Office of the Historian

74. Telegram From M’hammed Yazid of the National Liberation Front of Algeria to President Eisenhower1

New York, October 23, 1956—10:05 p.m.

Mr. President: Five of my colleagues, including Mohamed Ben Bella, who fought under your command during World War II, have been arrested yesterday while they were on their way to participate with the Sultan of Morocco and the Tunisian Premier Habib Bourguiba in a conference to seek a peaceful solution for the Algerian problem.2

The conference was called by the sovereigns of the two States with the specific knowledge of the French Government which had itself requested the mediation of the Sultan of Morocco and Premier Bourguiba of Tunisia. This action which was described by the representatives of more than twenty five African and Asian governments to the United Nations as “shocking” and condemned throughout the entire civilized world, will only help to increase the tension and aggravate the situation in North Africa and make impossible the achievement of a peaceful settlement of the Franco-Algerian conflict.

Mr. President, on behalf of the Algerian people who are fighting for ideals of peace and liberty which you have always championed, I appeal to you as President of the great democracy which blazed the trail of freedom to intervene with the French Government in order to set free the five leaders of the Algerian people. This would enable them to proceed to the proposed Conference of Peace in Tunis. Your intervention, Mr. President, would certainly avert the tragic consequences of the extension throughout North Africa of the war currently taking place in Algeria.

M’Hammed Yazid
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 771.00/10–2456. The source text is a commercial telegram.↩
  2. Mohammed Ben Bella, Mohammed Khider, Hocine Ait Ahmed, Mohammed Boudiaf, and Mustafa Lacheraf were captured when the plane on which they were passengers was intercepted. The first four were members of the original National Council of the Algerian Revolution; the last was an FLN information officer. Their plane was registered in France and had a French crew though it had been chartered by the Sultan who considered the FLN leaders to be his guests and under his protection.↩