1. Why the Coup Failed:
HERALD, GEORGE W.
Debacle in Algeria-3 Articles 1. WHY THE COUP FAILED By George W Herald Paris AS THE REAL story of the abortive coup d'etat in Algiers slowly emerges from the welter of confusing reports, it...
...All of them were arrogant cold fish living in an abstract world of kriegspiel theories...
...In the opinion of French experts, this was no idle boasting...
...This shows better than anything else why the plotters failed...
...He simply assumed, without ever asking them, that the pilots in Algeria would be ready to transport his Foreign Legion paratroopers to France...
...Some tried to keep their men from getting in touch with the population, so as not to become 'infected' by Gaullism...
...Many of their accomplices in military and civilian life never got to show their hand...
...In addition to these active supporters, there were many Army units in France that took a wait-and-see attitude...
...he dispatched Colonel Georges de Boissieu, his former aide, to France to offer his surrender to de Gaulle...
...George W. Herald is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Paris...
...2. Challe had firmly counted on the support of the United States...
...Salan, the mastermind of the plot— although in many ways the most stupid of the quartet—was a poker addict...
...He ordered his paratroops in Oran to try to occupy the neighboring naval base of Mers-el-Kebir...
...While Challe, Salan and Jouhaud left their headquarters on a truck filled with Legionnaires shouting orders at each other in German, Zeller made an even more ludicrous exit...
...Armored, support was to be given by tank units stationed at Rambouillet, near Paris...
...As it now appears, the General owes his victory mainly to the following circumstances: 1. The putsch had been originally planned for the night of Sunday, April 23 and was to be staged simultaneously in Paris and Algiers so as to leave no legal government in Metropolitan France that could oppose the usurpers...
...After the Cuban crisis, Challe sincerely believed that Kennedy would back him in his "struggle against Communism in North Africa...
...De Gaulle is trying to cope with this situation by creating special tribunals, dissolving mutinous regiments and arresting hundreds of suspects...
...He was particularly close to General Lauris E. Norstadt, the commander-in-chief of NATO, since he was one of the few French officers who dared contradict de Gaulle and come out squarely in favor of full NATO integration...
...If Challe had won, they would have had no trouble getting along with the new regime...
...During the past six months, Colonels Charles Lacheroy, Antoine Argoud, Yves Godard and Jean Gardes, who had drafted the 1958 scheme, held many secret meetings to adapt the plan to the new situation...
...Nothing, Paris officials admit, could be further from the truth...
...These colonels were, of course, known to the President as fierce opponents of his Algerian policy, hut thanks to his disdainful leniency they had all been able to keep important jobs in the Army...
...At 6 p.m...
...Algerian independence was for him a strategic nightmare, and there can be little doubt that his views were shared by some of his high-placed U.S...
...Their action caught Paris by surprise, but it also unsettled their fellow plotters in France who had made all their preparations for Sunday...
...The great lines of the conspiracy were the same as those of "Plan Resurrection," by which General de Gaulle would have been brought to power in May 1958 if the National Assembly had not voted him in anyway...
...None of the activists had been allowed to join in the revolt...
...At least two Paris newspapers, L'Aurore and Parisien Libéré, favored the rebels in principle...
...So had most of the officers whom de Gaulle removed from Algeria last year...
...Debacle in Algeria-3 Articles 1. WHY THE COUP FAILED By George W Herald Paris AS THE REAL story of the abortive coup d'etat in Algiers slowly emerges from the welter of confusing reports, it becomes clear that President Charles de Gaulle's triumph was not quite so great as it has been made out to be abroad...
...This seems to be the reason for rumors—hotly denied by U.S...
...If Challe hadn't acted ahead of schedule, his coup would therefore have had an excellent chance of succeeding...
...Half of his first speech over the Algiers radio was devoted to "that fine and brilliant young man, President John Kennedy...
...Edmond Jouhaud, after his retirement from the Army, had become an Algiers businessman...
...The conspirators could count on the assistance of Generals Paul Allard, Jacques Faure, Grout de Beaufort, Roger Miquel, André Gribius and a whole network of accomplices throughout France...
...Most of the Air Force crews simply refused to stage "a new German invasion" of France, an allusion to the fact that 45 per cent of the Legionnaires are former German SS men...
...who had flown from France to Algeria the same day, learned that their plan had leaked out, they decided not to wait until the weekend but to go ahead on Friday night without General Raoul Salan, who was still in Spain...
...Blind chauvinism—the psychological disease of our era—remains rampant in French military circles...
...They are still around—and are more resentful and fanatical than ever...
...By keeping their distance from the "extremist rabble," they hoped to pave the way for diplomatic recognition by the Western powers...
...Two National Broadcasting Company reporters also happened to be on the spot to broadcast Challe's side of the story to New York...
...The attempt was thwarted only through the quick intervention of Colonel Alain de Boissieu, a relative of General de Gaulle...
...For until that moment—and this is one of the least reported aspects of his plan— he had carefully avoided fraternizing with the Algerian ultras...
...He had 10 officers arrested and ordered the tanks put out of commission...
...These papers are the mouthpieces of big landowning and mining interests who are not reconciled to the prospect of peace...
...The plan at that time provided for converging troops on Paris from Algiers, Germany and southwest France...
...Several other arrests were made in the 7th Hussar Regiment...
...Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, he exchanged his resplendent uniform for a shabby blue suit, put on his pincenez, pulled down his hat and walked off through the hall with a briefcase under his arm...
...Zeller was an old martinet whose own brother, General Henri Zeller, had broken with him because of his chauvinistic stubbornness...
...In Challe's eyes, Algeria was the new soft underbelly of Europe that could at no price be abandoned in the struggle against Communism...
...4. At noon on Tuesday, April 25, Challe made a last desperate move...
...As a result, the General's cable of thanks sounded somewhat stilted...
...Rear Admiral Jean Marie Querville turned the guns of his vessel, Maille Brèze, on them and, while the reports that he fired a warning shot are untrue, his maneuvers persuaded the troops to withdraw in a hurry...
...French observers claim that Challe had some slight basis for his belief...
...But the Algiers police got wind of the plot as early as Thursday, April 20, and immediately alerted Paris...
...The President, the story goes, was so shocked by this alleged CIA venture—which would have been contrary to his entire policy— that he asked Ambassador Gavin to go to the Elysée Palace the same night and bring de Gaulle a warmhearted message of support...
...colleagues...
...After a talk with Salan, however, he changed his mind and went on the radio at 8 P.M...
...But it was too late...
...and two other U.S...
...Some of their meetings took place right under de Gaulle's nose, in the Ecole Militaire and the Invalides barracks in Paris...
...It is true that most of the Zouaves were conscripts who had a very good reason to act: They were about to leave for France to be demobilized, and were afraid that Challe's folly might keep them in Algeria indefinitely...
...Outside the building, he got into a car and drove off like a little bookkeeper for whom military putches and mutinies were all in a day's work...
...Challe had been a desk general for many years...
...then they plan to make another attempt —this time directed against the Elysee...
...Orders were badly transmitted or retarded under the pretext of "technical difficulties.' Countless officers barely disguised their sympathy for the mutineers...
...What started as a drama thus ended almost like a farce...
...But everyone here knows that Challe made many American friends during his tenure as Commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Central Europe...
...to call up the colons' Home Guard...
...The crews damaged the motors of the planes or escaped to French mainland bases...
...Kennedy even seems to have offered aid that nobody requested...
...He has won a battle against his enemies inside France, but he has not won the war...
...The air cadets in Salon, the paratroopers in Pau and the 11th Paratroop Battalion in Perpignan were only waiting for the green light from Algiers to invade the capital...
...De Gaulle, at the height of his glory must remain vigilant...
...In Rambouillet, for instance, officers of the 501st Tank Regiment tried to stage a veritable mutiny...
...But his last words before leaving were a snickering: "Don't celebrate too early, we'll be back...
...De Gaulle's opponents now hope that the General will give away so much in the forthcoming peace talks with the Algerian Nationalists at Evian-les-Bains that his popularity in France will take a sudden drop...
...Thus it can be said without exaggeration that the draftees in Algeria proved more reliable than the professional Army in France...
...military attaches were in Algiers the night of the coup and were somewhat sympathetic to Challe...
...But weeding out all the unreliable elements will be a Herculean task...
...He was astonished when exactly the opposite happened...
...Ambassador James Gavin—that American Central Intelligence agents (CIA) had been in touch with Challe...
...Does all this mean that the plotters were as crazy as it would seem from hindsight...
...Thus the whole operation went out of gear right from the start...
...The ultras, though, were too peeved to heed their call...
...It even was reported that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made a personal call to the White House to warn against the implications of such contacts...
...It was now clear to Challe that he could not go on without risking a bloody clash between Frenchmen...
...And before leaving Madrid, Salan left instructions that Joseph Ortiz, the hero of the January 1960 uprising, should under no circumstances be allowed to leave his refuge at Palma di Mallorca...
...The weekly Aux Ecoutes charged that Brigadier General C. Coburn Smith Jr...
...It was finally the Zouave regiment in Algiers who, on learning of Challe's surrender offer, decided to march on the radio station and other official buildings held by the rebels...
...At this writing, Salan, Zeller and Jouhaud are still at large...
...The forces behind them also remain powerful...
...3. Veteran aviator Challe had also counted on the French Air Force...
...Even so, it shook de Gaulle's regime to its foundations...
...Thus, Kennedy's message to de Gaulle came as a terrible blow to Challe, and from then on he was no longer sure that he could win...
...Did they never have a chance in the first place...
...They lacked the human qualities needed to sway crowds...
...In the camp at Mourmelon, the television sets were cut off during de Gaulle's speech...
...Only when things went wrong did they suddenly realize that they needed civilian support...
...When Generals Maurice Challe and Andre Zeller...
...When Pierre Lagaillarde arrived from Spain, he was told to enlist like an ordinary soldier, and no nonsense...
...That was the beginning of the end...
...It should be emphasized that it is impossible to verify this Parisian gossip...
...By ordering stern repression, de Gaulle has, if anything, increased the number of Frenchmen who hate him and the danger of an attempt on his life is greater than ever before...
...Apparently, the four generals wanted to look "respectable," especially in the eyes of the United States...
...But they never got within three miles of the port...
...In Germany, the 5th Tank Brigade under Gribius' command started moving toward the French border...
...24 of the vital transports landed in Istres in Southern France—without any passengers...
...Le Monde reported: "In the hour of danger, the Government did not find the support it had the right to expect from many chiefs and military staffs...
Vol. 44 • May 1961 • No. 19
