No recent political event in Western Europe had been more widely predicted than Georges Pompidou's early departure from power. Yet the death of the French President last week (see following story) heightened the general jitters in a Europe that is increasingly fretful. After a generation of unparalleled prosperity. Europeans are apprehensive about inflation, unemployment and social instability.
There was an almost novelistic quality to the timing of Pompidou's demise. It came two days before the 25th anniversary of NATO, which Pompidou, like Charles de Gaulle before him, had used as both a...
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