Word: messmer
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...Brandt could not change the French President's mind. Both men were forced to caution and inaction by political problems at home. Even as he talked with Brandt, Pompidou had made up his mind to sack Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas, replacing him with Old Gaullist Pierre Messmer. Brandt, in turn, had in his pocket an angry five-page letter of resignation from the man who until recently had been the star of his Cabinet, Karl Schiller, the super-Minister who held both the Finance and Economics portfolios...
...after his defeat and attributed the loss to pointless naysaying. "Since I represented something constructive, the answer had to be non, as always, non, the eternal non" he said bitterly. As one of only two former aides who have seen De Gaulle since his retirement (ex-Defense Minister Pierre Messmer is the other), Couve also had a few things to say publicly about the general's plans. De Gaulle realized, reported Couve, that any political meddling on his part "would make it difficult for those who succeeded him." Accordingly, he has "marked his desire to abstain from any future...
...government's concern was reflected in a massive campaign. Finance Minister François-Xavier Ortoli promised no new taxes this year. Defense Minister Pierre Messmer announced that the government was considering lowering compulsory military service from 16 months to twelve. The Ministry of Interior prepared 29 million pamphlets explaining the referendum-one for every voter in France. Applying what has always before been the clinching argument, Minister of State Roger Frey drew a frightening picture of a France without De Gaulle: "To vote no or to abstain is to vote for the Communist Party, to compromise France...
...increasingly autocratic attitude goes down badly in the French National Assembly, where the Gaullists have a slim majority that barely managed to hold together until the summer adjournment this month. Politicians of every party, except the Communists, protested De Gaulle's condemnation of Israel. Defense Minister Pierre Messmer and Minister of State Pierre Billotte particularly deplored French policy during the crisis; so did Gaullist Coalition Partner Giscard d'Estaing, leader of the independent Republican Party. The Catholic newspaper Figaro attacked France's recent pro-Soviet votes in the United Nations. "Where does De Gaulle want to take...
...Gaulle's diplomatic success. U.S. sources who a week before Paris had talked tough came away taking strange comfort in the fact that they had not been "hacked up." The U.S. hailed as a welcome sign of French conciliation the fact that McNamara and French Defense Minister Pierre Messmer had discussed plans for coordinating targeting when the French force de frappe bomber fleet comes into being next year...