris went up; food prices were rising. The Pleven government has been content to purge the administration of Communists, to deport without trial numerous Spanish Communists and other republicans, to get the police to tear down Communist posters against German rearmament.

In December 1948, it was said that Soviet diplomat and jurist Andrei Y. Vishinsky would address a solemn warning to the Western powers, "Hands off the Balkans!" Thereupon Hungarian, Rumanian, Bulgarian and Albanian troops will invade Yugoslavia and set up a Cominform government, after which the war in Yugoslavia will become almost a purely Yugoslav affair. The weakness lies in the two facts that Yugoslavs have a large army, estimated by Western observers at 500,000 to 600,000, which, though not particularly well armed, can cope with Hungarians and Bulgars and that Albanian and Rumanian troops could in no case be relied upon to fight Yugoslavs.

When Socialist Guy Mollet visited Algiers as Premier of France, he was smothered with tomatoes. General Charles de Gaulle was welcomed there with the deafening cries' of a hundred thousand Europeans and was smothered with flowers. Herein lies the embodiment of Algiers' victory over France. Yet the enthusiasm for de Gaulle was perhaps more apparent than real. The Algiers radio, from which Paris radiomen were excluded, continued to stress that the enthusiasm for Soustelle was equal to, if not greater than, that for the general. The question asked in Paris today is whether de Gaulle in Algeria feels himself to be on friendly or enemy territory.

The article presents information on foreign policy matter relating to United States. US Vice President Richard M. Nixon's report on his recent South American trip contains two divergent lines of thought. What one need, he said, is a new grass-roots diplomacy with less emphasis on "cocktails and white-tie dinners" and less hospitality for recently deposed dictators. Later in the speech he observed that the success of his mission would be found in the policies that the United States will practice in the future.

This article presents information about various political issues. It is approximately one year since the white settlers in Kenya, rather reluctantly supported by the British government, launched the undeclared and officially unrecognized war against the Mau Mau. The "Economist" reports that prolongation of bloodshed is having incalculable effects on race relations throughout Africa. The annual conference of the International Liaison Committee of Organizations for Peace was held this year in the beautiful castle of Heunigen, at Stalden near Berne. The subject of discussion was the United Nations. A large number of organizations were represented.

This article presents information regarding various political developments around the world. Korea will go to press before the balloting begins but after the campaign has ended. As to the results, we share the general uncertainty and shall not try to anticipate them. It is also too early to attempt an evaluation of the campaign as a whole, but of one thing one can be certain, a great issue went undebated, the issue of the Korean war. In a world where screaming contradictions between "principles" and "realities" abound and considerations of expediency, receive cynical respect, it may seem a small matter whether Spain is admitted to UNESCO or not.

The article highlights the failure of policies of Soviet Union's Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. Industrial workers blamed him for shortages, the high cost of living and the mess in agriculture. Moreover, Khrushchev has got himself in jam over China. On October 13, Khrushchev abruptly returned to Moscow, ostensibly to be on hand to welcome the three triumphant astronauts. In fact, though, by the time he was leaving for the capital, his colleagues on the Presidium of the Central Committee had already decided to fire him. It is not quite clear that he even took part in any discussion on the Presidium. The acceptance of his resignation on account of old age and deteriorating health was been presented to him when he arrived in Moscow.

It may be argued that the disastrous Russian harvest of 1963 was an isolated phenomenon, but it continues to affect the Russian standard of living and the general mood of the country. The Soviet Union is a well-going concern but conditions today, are more difficult than they were in 1959. Medical services in Soviet Union are completely free to everybody, and there are more doctors most, of them women, per capita than in any other country. Rents are very low, smaller apartments in the vast newly built areas of Leningrad can be had for between $5 and $10 a month.

