THE ENIGMA OF EUROPE
BERNSTIEN, BART
\BOOKS The Enigma of Europe by CECIL V. CRABB JR. WHEN I want to know what France ™ thinks/5 President Charles de Gaulle snapped at one of his aides, "I question myself." For much of the...
...Simon and Schuster...
...For Charles de Gaulle is perhaps the most "complicated" political leader of the Twentieth Century...
...6.95...
...The President of France, Aron asserts in An Explanation of De Gaulle, holds his own "particular conception of truth and objectivity," leading him to "contradict himself without being aware of the contradiction...
...SONS OF FRANCE: PETAIN AND DE GAULLE, by Jean-Raymond Tournoux...
...It is perhaps in keeping with the many paradoxes inherent in de Gaulle's own nature that the best recent commentary about him should have been produced by an American, the well-known news analyst David Schoenbrun, who has lived in France for several years and is personally acquainted with its leading political figures...
...Anomolies, paradoxes, and contradictions are inherent in his nature...
...De Gaulle will always be a man of mystery, in part because he chooses to be—out of conviction, he once said, that a great man "has mysterious powers peculiar to himself...
...Although Schoenbrun obviously admires de Gaulle, his analysis is far from uniformly favorable...
...The mainstream of the narrative too frequently gets obscured by copius and what often seem extraneous details...
...4.50...
...BART BERNSTEIN teaches history at Stanford University...
...Harper and Row...
...But de Gaulle has been right enough times before and since World War II to justify studying his views and conduct more dispassionately than has been done thus far, particularly on this side of the Atlantic...
...LUCY JOHNSON is a free lance writer who reviews fiction regularly for The Progressive...
...Anyone seeking greater insight into the wellsprings of Gaullist policies, and who desires to become better grounded in de Gaulle's own thought before reading some of the newer commentaries about him, might well begin with the compendium by Roy C. Macridis, De Gaulle: Implacable Ally...
...373 pp...
...His severest indictment (which seems to me much too unqualified) is that for France de Gaulle "has done nothing except pull out temporary palliatives" which "resolve nothing permanently...
...D E GAULLE, by Francois Mauriac...
...And Werth, as critical of de Gaulle as Mauriac is sympathetic, too often loses his sense of balance, as when he compares de Gaulle to a fascist dictator and brands his early postwar political movement "totalitarian...
...According to Aron, de Gaulle's political genius lies in his ability to reconcile two incompatible character traits—"his intransigence and his empiricism...
...This is an extremely useful collection of excerpts from the General's memoirs and his earlier writings, his press conferences and speeches, and relevant interpretations of Gaullism, some of which are largely unavailable outside France...
...Doubleday...
...will take into account only what exists" and a leader who bases "his present action on the future events that exist potentially in what is happening at the time...
...Similarly, his interview with former President Eisenhower indicates that the Republican President understood de Gaulle better than any occupant of the White House since World War II, and that de Gaulle did not always reciprocate in a search for more harmonious relations...
...5.95...
...In parts, it is based upon original source materials hitherto neglected...
...More than in Mauriac's study, Robert Aron—a wartime associate of de Gaulle's and one of France's eminent political commentators—focuses upon the extraordinary complexity of the General's character...
...7.50...
...His judgment on Marxism—"Ideology in reality covers only ambitions"—could apply with equal relevance to Gaullism...
...D E GAULLE, by Alexander Werth...
...Better than most of his contemporaries, he has shown an awareness that adaptation is a law of political life...
...210 pp...
...Paris' treaty with Bonn has achieved little concretely...
...Francois Mauriac no doubt exaggerates when he asserts that de Gaulle has been "right ever since 1927...
...Not unexpectedly, Mauriac discovers de Gaulle's principal failures in the spiritual-ethical realm—specifically his neglect of French youth, who alone are really capable of bringing to France le grandeur to which Gaullists aspire...
...With Allen AAatusow he edited "The Truman Administration: A Documentary History/' published this year by Harper & Row...
...In addition, de Gaulle himself derogates the importance of rigid principles, philosophies, and ideologies...
...Yet two tendencies detract from Werth's account...
...Yet nearly all of the recent studies of de Gaulle also highlight the fact that the French President remains an enigma...
...Although many of his objectives are known, de Gaulle is above all a realist, a man (to quote again from Mauriac) who D E GAULLE: IMPLACABLE ALLY, edited by Roy C. Macridis...
