World: A SUDDEN PARTING: How Pompidou Was Fired

The leader must aim high, show that he has vision, act on a grand scale. —Charles de Gaulle (1932)

There cannot be a couple at the head of state. Only one man can be in charge. Otherwise, the people get the impression that the No. 2 man is doing the steering. —De Gaulle (1967)

ALL his life, Charles de Gaulle has pondered the mystique of power. Last week, true to his own egocentric reasoning, he applied his maxims in a government shift that dumfounded his countrymen, angered the Gaullist party and raised doubts in France about the wisdom of his future policy. In what was perhaps the most ungracious ouster of a head of government since Germany's Wilhelm II fired Bismarck in 1890, De Gaulle dropped his old friend and loyal helper, Georges Pompidou, as Premier. As his replacement, De Gaulle tapped his longtime Foreign Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville, a suave aristocrat who has no personal political ambitions.

The dismissal was all the more ironic because, in all likelihood, De Gaulle would no longer be in the Elysée Palace if it were not for Pompidou. At the height of the May riots, it was Pompidou who kept the government running, cooled the strife between the security forces and the rebellious students, and got the workers back to their jobs. After that, he masterminded the amazingly successful election campaign that won for Gaullists the largest parliamentary majority that any government has held in nearly 100 years. In the process, Pompidou, who had never held a political office before he became Premier six years ago, gained considerable political stature in France. He became, in fact, the first Gaullist politician to develop an identity of his own in spite of De Gaulle's overshadowing presence. Pompidou's success became his downfall.

No Secret. For many Frenchmen and foreigners alike, the dismissal confirmed the impression that De Gaulle's recent brush with near-disaster had not made him one whit less willful or arbitrary. There also was concern about the future course of De Gaulle's policies. The general has interpreted the big election victory as a mandate to push through his reforms. The main one is participation, which he envisions as a new way of life that will enable students to have more say in the running of the universities and workers to share in both the profits and managerial decisions in their plants.

A onetime banker, Pompidou made no secret of the fact that he felt it would be dangerous to undertake any industrial reform in the wake of France's month-long economic paralysis. French businessmen and unionists counted on him to talk some reason into De Gaulle. At present, France is losing funds at such a drastic rate—$300 million to $400 million a week—that its net reserves of some $5 billion in gold and currency will be imperiled within a few months unless the huge outflow of francs is somehow checked.