FRANCE: Brave Struggle, Simple Farewell

The expected tributes flooded in from all over the globe. President Richard Nixon called him "a man of vision, constraint, consistency and enormous strength of character." Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev praised him as "an outstanding statesman who commanded great respect in the Soviet Union." Egyptian President Anwar Sadat remembered him as a man who "proved by word and deed that he was a great friend of the Arab world." In his native France, boulevards and schools were already being named for him.

The obsequies were for French President Georges Pompidou—classicist, civil...

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