President Pompidou would have spared himself pointless anguish had .he recognized that no high ranking official can expect to travel anywhere these days of volatile emotions and limited civility without finding some thorns among the roses strewn in his path.
In the wake of the French President's eight‐day tour of the United States, it is clear that there was more melodrama than high drama in the Incidents that made, headlines in Chicago, Westchester County and New York, Mr. Pompidou, perhaps because his wife's concern at the proximity of hostile demon strators in Chicago, overreacted in threatening to bypass New York and in canceling abruptly a long scheduled meeting with Jewish leaders here.
President Nixon's response, in flying to New York, was overanxious, a reflection of the teapot tempest that pervaded the whole affair. But Mr. Nixon's wit at the farewell banquet provided a happy ending worthy of the best of operettas. It soothed the ruffled feathers of the French leader and his lady and saved the day for the improvement in French‐American rela tions both Presidents have been eager to achieve.
There could, of course, have been a disaster if the two Presidents had been such proud and touchy men as Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson—who were unable ever to .agree when or where to meet. As a result of their mutual antipathy, years passed without a conference between the Presidents of the two countries and relations deteriorated far more than substantive disagreements justified.
The Nixon trip to Paris last year and President Pompidou's return visit have terminated this unhappy era and opened the way for a continuing dialogue that, despite, the serious and still unresolved differ ences on the Middle East, Governments to concert policy again as between allies.