MAN IN THE MIDDLE

Caught in history's spotlight, between his outraged people and their Algerian neighbors, and the bumbling, unpredictable government of France's Fourth Republic: Habib Bourguiba, first President of the new Republic of Tunisia.

Early Life. Born Aug. 3, 1903, and reared in the ancient Carthaginian fishing port of Monastir, youngest of eight, grandson of an Arab nationalist who was a leader in a 19th century revolt against oppressive taxes. Educated at French lycees in Tunis, the Faculty of Law and School of Political Science in Paris (where he read Victor Hugo and argued about the Rights of Man). Married Mathilde Lorrain, a Frenchwoman he met in Paris. They have one son, Habib Jr., now Tunisia's Ambassador to Italy.

Career. Began practicing law in Tunis in 1927, went into politics in 1930 as a fiery nationalist and organized his mass-based Neo-Destour Party through cells in 700 cities and villages. For the next 25 years, eleven of which he spent in jail or confinement, he kept saying: "Tunisia wants evolutionary emancipation, preferably with France's help." He returned triumphantly from exile in France when France granted internal autonomy in 1955, became Premier at independence a year later, assumed the presidency when Tunisia proclaimed itself a republic last July.

Personal Traits. A small, darting man with jutting jaw and deep blue eyes, he guards his health (he had a three-year bout with tuberculosis as a youth) by riding horseback often, spending each weekend at the house he was born in, to which he has added a top story and a green-tiled bath. A dynamic orator with a superb rabble-raising style, he talks to his people nowadays in weekly radio chats, using simple Arabic and vivid images. He dislikes administrative responsibility and paper work, loves parties and the theater, seldom dines with fewer than 20. A light eater and sleeper, he lives for the cut and thrust of politics, admits, "I am a political animal." He still keeps up his wide contacts with more progressive French politicians in Paris; he is a friend and admirer of Pierre Mendes-France, who as Premier of France in 1954 started Tunisia on the road to sovereignty. Says Habib Bourguiba: "I hate colonialism, not the French."

Politics. He has overhauled Tunisia's law code, abolished polygamy, and pushed the secularization of the state, but he has not come effectively to grips with his little country's economic problems, which include 400,000 unemployed in a population of 3,800,000. His overriding concern is to get the Algerian problem settled while preserving Tunisian independence from France. "Basically and profoundly," he says, "we are with the West." He still hopes to see "our Algerian brothers" free and joined with Tunisia and Morocco in a North African federation backed by France and the U.S.

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