Seavey Sees Gradual Change Way Out of French North Africa Problem

The situation in the French North African colonies of Algiers, Morocco, and Tunisia will see no over-night shift of policy, Warren A. Seavey, Bussey Professor of Law, said last night. Rather the particular set of circumstances call for a gradual stabilization of control, he stated.

What the American army of occupation did in North Africa would have been done by any army or nation under the same conditions, he said. Any army would have had to take over the existing control, whether or not it fitted exactly with the occupiers' preconceived notions of government.

He pointed out that in the colonies, which were put under the strictest of Vichy control immediately after the fall of France, there was a large native population which remained loyal to the Vichy appointees, upon whom they depended for their livelihood.

No occupying force could hope to overturn the economy of a country, he said, and expect to control that country very efficiently. Thus, we have had to work with the Vichy-established, and in many cases fascist-inspired, local political setup and make the best we can out of it.

Professor Seavey was of the opinion that there would have been no real trouble in North Africa had not the DeGaullists raised the issue of supremacy. The French in Africa, he said, would not have obeyed DeGaulle in any case, for the DeGaullists were far too few in number to have established effective control even if they had been strongly supported by the United States. DeGaulle is primarily a soldier, and not a politician, the law professor explained.