The article presents information that when Soviet premier and party leader in 1958, Nikita Krushchev was on a state visit to Hungary as Soviet representative at the Cominform meeting in Hungary in November, 1949, Michael Suslov delivered a six hour harangue against the Chinese. A few quotes of the speech are illustrated in the article. Putting the quotes side by side suggests two things: first, that what Suslov said in 1949 with a great show of indignation was what the political leader, Joseph Stalin, had ordered him to say about Yugoslavia and that what he said today, with a like show of indignation, is what Krushchev had ordered him to say about China. Secondly it suggests that quarrels inside the Socialist camp are not necessarily final. Six years after the Cominform Resolution, Khrushchev went to Belgrade to apologize to Yugoslavic Communist leader, Josip Broz Tito for all the wild accusations made against Yugoslavia and he blamed Soviet Communist leader, Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria for it. In another six years or six months, Krushchev or somebody else, may go to Peking to patch up the quarrel with the Chinese. At the moment this does not seem at all likely, but there is a striking similarity between the two quarrels.

This article focuses on the visit of French President Charles de Gaulle to Mexico. Whether or not the General is wholly sincere, he has built himself up as a champion of "national independence" and has been praised for it by men as different as Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. De Gaulle certainly has a way of getting `both himself and France talked about. The papers in the U.S. have been full of press quotes about his Mexican visit-quotes from China, Japan, India, England, Latin America and, above all, the U.S.

The article focuses on the political and economic crisis in Algeria. Algeria is carrying out its socialist experiment complete with the nationalization of the large colon estates, with an absolute minimum of properly qualified people. According to Algerian president Ben Bella, the self-management experiment in both agriculture and industry will prove a success within the next two years. Ben Bella is also placing great store on education and on the emancipation of women. There are half a million Algerians working in France, but the French economy at present cannot absorb many more.

The article discusses a July 1963 conference between Chinese and Soviet political leaders, and mentions issues such as China's criticism of Soviet leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, economic competition with capitalist countries, and violent demonstrations during the conference. A letter sent to Soviet politicians from the Chinese embassy is mentioned, as well as Belgian politician Paul-Henri Spaak and Soviet Central Committee control of the arts.

This article presents the socio-economic conditions of Spain. The phenomenon of the seasonal worker is, indeed, very common in Spain. In Catalonia thousands and thousands of wretched men, women and children could be observed traveling by train to help in the grape harvest in France. FOR most Spaniards, life is a hard struggle. Apart from the phenomenon of seasonal labor, there is the equally common phenomenon of "moonlighting"-holding down two or more jobs in order to make ends meet. Most Spanish postmen are dressed up almost like generals.

This article describes the social-political conditions of Algeria with special reference to the racial tensions between Europeans and Moslems. The Moslems were terrified of the ultras starting provocations like those which last month in Algiers led to the killing of 200 to 500 persons. Europeans regretfully remark that, until two months ago, the place was booming; it was only when, French President Charles de Gaulle spoke for the first time of an "Algerian Republic" that confidence crashed.

This article focuses on the Soviet Union's foreign relations towards the United States. Understanding with the U.S. is the real cornerstone of Soviet foreign policy. If any progress is to be made in disarmament, it can only be done if America wants it and, though skeptical, Russians believe that some hard thinking on the subject is going on in the United States. In this connection, speeches by American business leaders are carefully scrutinized. Soviet Union President Nikita Khrushchev's visit to United States was fully exploited to demonstrate that Russia has been accepted by America as an equal, and that the United States has had to abandon the Dulles policy of "brinkmanship."

This article describes the social conditions of Soviet Union. First, of course, there is the greatly improved living standard: thousands of apartment blocks the large quantities of food to be seen everywhere, the better standard of dress; the universal passion for "gadgets"-cameras, television, refrigerators, washing-machines, electric razors. But years of indoctrination have also produced in Soviet Union not only a very strong "Soviet-patriotic" sense, sometimes verging on chauvinism, but also a strong sense of citizenship, with a clear understanding of a certain code of human conduct which must, as far as possible, be observed.

