Word: bourguibaism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...reference to your remarks on President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia [July 28] "that the West would never look at him with the same confidence again": I feel I ought to put the record straight that if France refuses to quit Bizerte and the U.S. is content enough to only issue statements of regret, then not only Mr. Bourguiba and the Tunisian people but the Afro-Asian countries as a whole will lose confidence in the West...
...seclusion, Charles de Gaulle seemed unwilling to believe, or indifferent to the fact, that much of the world was distressed by his recent actions. Had France reacted too savagely in relation to the provocation in slaughtering more than 800 Tunisians at Bizerte? De Gaulle is reported to have remarked: "Bourguiba decided to act like a clown. He was rapped over the knuckles for it. So much the worse for him." The failure of the U.N. Security Council to condemn France, after De Gaulle's scornful disregard of it, only convinces De Gaulle that the U.S., for all its misgivings...
Last week Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba accepted his first Communist aid, $27.7 million in ruble credits. He did so while muttering imprecations against the two nations that he had trusted, France and the U.S. To the De Gaulle government, this was less an occasion for regret than proof of Bourguiba's weakness. And when Bourguiba announced that if France would agree to negotiate its eventual withdrawal from Bizerte, he would not press for a U.N. debate, the confident French took their time about replying. An official source said casually that in view of present East-West tension...
Amazingly, the Tunisians made no individual reprisals against the 180,000 French citizens scattered throughout the country. In all, President Bourguiba ordered the arrest of only 300 Frenchmen, some of whom were released the next...
...tragedy has affected Tunisians. "For years we have lived with France and now they do this," said a dock worker at Bizerte. "One never knows them well enough, does one?" Dozens of times during the week. Tunisians came up to me to say, "C'est fini!" From President Bourguiba down to the lowliest peasant, there is the realization that, come what may and even with the passage of time, Tunisians will never trust France again...