Two Faculty Experts Doubt French Plan To Desert NATO

Two experts expressed skepticism last night over the significance of a dispatch in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, reporting that General de Gaulle is about to lead France out of NATO.

Under a headline proclaiming, "De Gaulle Staggers NATO, Limits France to 'Own war,'" Volney D. Hurd reported that the President told the French Staff College "France will only 'associate' itself with its allies and will fight only what are clearly and exclusively 'its wars, using its men and its material, on its soil.'"

Both Stanley H. Hoffman, Henry LeBarre Jayne Assistant Professor of Government, and A. Nicholas wahl, instructor in government, were wary of accepting Hurd's conclusion that, "This means no less than France's withdrawal from the jointly decided and executed operations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization," without seeing more extensive portions of the speech.

Instead, they agreed that it is "necessary to distinguish between policy and philosophy," as Hoffmann said. Until de Gaulle withdraws from NATO operations Wald and Hoffmann suggest that his statement is just another expression of his preference for an associated rather than integrated defense effort.