Re had

84 Gee .
Said “insurrection.”

“public,

Plot has been in exist-

Or over two years, and

: deep,
fr, authors began to discuss
Mously in February 1956.
te earlier the last
- Seneral election had
; 2 clear’ majority to
Bes Which said they stood
) y, Uding the war in Algeria.
hc. Came the fateful visit
jy, Clalist Premier Guy Mol-

et 4
Algiers, where he was
Cow With tomatoes by a

Th of French settlers.
result: Mollet gave way
ti =P Settlers, their army of-
ittere "lends, and the business
Fran, Sts linked with them in
us Se — in short, the notori-
Algeria Lobby.
| e f0vernment not only
ar 1 with the Algerian
‘Ser. 4S the lobby wanted, but
"hed it up.
in © then governor-general
Seria and behind the

tte efit, was Jacques Sou-
} Algie Gaullist MP, now in
Pitsoh at the head of the

a Moral for the extrem-
Wiolene the Algerian lobby:
the Bi In Algeria can force
tp; yy e2ment in Paris to ac-
Py wt Policy.

: Tran, Practically 20 years
Withon has not had a day
top : being at war. Among
of Tes in the army, many
| Di, Military defeats—1940,
, lege len Phu,, the end-
| tj, CPlessness of the cam-
th a Algeria—are blamed
fe). “Politicians” and the
lime of the French par-

ary system.

Zoyen, 2Stability of French
Yeang Ments in the past 12
ft, ‘S @ fact. But it stems

tina 2° Source — the con-
ecto emt to ignore the
Verdict.

Vote ais, 5,500,000 people

Sey OMmunist. As the big-

Comm UP in parliament, the

ity, JHSts, with the Social-
ula 4 other Left groups,
Soy, 'Ve formed a stable

“Boye. went, the only stable
Bu Ment, in fact.

Mbeyecter Mollet aided and
PMbing, hem. Cabinet after
the Was a variation on the
lig a °f Conservative, Catho-
Sooia Radical party and
So et Coalition,
8 , “© Communist party be-
uild unity from the

A lop demonstrations for Mol-

z By LANCE SAMSON
bP ARIS—When General de Gaulle, at his press conference,

of a French resurrection some thought for a moment

q He might well have done. For all the signs point to his
tity from the start in the plot shaking the Fourth

bottom up — in the trade
unions, in the movement for
peace in Algeria, in campaign-
ing for economic demands, in
campaigning against the H-
bomb and rocket bases.

Each government coalition
had among its main problems
North Africa. The colonies —
Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria —
were demanding their inde-
pendence.

Morocco and Tunisia eventu-
ally gained legal independ-
ence, but in Algeria the
French ruling class saw its
last hope for “France’s great-
ness.”

Oil from the Sahara, the
hottest spot on earth, was to
come to the aid of French
capitalism, staggering from the
effects of a disintegrating em-
pire, postwar difficulties and
the dollar-aided economic ex-
pansion of West Germany.

“Algeria is French’ — and
so the troops went out to
suppress eight million Arabs
in the interests of a minority
of the one million French
settlers.

Five hundred _ thousand
troops, a large number of
them conscripts, used torture,
violation — any means at all
—to “pacify” the country. All
democratic organjzations in
Algeria, including the trade
unions, were suppressed.

Again and again in the last
two years Robert Lacoste,
the Socialist minister for Al-
geria, announced “the last
quarter of an hour” of the
campaign. But the war went
on, And on. The opposition to
it in France rose and rose.

The then Algeiers Vigilance
Committee, grouping the or-
ganizations of the “ultras,”
and some of the top officers,
talked of acting in Algeria—
to get a government willing
to wage even more total war
and spread it to Tunisia and
Morocco.

Came April this year and
the defeat of the Gaillard
government over its policy on
relations with Tunisia.

The Algeria lobby was
hopeful. Georges Bidault,
member of the Catholic MRP,
was chosen to try to form the
new government — and Bid-
ault was known for his sup-
port for allout war in Algeria.

But Bidault announced on
April 22 that he could not
get a coalition together.

By then it began to be clear
to the Algerian lobby and the

IE BEGAN IN J Se

The plot aga

generals out there that a
change in the Algerian policy
was going to be forced on
them.

Forced on them by the peo-
ple—and by some of the French
capitalists themselves, begin-
ning to feel the effects of the
drain of the Algerian war on
the economy.

It was clear to the politi-
cians. The Socialist leaders,
with the embarrassing La-
coste at last on the way out
in Algeria dropped their form-
er insistence on the _ indis-
soluble link between France
and Algeria.

The Radicals indicated that
it was time to end the dis-
astrous war.

