Change of Face

France has been just as slow in making way for nationalist aspirations in Morocco as it once was in Indo-China, with results that eventually may be just as bad. For the past nine months, as a French resident put it recently, "Morocco has been living in an acute state of siege." Others called the ironhanded regime of the Resident General, Old Soldier Augustin Guillaume, a "police state," and even saw a prospect of civil war.

Since the French deposed and exiled fractious Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef last year, they have had no trouble with the complaisant new Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. But they have had plenty of trouble with Istiqlal nationalists, who scorn the new Sultan as a stooge. Since last August, the poorly organized nationalists, armed with smuggled hand grenades, homemade bombs, pistols and machine guns, have killed 101 persons, wounded 189 more. France's reverses in Indo-China have given the insurgents new heart. Recently, they circulated clandestine letters saying that "Casablanca will be another Dienbienphu." Help from the Hills. In retaliation for the terror, Guillaume's police jailed a thousand suspects, of whom 300 still await trial. Day after day his gendarmes roamed the cities, questioning the rich and searching the workingmen. If a suspect was caught with an out-of-date banknote (a symbol used by Istiqlal members for identification), he was likely to be jailed on charges of "beginning the execution of an act whose nature would disturb public order." Guillaume has reinforced the police by bringing in solidly pro-French Berbers from the hills.

When Sultan Ben Youssef was banished, Paris dawdled with the notion of sending another and milder Resident General to replace Guillaume, who was growing wary of the sticky political situation.

Finally the pressure of alarmed French residents in Morocco and their friends in France became so great that Premier La-niel made his move. Last week, after considering a number of generals, diplomats, politicians and hacks, the government picked a civilian, Career Diplomat Francis Lacoste, 48, to be the eleventh Resident General since Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912.

Hope for a Civilian. Francis Lacoste is no stranger to Morocco. In 1947 he was the Quai d'Orsay's delegate to Marshal Alphonse Juin's Moroccan Residency. Although he was no policymaker, he became an expert on Moroccan peasant problems and maintained friendly relations with the now-deposed Ben Youssef. A graduate of the University of Paris' School of Political Science, he served diplomatic apprenticeships in Belgrade and Peking, returned to France during World War II, fought in the resistance, won a Croix de Guerre. Since the war he has had tours in Washington and in the U.N. (Security Council and Atomic Energy Commission). He first visited the U.S. as a student, speaks excellent British-accented English, calls the U.S. the "dearest place in the world to me after France."

Morocco's nationalists, many of whom would rather negotiate than fight, were heartened by Diplomat Lacoste's appointment. Said one: "Lacoste has always showed himself to be understanding. Perhaps we can take up the dialogue with him again." But Le Monde expressed the prevailing mood' of Paris: "Whatever his qualities, the simple change of an individual cannot, in a situation so serious, have a magic effect. The results will depend on the policy adopted." For the momentj Paris had no policy to offer.

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