The article discusses the developments of the second World War and its impact on France. In the east coast of England and Scotland, they have been bombing trawlers and machine-gunning fishing boats. So far, France has not experienced any such "frightfulness," and the war continues, after four and a half months. Of the five million men mobilized, not more than thirty thousand or so have had any direct contact with the enemy; and the rest of the troops, and with them the rest of the country, are waiting. Food, which is already a problem in England, is scarcely a problem in France.

This article discusses the policy of the French government on Second World War. France knows that his war, more even than the First World War, is a life-and-death struggle for France and Great Britain. Till the last moment, France hoped that war was not absolutely inevitable, that some attempt might be made to reach a compromise over Danzig. The French attitude towards Soviet Union is in the main hostile and the French government has started its drive against the Communist leaders, some of which are still preaching Stalinist "pacifism." The Hitler-Stalin pact has resulted in the disappearance of the Communist Party as a political party in France.

Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin, is said to have sent a sort of SOS to London, England saying that if the Soviet alliance was not concluded at once, nothing could stop the Nazis from doing something desperate. Coming from a diplomat who was never known to be prejudiced, against the Nazis, his warning is said to have made a big impression on member of the Great Britain House of Commons Lord Halifax and even on British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain. The scope for consultation is said to have been reduced to very little and Soviet Union is to be guaranteed not only against a direct attack but also against an "indirect" attack, that is, against one launched via the Baltic States.

The action taken by the Czechs, the French, and the British had the cumulative effect of staying Hitler's hand. But there are still two possibilities to be feared. One is that Germany may become convinced that the action of the three democratic powers on that day was after all only a colossal bluff, and that next time it must be called. The other is that Hitler, even if he is convinced that England and France are in dead earnest, may still invade Czechoslovakia and take the risk of a general war, especially if he has reason to believe that Italy will be on his side.

This article focuses on the political developments bought by socialist Leon Blum in France. On March 12, while the German troops were pouring into Vienna, Blum made a desperate attempt to form not a government from Paul Reynaud but a national government comprising all parties, even fascists. He hoped that with war brought so much neater by the Austrian coup Frenchmen would stop quarreling. Though only a stop-gap, the Blum government had to face a set of extremely disagreeable problems, including the immensely dangerous international situation, which was gravely complicated from the French point of view by the rapid advance on Barcelona of the Spanish insurgents, heavily equipped with new airplanes and guns from Germany and Italy, and by a financial crisis that had been hanging over France for several months past.

As one of the great beneficiaries of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the Czechs became the favorite proteges of France, in the 1920s the greatest military power on the Continent, and, of all the French "satellites," they established the most solid and lasting Western-type parliamentary democracy. Then came the great Munich betrayal, and six months later, Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Nazis. The new Czechoslovak leader, the young Alexander Dubcek, has assured the Russians with the greatest power of conviction at his command that, whatever internal reforms the Czechs undertook, there could be no question of Czechoslovakia dropping out of the military alliance with Russia.

The article presents information on author's opinion about Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg. Author and Ehrenburg first met very casually in Paris, around 1930. He was then one of the great "Montparnasseans," a friend of the late Modighani, a friend of Leger and Picasso. He was haughty and standoffish. He was the war correspondent of the periodical "Izvestia." Ehrenburg's friend, the famous "Pravda" correspondent in Spain, Mikhail Koitsov was soon to he recalled to Moscow and shot Ehrenburg, though passionately devoted to the Spanish Republican cause, was, clearly, uneasy about what was going on in Russia at the time, arid was cagey and uncommunicative.

What is particularly surprising is the enormous surprise that the near defeat of the Gaullists has caused almost everywhere abroad. The French press today is recalling with some irony American, British and other foreign comments, only a few days before the second round of elections, to the effect that France is, and always will be, Gaullist. One must conclude that with rare exceptions the foreign press has for several years now been mesmerized by de Gaulle; that it has assumed that France is Gaullist, without troubling to look closely at France.

