The Convocation

Under the heavily encrusted ceiling of the Elysee Palace's Salle des Fetes, one thousand newsmen and the French Cabinet sat in splendor on spindly gilt chairs, buzzing to themselves in the perfumed heat. Precisely at 3 o'clock, the buzzing stopped, a white-gloved valet parted the brocaded curtains in front of them, and out stepped the grandest Frenchman of them all. "Good day, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate myself on seeing you," said Charles de Gaulle, opening his eleventh semiannual convocation of the press.

As always, De Gaulle had spent several days preparing, honing and memorizing exactly what he wanted to say, but as always, he went through the formality of receiving questions from the floor, registering his comprehension of each with a grave nod or a murmured phrase ("tres bieri"). When an editor asked him about his health, the

General said wryly: "I am not too bad, but rest assured I will not fail to die."

Common Concern. It took only four minutes for the newsmen, carefully instructed, to supply De Gaulle with the questions to his answers. "Now then," he said, "there is the whole group of subjects that are of concern to you and, I believe, to the whole world."

Turning first to economics, De Gaulle began with a 20-minute justification of the De Gaulle policy--midway between the "excesses" of totally free enterprise and "sullen, colorless and savorless" socialism. Then he declared that the reunification of Germany, one of the cold war's most explosive issues, could be accomplished only "by Europe herself"; this brought snorts of disagreement from Washington, which considers the matter to be of wider concern.

Combining his customary grand view of Europe with a swipe at the U.S., De Gaulle continued: "Europe, the mother of modern civilization, must establish herself from the Atlantic to the Urals in harmony and cooperation, so as to play, in conjunction with America, her daughter, the role that falls to her in the progress of 2 billion men." A united Europe would have to include Britain too, and De Gaulle indicated his desire for better relations with London by announcing that Prime Minister Harold Wilson might soon be coming to Paris "to deal with all the problems common to our two great countries."

Then De Gaulle dropped an ingot that sent sound waves through the financial world: he called for a return to the gold standard, and a whole new approach to the international monetary system (see U.S. BUSINESS). Admittedly, said De Gaulle, such a measure would cause an enormous upheaval in the world financial structure--which these days is based largely on the dollar. But, De Gaulle went on, "there can be no other criterion, no other standard, than gold--gold that never changes, that can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, that has no nationality and that is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."

Usurped Powers. Also on De Gaulle's mind was the United Nations, which for months has been crippled by the dispute over assessments for U.N. peacekeeping operations--for which, of course, the French have not been willing to pay. The problem, decided De Gaulle, lay not in the U.N. Charter--which, "with Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and Chiang Kaishek, I had the honor of working out"--but in the fact that the General Assembly had usurped the powers delegated by the charter to the veto-conscious Security Council. "Under the pressure of events in Korea, in Suez, in Hungary, and of the immoderate abuse by the Soviets of their veto, the United Nations let themselves go beyond their nature and their possibilities --they went beyond their charter," said De Gaulle. "It is obviously necessary that Washington, Moscow, London, Peking, and Paris agree to return to the starting point, as they agreed in the past to found the United Nations. Geneva would be the most appropriate place for such negotiations among the five."

Few would argue with Charles De Gaulle that the U.N. was sick, but many disagreed with De Gaulle's diagnosis. In Washington, President Johnson told his own press conference that it was not the charter itself that needed change, but the attitude of "those countries which have violated either the spirit or the letter of the charter." Even more unacceptable was De Gaulle's proposed remedy, which would bring Communist China into negotiations for the revision of an organization from which it has been repeatedly blackballed. Furthermore, few of the organization's 108 smaller powers, whose main voice is the General Assembly, would likely applaud any move by the Big Five to dictate changes in the U.N. structure.

-In front row, from left: Cultural Affairs Minister Andre Malraux, Premier Georges Pompidou, Overseas Minister Louis Jacquinot.

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