Word: mending
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Saved by Two. These passions, and more, congealed when Mendès submitted his Indo-China budget. The Finance Committee scorned it, 25 to 14. When Mendès raced over to the National Assembly to try to save the day, he arrived just in time to hear a right-wing Deputy explaining that former Foreign Minister Georges Bidault had been all set to clear up the whole Indo-China mess when Mendès interfered and toppled the Laniel Cabinet. "That sounds like a beautiful serialized novel," Mendès cracked, but the Assembly was not amused. It voted...
Furiously maneuvering, the Premier forced a midnight session, and presented a hurriedly revised budget, in order to compel a new test of strength. He still could not find the votes. It began to look as if Mendès would be overthrown before he could get a vote on the Paris accords. Suddenly, out of the blue, two Deputies of Bidault's M.R.P. announced that they would switch their votes. At 4:30 a.m., Mendès' revised Indo-China budget was accepted by just two votes, 295 to 293. The Mendès government was saved...
Premier-Killers, Inc. Mendès now knew that his government owed its life to the artful designs of his enemies. The Assembly's expert Premier-killers, mobilized by Georges Bidault who wants vengeance on Mendès for the death of EDC, were playing a cat-and-mouse game, keeping him in office for their own purposes. Resigned to the inevitability of German rearmament, these expert infighters were determined to identify Mendès with that needed but unpopular measure. Then they meant to kick him out, perhaps on the Indo-China issue...
Arab diplomats went so far as to admit that Mendès-France's reform efforts in North Africa are more promising than intemperate resolutions...
Last October Sainteny set out for Hanoi with a 20-man mission and the blessings of Premier Pierre Mendès-France. Sainteny defined his objective as "preventing bridges being burned," argued that the Vietnamese people of Hanoi must surely need French culture, and that French technical assistance might create a Tito out of Ho. More skeptical Westerners shook their heads. "Sainteny's a nice fellow," said one, "but he believes in fairies...