Monday. Nov. 12, 1962 University Daily Kansai
Page 9
De Gaulle's Decision to Remain President Made While Relaxing At Country Home
(Editor's Note: Did President Charles de Gaulle really mean it when he told Frenchmen before last Sunday's referendum that he would quit unless they gave him a big vote of approval? Or was it just a campaign gimmick? In this dispatch a veteran reporter of French affairs examines the questions.)
JOSEPH W. GRIGG
PARIS (UFI) — Probably the most relaxed man in Franch as the final results of France's constitutional referendum rolled in last Monday was President Charles de Gaulle himself.
He was not only relaxed, he was asleep.
De Gaulle had laid his job on the line. He had warned the nation twice in the most solemn, dramatic terms that if it failed to give him a massive vote he would quit for good.
"Vote for me or I go" was the gist of his threat. Instead of voting on the method for electing future French presidents the French nation was, in fact, having to vote for or against De Gaulle.
But one reason for De Gaulle's casual, almost off-hand approach to the result was that he had taken good care to make his threat fully elastic, with himself as the sole judge whether he should go or stay.
OF COURSE, if a majority of the nation had voted "no." De Gaulle automatically would have stepped down into retirement, and left France to pick up the pieces.
But the early results announced before he retired to bed at his quiet country home at Colombeyles Deux-Eglises, plus all the advance soundings of government pollsters, virtually ruled out such an upset result.
The question, therefore, remained—for what kind of vote would De Gaulle settle?
He took care never to spell this out.
of "yes" votes was "weak, mediocre, indecisive."
But even close aides were unsure what, exactly, he had in mind. Some said he would insist on 60-65 percent of the actual ballot cast, others that he must have more than 50 per cent of the 27,500,000 registered voters.
IN A RADIO-TELEVISION broadcast to the nation Oct. 18 he said he would quit if the majority
WHEN THE results were counted, they disclosed that De Gaulle had won 62 percent of the ballots cast—but only 48 percent of the actual electorate because 6,273,000 registered voters failed to vote.
From that moment in the small house of Monday the nation—or at least its top officials, politicians and political commentators — were plunged into an hour or so of tragicomic confusion.
Would De Gaulle settle for the result or would he quit?
DE GAULLE, imperturbable as ever, aear at his accustomed hour of 7 am., read all the newspapers and studied the results.
once as planned, he stayed on another day at Colombey to think things over. Finally, that afternoon the word came from Colombey which enabled Paris afternoon papers to top their final editions with the banner headline "De Gaulle Stays."
Instead of returning to Paris at
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OH, given time a short-necked man with a heavy beard could pill any oxford cloth, they're that soft. But until just recently even Little Lord Fauntleroy could have pilled a DACRON/cotton oxford cloth shirt with one curl tied behind him. Which is why we didn't put out any of them. $ \star $ Sure you know what pilled means; it's when the fabric gets roughed up into little pills. $ \star $ Well, Du Pont has a brand new type DACRON that resists pilling. It came out about a year ago, but we waited until Greenwood Mills, the weavers who make our cotton oxfords produced a DACRON/cotton oxford they were proud of; a really luxuriant lofted oxford. And that brings us up to now. We are making Eagle Shirts of this new material in both a Tabsnap $ ^{®} $ collar and a button-down collar. At about $8.50.
★ Tabsnaps, you may recall, are Eagle tab collars that need no collar buttons. Our button-down collars also have a property highly prized by the toney cognoscenti**: a sort of sloppy bulge. We used to call this "flare" until we noticed everybody else was too. Besides, it really isn't a flare, it's a sloppy bulge, but it's ours and we like it. ★ So if you want a drip-dry oxford shirt that won't pill perhaps you'd better drop a note to Miss Afflerbach (she says forget the footnote) and ask her where in your town you can find Eagle Shirts. This is because many fine stores prefer to put their own labels in our shirts; very flattering, but tough on Eagle eyed shoppers. Write her care of Eagle Shirtmakers, Quakertown, Pa.
*Du Pont's trademark for its polyester fiber. **That wouldn't be a bad name for an Italian fashion consultant. Say, do you suppose we could get Miss Afflerbach to change her name to Toni Cognoscenti and ...
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