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Show I; - The White House is studying many ironic similarities between i the Cuban and Algerian crises. There may be lessons for the U.S. in both. Both debacles were described as ill fated military adventures. The rightist French generals' re-i re-i bellion against President Charles j DeGaulle, like the Cuban exiles j invasion against Castro, threat- j ened the central government for a time and posed the threat of world war, then just as quickly ( turned into a tragic fiasco that strengthened rather than weakened weak-ened both Castro and DeGaulle. Their victories gave both an opportunity op-portunity to move against their foes. The attempt to topple Castro failed with defeat of a sea borne invasion, while the rightist revolt re-volt against DeGaulle collapsed following failure of a threatened rebel paratroop invasion of the country of France. Both Castro , Throughout the Algerian struggle, strug-gle, DeGaulle, while seeking a peace with the Muslim rebels has asserted a right to act independently indepen-dently despite US, NATO, UN, and Afro-Asian-Latin protests, and Communist war therats. President Kennedy has now declared that he is as determined deter-mined to rid Cuba of Communism Commu-nism "regardless of the peril," just as DeGaulle is determined to maintain close ties to a non-Communist non-Communist Algeria, even if Algeria Al-geria becomes independent. "Regardless "Re-gardless of the peril, DeGaulle said recently, France is determined deter-mined to prevent Algeria from slipping into the Communist bloc. All of this offers a lesson for the U.S. The same determination better use of guerilla warfare and greater effort to win broad base peasant support for its policies, poli-cies, could insure success for American foreign policy in Cuba and DeGaulle cancelled commercial commer-cial airline service during their crises, cutting both countries off from the outside world until the crises ended. Just as the anti Castro rebels refrained from air bombing the city of Havana because they feared such bombings would unite the Cuban people behind Castro, the French rebels refrained re-frained from threatened air bombings of mainland France, because they knew bombings would turn the people against them. In both cases, the real hope for the success of the' Cuban exiles' attempt overthrow Castro, as in the French Army General's revolt, re-volt, was that the civilian populace popu-lace would rise up and support the rebels. Castro, despite Soviet arms, . terrorism, mass arrests and secret se-cret police, has shown strong, undeniable support among the Cuban peasantry and working classes just as the aloof DeGaulle call to the French masses to aid him shows his real power is in the people's support, as he has claimed. The White House, defying crit- or wherever else it is put to the test. Castro, who has purged the Cuban army of ex-Batista unre-liables. unre-liables. nowcounts heavily on his trained citizens' militia in any showdown, just as DeGaulle in purging his army of unreliables, armed a civilian militia in preparing pre-paring to meet the rightist invasion inva-sion threat. In Cuba. Castro has long been challenged to hold truly free elections. The invasion debacle may now give him further excuse ex-cuse to delay elections or to stage rigged elections. DeGaulle having crushed his rightist foes, may now feel freer to hold new elections in France and Algeria to broaden his support in Parliament. Par-liament. DeGaulle's rally of the French people against he insurgents via TV, showed the power of TV to inform. Castro's frequent use of TV shows its power to misinform and oppress. Both Castro and DeGaulle are dictators, though DeGaulle's dictatorial power is constitutional, defined and restrained, re-strained, while Castro's brutal dictatorship is not. Neither Cuba nor France have an Anglo Saxon legal political tradition, But DeGaulle De-Gaulle seeks political stability, while Castro does not. Castro seeks to rally the worst in the Cuban people, while DeGaulle De-Gaulle is trying to rally the best that is France, While Castro imposes im-poses military rule on his people, DeGaulle, despite his military background, has opposed militarism mili-tarism and has now conquered his militarist rivals. At the same time the French generals have fallen into ill repute re-pute as a result of their Algerian insurrection. Castro is militarizing militariz-ing Cuba and threatening aggression, ag-gression, while DeGaulle's constant con-stant goal has been peace in Algeria, Al-geria, much to the French extremists' ex-tremists' chagrin. There were many similarities in the U. S. role during both the Cuban exiles' invasion and the French army revolt. President Kennedy has been personally and politically . involved in-volved since his celebrated Senate Sen-ate Speech in 1957 declaring sympathy for Algerian independence, indepen-dence, and his campaign pledge that he would back a Cuban exiles' ex-iles' ouster of Castro. icism, dropped any pretense ol a "hand off" policy in Cuba, just as the President proclaimed an official pro-DeGaulle policy in the French extremist revolt over Algeria, and even offered military mili-tary and naval assistance if he asked. DeGaulle quickly brought the French rebel generals to heel by imposing the same tight economic eco-nomic blockade of Algeria the U.S. is being urged to impose against Castro". Both the Cuban and Algerian crises caused a constructive review re-view of the U.S. Central Intelligence Intelli-gence Agency, with long sought after improvements in CIA operations op-erations expected to result. The Cuban exiles sought quick victory via sea borne invasion, although victory is more likely to come from the same slow guerilla gue-rilla warfare Castro employed to defeat Batista. President Kennedy, Ken-nedy, realizing this, has named retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor to update U.S. guerilla warfare techniques for just such brush fire war areas as Cuba and Laos. The U.S. could also do worse than study . the success of the brush warfare 100,000 Muslim guerillas have been employing against the might of the French army in Algeria. The U.S., realizing that a .direct .di-rect threat of aggression and a basic issue of security is involved in Cuba, is now adopting the same "go ilt alone policy against Castro that DeGaulle has been criticized for in Algeria. |