THE ALLIES: After the Shock

The French are famed for their logic, but when pride is hurt, logic flies out the window. When Secretary Dulles said last week that the U.S. would be forced to an "agonizing reappraisal" of basic policy unless France went ahead with EDC, he was making a statement of fact so plain as to be self-evident.

But the French were outraged. The favorite headline word was "brutal." Le Figaro, which is friendly to the U.S., called Dulles' warning salutary but "clumsy." Hardly anyone else was so polite. Anti-EDC Gaullists demanded that the French Cabinet explain "its regrettable silence" at this "intolerable...

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