Bizerte Aftermath:

...neutrality probably reflected anger with himself rather than with Washington...

...Nor should one minimize the dangers inherent in any new arrangements with Cairo and Moscow...

...For if the West abandons Bourguiba or other moderates without giving them a chance to prove to their peoples that cooperation with the West is possible, their successors will be far less friendly to us and the chances for any cooperation will be slim indeed...

...It would also, of course, play into the hands of the extremists who claim that it is impossible to deal with the West on a basis of mutual respect...

...Furthermore, Bourguiba's desire to have the United States underwrite as much of Tunisia's projected ten-year economic plan as possible, and his willingness to settle his differences with France through bilaterial negotiations rather than through the United Nations, indicate a desire to mend fences with the West if this can be done without loss of face...

...Bourguiba's detente with the Arab League, his acceptance of $28.5 million in Soviet technical assistance and his vague invitation to Nikita Khrushchev have been hastily interpreted in certain circles as signifying a shift toward a Nasser-type of positive neutralism...

...Despite recent actions Bourguiba remains pro-Western Bizerte Aftermath By Lorna Hahn Irresponsible statements concerning the Bizerte crisis have helped to create an unwarranted gulf of misunderstanding between Tunisia and America...

...For example, the influential Tunisian weekly Afrique Action—which often reflects, but also often conflicts with, Government policies—recently flayed the West for being "welded to France by the profound and intimate solidarity of the evolved whites...

...It was not the result of a decision to scrap his pro-Western trademark, as his subsequent conciliatory gestures have indicated...

...But for the United States to quickly write off Bourguiba as a friend on the basis of a few faux pas, or to conclude that President Kennedy's policy of rapprochement with moderate nationalists is destined for failure, would be to espouse the same sort of irrational behavior we often find so condemnable in Africa...

...For the mere presence on the Tunisian scene of foreign elements seeking to replace Bourguiba and re-orient Tunisia's foreign policy can easily encourage those Tunisians who favor the neutralist gambit or who, for reasons of personal ambition, seek to embarrass or discredit Bourguiba...

...Nor did they point out that its attack was hardly indicative of the attitude of most Tunisians, who usually make a fetish of their lack of racial complexes...

...President Habib Bourguiba's precipitous actions, harmful as they have been to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's efforts to gird for a possible Berlin showdown, were not directed against the West or the United States as such—as some people in Washington profess to believe...

...To the contrary, it now appears that some bad advice led Bourguiba to believe that Washington would support his position on troop evacuation from Bizerte, and to expect that a real clash with France would be avoided...

...Lorna Hahn is the author of North Africa: Nationalism to Nationhood...

...Future American policies towards Tunisia, therefore, should take into account Bourguiba's record of cooperation with the West, his leadership of the moderate African bloc (including the planning and manning of most of the UN's Congo operation), and above all, the pressures under which he must work...

...None of this is stated to excuse Bourguiba's mistakes, or to imply that he should be given carte blanche simply because his pro-Western proclivities are rare in his part of the world...

...Overlooked in such deductions are Bourguiba's personal hatred for the man who has so often tried to arrange his assassination, the fact that negotiations had been underway since April for Soviet technical assistance in such projects as dam building, and Tunisia's obvious need to scrape up immediate diplomatic support wherever possible...

...Thus, his subsequent burst of indignation at U.S...

...More serious has been the willingness—in some cases, eagerness—of many United States officials to push the panic button and jump to the worst possible conclusions about a country or a people about which they have little real knowledge...

...In reporting this provocative distortion by people who are as "evolved" and "white" as most Westerners, few American papers noted that Action was doubtless trying to bolster its readership in sub-Sahara Africa...