...Schoenbrun's assessment is outstanding in several respects...
...For much of the past twenty-five years, it has been true, as Rene Plevan told an exasperated Churchill during World War II, that "whether you like it or not, the map of France is now called de Gaulle...
...AN EXPLANATION OF DE GAULLE,, by Robert Aron...
...De Gaulle, Schoenbrun asserts, has become the "Jefferson Davis of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance...
...after complaining about the lack of Anglo-American "consultation" with France, de Gaulle has often failed to carry through when new opportunities for consultation were offered...
...It is a readable and fascinating account of two men—each one of whom was eventually compelled to try the other for treason—who symbolized the French defeat and the French resurrection...
...Maurice Duverger's introduction to this volume is admirable, serving as a lucid and provocative framework within which to understand the documentary materials which follow...
...ALAN P. MER-RIAAA is a professor of anthropology at Indiana University...
...De Gaulle is a master innovator...
...Yet Aron too finds much to criticize in the Gaullist record...
...4.95...
...Thestudy entitled simply De Gaulle —by Alexander Werth, who recently gave us the outstanding Russia at War: 1941-45, is something of a disappointment...
...WILLIAM McCANN edited the paperback, "Ambrose Bierce's America...
...His self-styled "political biography" of de Gaulle is thorough, factual, and often highly illuminating...
...416 pp...
...It is the former because many of de Gaulle's goals and operating principles have been (or should have been) known to the outside world for years...
...THE THREE LIVES OF CHARLES DE GAULLE, by David Schoenbrun...
...239 pp...
...The Three Lives of Charles de Gaulle is longer and more comprehensive than most of the other volumes...
...stood you," de Gaulle told the mob in Algeria at the height of that country's recent agony...
...Sons of France, by Jean-Raymond Tournoux, deals with a little-known chapter in de Gaulle's life: chiefly his military career, when he was a protege of one of the most tragic figures in French history, Marshal Henri Petain...
...If there is any convincing evidence to support such verdicts, Werth does not supply it...
...But de Gaulle is an enigma for even more basic reasons...
...Harper and Row...
...Like the French high command during the 1930s, however, too many Frenchmen and foreigners alike have ignored de Gaulle's ideas to their detriment...
...229 pp...
...Viking Press...
...he does not, therefore, hesitate to modify (to the point sometimes of abandoning) many of his goals in the light of new circumstances inside and outside France...
...248 pp...
...The Catholic writer Francois Mauriac has given us a portrait of de Gaulle which is perhaps the most sympathetic among the studies recently published...
...Atheneurn...
...The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin made many errors of judgment, but few surpassed his remark at the Yalta Conference that de Gaulle was "not a complicated man...
...He is the author of "Congo: Background of Conflict...
...The mind of the President of France is both an open book and an enigma...
...Je vous ai compris—"I have underTHE REVIEWERS CECIL V. CRABB JR...
...and de Gaulle (who would have become "the first president of the United States of Europe") has blocked progress toward greater regional unity...
...Schoenbrun's treatment of the Roosevelt Administration's policies toward de Gaulle (FDR, he says, "could not mention de Gaulle's name without a jeer or a jibe") is indispensable for anyone desiring to understand the coolness characterizing Franco-American relations after 1958...
...WHEN I want to know what France ™ thinks/5 President Charles de Gaulle snapped at one of his aides, "I question myself...
...Even if few outsiders will ever really comprehend de Gaulle as he has understood his country's problems and aspirations, they can certainly gain clearer insight into an intriguing subject from the books now available about one of the most influential men in modern history...
...BOOKS The Enigma of Europe by CECIL V. CRABB JR...
...Werth, of course, is an experienced author and political analyst...
...is a professor of political science at Vassar College and is currently chairman of the department...
...The reader, for example, is unlikely to encounter a more interesting or enlightening treatment of the notorious "Ben Barka affair" which recently scandalized France...
...Believing that, among the forces in France's modern political life, de Gaulle was truly the most revolutionary, Mauriac accents the General's deep dedication to France, his lack of desire for personal gain or fortune, and his religious conviction...
...Surprise, he emphasized, was an indispensable ingredient of victory, but surprise "must be organized" and must be carried out "under a thick veil of deception...
...Throughout his political career, he has followed the maxim enunciated in one of his books on military strategy (The Army of the Future...
Vol. 30 • October 1966 • No. 10