This article describes the opinion of France on the Vietnam war. If French President Charles de Gaulle is, in many ways, disengaging himself from the stand of the U.S. on Vietnam, is very largely because he sees the war in Vietnam as the biggest danger that the peace of the world has run since the end of World War II. He himself was one of the guilty men of the French war in Vietnam of 1946-54; but he gradually realized his mistake, welcomed the end of the war there, and has latterly advocated a neutralization of South Vietnam.

The article presents information on the Moroccan leader Ben Barka. Newspaper reported that the Moroccan leader had been murdered at the villa of the gangster Boucheseiche, that his body was then taken to the nearby Lopez villa. What happened after that nobody seemed to know. The assumption was that the body had been secretly buried, though, oddly enough, no search for it by the police was ever reported. It now seems obvious why there was never any "conclusion" to this murder story; why, from time to time, there appeared "rumors" in the French press that Barka "had been seen" in Morocco; that he was held incommunicado in a prison in southern Morocco.

This article presents information on world politics. The Pentagon and the U.S. President have a "stopper" for all critics of Administration policy in Vietnam "What, then, is your alternative," At the moment, this unanswered question has the critics at a distinct disadvantage, the live options are neither obvious nor numerous. But two considerations must be kept in mind by building up an enormous force in Vietnam, the Administration has itself created the dilemma it now asks its critics to solve in other words, the formidable military presence which we have now established in Vietnam does pose some problems about how it can be removed without a distinct loss of prestige.

This article focuses on concerns of France on the Vietnam conflict and its efforts to end it. French are desperately trying to create conditions wherein the U.S. might still consider a conference. Hence the semi-official Franco-North Vietnamese negotiations. Hanoi, Vietnam appears sympathetic to the `French proposals, although it is torn between this approach and the Russian line that U.S. bombings of North Vietnam must cease -before any conversations can be considered. Having suffered eight years of "dirty war" in Vietnam, the French have a clear vision of what's going on there now.

Profit motive would apply from the workshop all the way up to the management of an industrial branch. Good results would produce bonuses and other benefits. Prices would be fixed, though "a certain flexibility" would enter into both price and wage fixing. In recent months proposals have been taken up again, this time at the highest level. Premier Aleksei Kosygin, an experienced economist, appears to have convinced himself that, at least in light industry, the system which concentrated merely on fulfilling the plan or quota produced shoddy results. So, experimentally at any rate, the profit motive has been introduced into a number of plants, among them a textile factory in Gorki and a men's clothing factory in Moscow.

This article focuses on the efforts of Western powers in building multilateral forces (MLF) to counter problems like cold war. It is impossible to say whether major crises will develop in the immediate future. Because of the implacable hostility that President of France Charles de Gaulle expressed for the whole project during his two meetings with Adenauer earlier this month, some German spokesmen are now saying that there is no desperate hurry about it. A curious argument being used is that there was a great hurry to get MLF settled before the Soviet Union President Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Bonn, but that since there will now be no such visit the project no longer has the same urgency.

The citizens of the Soviet Union have never before probably been so world conscious or so disarmament conscious as in these days of the disarmament debates at the United Nations in 1946. Russians are convinced not only that the issue is of the utmost importance but that the Soviet Union took the initiative in opening up the whole subject. The Soviet Union, in the midst of economic reconstruction, is not anxious to engage in an armaments race, is willing to go to considerable lengths to avoid it. It is even prepared to accept inspection. All Russian writers who visited the U.S. in 1946 report that anti-Soviet propaganda there has reached alarming proportions.

What I.F. Stone undertook to do for the Korean war in his book on its "Hidden History," Philippe Devilliers in "Histoire du Vietnam, 1946-52" has done for the war in Indo-China. Devilliers served on the staff of a general in Indo-China and later, for a time, was correspondent of the "Paris Monde." His book presents the most complete record and analysis of events that led up to the war and of the establishment and failure of the Bao Dat regime. It is a long book-the true story of this "unknown" war could not be told briefly.