TUNISIA: Good Offices from Friends

At his residence near the ancient ruins of Carthage early last week Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba held a business luncheon. Though the matters Bourguiba wanted to discuss were of vital interest to France, his guests were not Frenchmen. They were U.S. Ambassador Lewis Jones and British Ambassador Angus Malcolm. "This," commented a French diplomat in Tunisia, "is exactly what we have always tried to prevent; yet today we are grateful that it is occurring."

For years French governments fought jealously to keep Britain and the U.S. from "meddling" in France's North African sphere of interest. But the thesis that whatever...