THE WEEK

• A most extraordinary week. The President courageously vetoed a preposterous pork barrel bill (remember the cry, after Sputnik, for sacrifices? Who has been asked to make one thus far?); Dean Acheson came out firmly against a summit conference; Mr. Dulles handled himself brilliantly at a press conference, and effectively made his point that the Soviet Union is debauching diplomacy by its method of communicating with other nations; Mr. Arthur Krock finally came out and said it, as directly as one can say such a thing and remain Arthur Krock, that Mr. Truman is a liar; and Paul Hoffman made a sensible, repeat sensible, proposal. Could it be that Strontium 90 affects the mind, as well as the body? Love that fallout.

• The French government of Felix Gaillard, 25th casualty since the end of the war, fell on the issue of accepting the Anglo-American “good offices” mission in handling the dispute between France and Tunisia. After an unusually bitter and consequential debate, an opposition amalgam combining Communists with the Mendès-France group and the Gaullists rolled up a no-confidence vote of 321-255. Since the opposition majority is not linked on any programmatic basis, it cannot get together in a new government. The prospect is for an interregnum of several months, during which France will have no authoritative spokesman. The sharpest attack on M. Gaillard was mounted by the Gaullist leader, Jacques Soustelle, who declared that French decisions were being made in Washington, which was carrying out a “perpetual Munich” (i.e., appeasement) policy toward the Arab world. M. Soustelle and his associates are maneuvering for the return of General de Gaulle to power under an agreement to replace the present French constitution with a system providing, in their words, “a strong executive on the American model.”

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• A most extraordinary week. The President courageously vetoed a preposterous pork barrel bill (remember the cry, after Sputnik, for sacrifices? Who has been asked to make one thus far?); Dean Acheson came out firmly against a summit conference; Mr. Dulles handled himself brilliantly at a press conference, and effectively made his point that the Soviet Union is debauching diplomacy by its method of communicating with other nations; Mr. Arthur Krock finally came out and said it, as directly as one can say such a thing and remain Arthur Krock, that Mr. Truman is a liar; and Paul Hoffman made a sensible, repeat sensible, proposal. Could it be that Strontium 90 affects the mind, as well as the body? Love that fallout.

• The French government of Felix Gaillard, 25th casualty since the end of the war, fell on the issue of accepting the Anglo-American “good offices” mission in handling the dispute between France and Tunisia. After an unusually bitter and consequential debate, an opposition amalgam combining Communists with the Mendès-France group and the Gaullists rolled up a no-confidence vote of 321-255. Since the opposition majority is not linked on any programmatic basis, it cannot get together in a new government. The prospect is for an interregnum of several months, during which France will have no authoritative spokesman. The sharpest attack on M. Gaillard was mounted by the Gaullist leader, Jacques Soustelle, who declared that French decisions were being made in Washington, which was carrying out a “perpetual Munich” (i.e., appeasement) policy toward the Arab world. M. Soustelle and his associates are maneuvering for the return of General de Gaulle to power under an agreement to replace the present French constitution with a system providing, in their words, “a strong executive on the American model.”