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    "localId": "225248276",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 63, The Current Situation in French North Africa",
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    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 63, The Current Situation in French North Africa",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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            "day": 18,
            "logicalDate": "1947-12-18",
            "month": 12,
            "year": 1947
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{
    "seq": 5,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
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    "ocrText": "SECRET\noverseas federation, has replaced the concept of the French Empire. In this Union,\nAlgeria forms a part of the French Republic, while Tunisia and Morocco are considered\n\"associated states.\" According to the new Constitution, any one of these has the\nright to modify its status either in the direction of assimilation to France or toward a\nlooser federalism, subject to the approval of the French National Assembly. The\nFrench Union, however, has appeared to the natives as a cloak for more colonialism.\nMeanwhile, the UN, the Arab League (which considers North Africa as part of the\nArab world), and the US seem to the Nationalists to offer better opportunities for as-\nsistance in gaining independence than continued negotiations with France. Whereas\nbefore the war, nationalist leaders had agitated unsuccessfully for equal civic rights and\nsocial reforms, they now denounce as snares or stalling all French reform proposals,\nand publicly proclaim that they will be satisfied with nothing less than independence.\nThe UDMA, however, is an exception, favoring inclusion of Algeria within the French\nUnion. In Cairo, center of the Pan-Arab movement, the Maghreb Bureau furnishes\nFrench North African native leaders a meeting place at which to coordinate their moves.\nClose liaison is maintained with the Arab League, which has indicated that it will turn\nits attention to the Maghreb in 1948.\nThe small Communist Parties of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have thus far\nbeen unsuccessful in their appeals to the Nationalists to join them in a unified\nindependence front. The native leaders and most of North Africa's 18,000,000 Mos-\nlems, regard the Communists as another group of infidels opposed to Islam. Of equal\nimportance, the Communists' independence program at present includes \"association\nwithin the French Union.\" Should the Nationalists, nevertheless, succeed in achieving\nindependence, the small, well-organized, and apparently well-financed Communist\nParties, during the unsettled conditions that would follow freedom from France, might\ngain control of the areas' nationalist movements, paving the way for eventual Com-\nmunist control of the whole region. Such control could be most easily obtained in\nAlgeria where no native economic, social, or political structure exists and where a\nrapidly multiplying landless proletariat has developed and is faced with an increasingly\ndesperate economic situation. In spite of the widespread allegiance to the Sultan in\nMorocco, the Nationalist Party, whose strength is largely in the towns, could probably\nnot prevent the Communists from making serious inroads among the politically naive\npopulace and eventually gaining control of the government. In Tunisia, where a\ngreater degree of political sophistication and a greater sense of national unity exist,\nthe Nationalists could probably successfully contain the Communists.\nThe French Government would appear at present to be making an effort to prepare\nTunisia and Morocco for a considerable degree of autonomy and has voted a statute for\nAlgeria which accords further civic rights to Moslem Algerians. The reforms, however,\nappear to the native leaders in all cases to be designed to preserve the status quo while\npaying lip service to their aspirations. Their lack of faith in French sincerity with re-\ngard to a reform program is increased by the failure of the French to establish a \"time-\ntable\" for the implementation of these reforms. In some cases the reforms tend to\nextend French control to domains formerly reserved for natives. Although for reasons\nof \"face\" and prestige the French prefer not to negotiate directly with nationalist\ngroups, which are technically outlawed, informal conversations take place. Moslem\n3\nSECRET"
}