Word: mends
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...time when a great many people-including influential Americans-are becoming almost emotionally 'for' him, it is important to recognize the Mendès-France anomaly: he combines an extraordinary lucid view of France's capabilities and responsibilities with a refusal to deny the naïve conviction of most West Europeans that Communists are basically ordinary people with whom, if you try hard enough, you can always do constructive business...
Chou En-lai of Peking moved through Europe with the relaxed grace of a conqueror. He savored pâté de foie gras and raspberries with Mendès-France; he sipped wine with three Chinese actresses and an Occidental jester, Charlie Chaplin...
Despite the fine promises of Pierre Mendès-France, Diem was also half strangled by the albatross of French colonialism: if he asked the French army to withdraw, it would take about 80% of Viet Nam's military equipment in its train; if he asked the French army to stay, the Communists might easily convince the Vietnamese that Diem's new independence was a myth...
Like a great khan bestowing gold upon some worthy vassal, Chou gave Mendès a few pieces of Chinese silk, some Chinese folk stories, richly engraved. And at Geneva's final session, the Premier of Red China took it upon himself to praise "the fine conciliatory spirit" of Mendès-France, the "praiseworthy efforts" of Molotov and Anthony Eden. "Undoubtedly," said Chou the Conqueror, "the success of this conference is tremendous...
...comparison between Munich and Geneva, so widely made last week, was also widely resented by those who argued that Eden and Mendès-France had only done what had to be done in the face of defeat on the battlefield. Asked about Munich, the U.S.'s Bedell Smith snapped: "A damned poor term. At Munich things were given away when there was no fighting. This is a war." The real test of the comparison would be whether Eden had learned a new urgency or been lured into a new complacency...