France: If It Happened to De Gaulle . . .

Should there be a Vice President of France? "What would one do with him?" President Charles de Gaulle once asked loftily when the point was raised. "If he were established in a mansion, he would be called a parasite. If he stayed at home waiting, he would not be prepared for his eventual task."

But last week the vice-presidential question was again being ardently debated in France. Paris newspapers headlined stories that De GaulleĀ—survivor of two attempts on his lifeĀ—had been threatened with assassination during his visit to Washington for President Kennedy's funeral. Whatever the real extent of De Gaulle's danger...

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