The Dangerous Middle

Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil was a leading member of France's financial aristocracy. He was also a devious politician who was pro-Fascist before the war, but later, as a top adviser of General Giraud, helped arrange for the Allied landings in North Africa. In hate-filled Morocco, where his peanut-oil business was based, Lemaigre-Dubreuil believed in a moder ate policy of "evolutionary autonomy" as a matter of hardheaded self-interest.

All that was needed, he argued, was "a little imagination, a lot of good will, a lot of love, great reciprocal confidence based on facts, not promises." Two months ago he bought control of Casa blanca's Maroc-Presse, a lonely newspaper voice reviled by French extremists for espousing such views. In France's festering protectorate, where Arab hatred swells with despair, and French fear breeds demands for brutal repression, the middle is a dangerous place.

One afternoon last weekend, Lemaigre flew back to Morocco from a Paris meeting with Premier Edgar Faure. He sat down at a desk and scribbled a note to Faure: "The situation is getting worse."

Late that night, Lemaigre left the luxurious Casablanca apartment house where he lives, intending to drive out to the airport for a night flight to Rabat on business. As he and a friend were about to enter their car, two black Citroens crossed the deserted plaza and slowed down. There were two bursts of machine-gun fire. Lemaigre, with 13 slugs in his body, dropped to the pavement, mortally wounded. The 9-mm. bullets were of the type used by Casablanca police.

Pigs & Rats. As had no other incident, the murder shocked France into a sense of urgency. Premier Faure was roused from bed at 3 a.m. in Paris to hear the news. Next morning he rushed off to see Lemaigre's widow, then summoned Pierre July. Minister for Tunisia and Morocco, for urgent consultation. Emerging from this meeting, July declared bluntly: "Counter-terrorism . . . once again has dishonored France." He sent France's No. 1 cop, Roger Wybot, to investigate the murder and reorganize Casablanca's police force.

Wybot's mission was official admission of what has long been recognized privately in Morocco--that French counterterrorists are operating with the indulgence and sometimes cooperation of the local French police. Counter-terrorism began about nine months ago soon after the arrival of gentle Francis Lacoste to succeed General Augustin Guillaume as Resident General. To suspicious French colons, Lacoste, after hard-boiled General Guillaume, smelled of negotiation and compromise, and they denounced the national government's policy as "treason." Clandestine French organizations sprang up, calling themselves "The White Hand," and "Agir" (to act). They were manned by hired killers imported from France, professional thugs, sometimes ex-policemen. Frenchmen who advocated moderation and negotiation began to receive threatening letters ("Pig. you have sold out to the rats. Your days are numbered").

Then came the bombs. The Maroc-Presse was a special target; the managing editor was threatened, the executive editor driven from Morocco by bombings and machine-gun attempts on himself and his family. The counterterrorists operated with the obvious sympathy of diehard colon organizations such as the Presence Franc,aise. When one suspected killer eluded police questioning, it was discovered later that he had driven off in a red sports car belonging to a prominent physician and Presence Franc,aise leader and had holed up for several weeks at the physician's estate in France. The plan was obvious: by provoking violence and silencing conciliators, the French counterterrorists hoped to prove that there was no other course but total repression, no other method but brutal force to snuff out Arab independence.

Unwelcome Lion. Symptomatic was the story of Pierre Clostermann. France's leading fighter pilot in World War II, a national hero and a Deputy in the National Assembly, Clostermann was a social lion when he first moved to Morocco five years ago to establish a structural-steel concern. Urged on by President Auriol himself, Clostermann befriended Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef, and advocated a "dialogue" between Moroccans and French. He fought those who engineered Ben Youssef's deposition and replacement with the pitiful French stooge Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. Soon Clostermann was cut out of French business in the colony, found he was no longer welcome in the French clubs and social groups that had once cultivated him. The steel syndicate, which had elected him president, expelled him. Then one night a bomb shattered his front door.

Before the police arrived, Clostermann got a call from a friendly top French official. "Don't let them in," he warned. "Once they get the layout, they won't miss again." Now Clostermann goes about armed. In nine months French counterterrorists have committed more than 80 murders. In nine months the sympathetic local police have not made a single arrest.

Countering the Terror. At week's end, Policeman Wybot returned to Paris with a head full of facts and names, and the Faure government steeled itself to act against the suspects, some of whom were reputedly lodged in embarrassingly high places. As a start, special detectives sent from Paris arrested a man long suspected of organizing counter-terrorism-- one time Chief Police Inspector Jean Delrieu, once head of the Casablanca police unit charged with combatting Arab terrorism.

For 13 months the French government in Paris has been guilty of an immobilisme in Morocco, hoping that the new treaty with neighboring Tunisia (which gives the Arabs some hope of self-government) would in time prove a model for Morocco. Now the Lemaigre murder has shocked into silence even advocates of strong-arm repression like Marshal Juin. Action is long overdue, unless France is to see Morocco go the way of Indo-China.

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