Not long ago, the West was ready to write off Algeria's brash, sloganeering Premier Ahmed ben Bella as a Mediterranean Castro ripe for Red domination. But times do change. After seven months of independence, Ben Bella now relies on a tide of aid from the West, not the East, to keep his struggling country afloat. Only last week, Finance Minister Ahmed Francis returned from Paris with pledges of $280 million in French aid for 1963. At the same time, the U.S. tentatively agreed to launch a food relief program for hard-hit Algerian peasants; Ben Bella hopes this can be...
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