GENEVA: Man Alone

All week long, France's allies could only watch Georges Bidault's sufferings. They could not help. His desperate pleas for a battlefield truce to save Dienbienphu's wounded met with bland delay from the Communists. Behind him, France's divided government nagged at him. Burly Marc Jacquet, Minister for the Associated States, sent to Geneva to act as a kind of watchdog for the quick-truce faction, told everybody who would listen: "We must get peace!" For two days Bidault had to mark time while the Assembly debated a vote of confidence. "A Foreign Minister does...

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