The MRP too had shown,
by preventing its own man
Bidault from forming a goy-
ernment, that it.no longer be-
lieved fully in “the military
solution.”

Lacoste talked of a “diplo-
matic Dien Bien Phu,” and
Premier - designate Pflimlin
hinted at negotiations — after
a French victory.

Moroccan and _ Tunisian
leaders met with the leaders
of the Algerian National Lib-
eration Front ‘and agreed to
the setting up of an Algerian
government in exile, which

would give new posibilities of
negotiations with France.

In the three weeks between
Bidault’s failure and Pflimlin’s
candidature, the plot in Algiers
and Paris was given its final
form.

At the Paris end was Sou-
stelle, with help from lawyer,
Biagi, leader of fascist gangs
in Paris — and with com-
plicity from some generals in
the army in France and some
members of the assembly.

In Algiers there were Gen-
eral Massu, paratroop general
responsible for introducing
many of the torture methods,
his colonels and the “ultras.”

And in the know, but watch-
ing his chances, General de
Gaulle at his house in the vil-
lage of Colombey les Deux
Eglises, 150 miles from Paris.

The Algiers end of the plot
worked according to plan —
the day Pflimlin was to go be-
for the National Assembly.
The plotters hoped to prevent
his being accepted.

They staged their seizure of
Government House in Al-
giers. Massu’s paratroops in
Algiers stood by.

Then Massu. and Com-
mander-in-Chief General Sal-
an appeared on the scene
and Massu “allowed” himself

rance

to be put on the committee of
Public Safety. The coup was
completed.

But in Paris the plotters
miscalculated. The threat of
dictatorship touched up the
centrist coalition’ once again,
and the vital support of the
Communist members—in face
of the threat to the republi-
can institutions — assured
Pflimlin his majority.

The street riots hoped for
by the plotters hardly ma-
terialized.

The threat immediately pro-
duced a tremendous upsurge
of action and unity — in fac-
tories, in local municipal
councils, in trade union ac-
tion calls, in token strikes, and
among political parties, trade
unions and democratic organ-
izations involving millions of
people from Communist to
Catholic.

So the plotters brought out
their biggest gun—de Gaulle,
with his “I am ready to as-
sume power,” and his demand
for extraordinary powers,
counting on the fear of the
working people that produced
the Vichy government to
force the Pflimlin govern-
to capitulate to that demand.

Not cold war — but war against
cold, dream of Soviet scientist

MOSCOW-—Some scientists consider that science and engineering have already reached
a level which makes it possible to change the earth’s climate —to melt the ice at the North
Pole, for instance, and have subtropical plants growing in Siberia and Alaska.

Among the plans for transforming the world’s climate is
engineer Pyotr Borisov, who recently gave a lecture on this

Institute.

British Labor
suspends party

LONDON—The British La-
bor party’s national executive
has suspended Councillor John
Lawrence, leader of the Labor
majority in St. Pancras Bor-
ough Council, and the whole
Holborn and St. Pancras South
Labor Party, to which he be-

longs. One of the members of
the party is the local MP, Mrs.
Lena Jaeger.

Announcing his intention of
appealing the suspension, Law-
rence said:

“TI have adhered to all group
decisions, which were endorsed
by both St. Pancras Labor
parties. 5

“Many years of research
and calculations,’ he said,
“show that already in the
very near future mankind
will be able to make the
northern parts of the globe
considerably warmer.

“A dam must be built to
block the Bering Straits.
This dam, stretching for over
70 kilometres (about 43 miles)
from Chukotka to Alaska,
will stop the cold currents of
the Pacific from flowing into
the Arctic seas.

“This will lower the level
of the waters in the Arctic
Ocean and accelerate the flow
of the warm Gulf Stream cur-
rents into this area.

“Like the pipes of a hot-
water system, the waters of
the Gulf Stream will warm
Siberia and Alaska and melt
the ice in the Arctic.”

Borisov claimed that if this
were done the average an-

one worked out by the Soviet
at the Moscow Polytechnical

nual temperature at the North
Pole would go up by nearly
60 degrees Fahrenheit.

This would make it possible,
he said, to transform 750 mil-
lion acres of tundra into rich
pasture land and fertile fields.

The big rivers of Siberia,
Alaska and Canada would
become navigable all the year
round,

Borisov devoted a consid-
erable part of his lecture to
the technical details involved
in carrying out his plan. He
maintained that the project
would be quite feasible if in-
terested states were to allo-
cate for it at least part of
the resources now being spent
for the “cold war.”

“We do not need the ‘cold
war,’”’ he said. “We must have
a war against the cold which
is hindering the development
of the productive forces of
vast areas of our planet.”

May 30, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 3