Innocent Abroad

Smoke gets in your eyes

"As I write this letter to you, I imagine my eyes still burning from the clouds of tear gas that seem to be a regular occurrence. . . Today the air seemed charged with rage. The entire city felt as though it was going to explode with anger."

The reflections of a bystander trapped in Chilean riots? A note composed during demonstrations in Warsaw? If the author of those lines, American Traveler Richard Perkins, is to be believed, the city described was Paris. Furthermore, what Perkins saw during a six-day trip to France earlier this month was "so shocking" that he wished other Americans could "witness the tragedy being inflicted upon a proud and once free people."

Never mind that Perkins visited the French capital during the August doldrums, when hardly a Parisian can be found on the streets, or that he drafted his letter on stationery from the luxury Hotel Prince de Galles, far from the scene of student riots last spring. Perkins' message that life in France under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand is a "nightmare" only confirmed the worst suspicions of the 300,000 Republican loyalists who received the letter as part of a fund-raising drive for senatorial candidates.

The trouble with Perkins' letter is that it found its way into the French press. At a time when Franco-American relations are already strained over Chad and the pummeling that the French franc has received from the dollar, Perkins' electioneering ploy seemed to be a gratuitous blow to Gallic pride. "Parisians do not cry nightly with eyes bathed in tear gas," sniped Le Quotidien de Paris. "The number of Americans in Paris this August is proof of that."

According to French press reports, Perkins defended his letter by hinting that he had drafted it with the knowledge of the U.S. embassy in Paris and the White House. But Mitch Daniels, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, denied that the Reagan Administration had any connection with the letter and offered his apology for the incident provoked by Perkins' pen. White House Political Director Edward Rollins condemned the misguided missive, calling it "totally insulting."

The French were not appeased. If the tone of Perkins' message was not bad enough, what he did with the letter only added insult to injury. After writing his lamentable lines in Paris, Perkins traveled across the Channel to mail them from London. The reason: he was afraid the French mail service would not be able to handle 300,000 letters at one time. sb This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.