NOTHING ADO ABOUT MUCH

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 20

NOTHING ADO ABOUT MUCH

(Trom LtS GIBB ARD in Parti)

Six days a week absolutely nothing happens at the Hotel Majestic. It's just round the corner from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Then on the seventh—a Mecredl (Wednesday) to be precise—the gleaming limousines of the Americans and the humbler Citroens of the North Vietnamese draw up outside the hotel for the weekly peace talks. Later they come out They sport the smiles of diplomats. Nothing has happened, they tell the nodding barrage of microphones. The limousines and the Citroens depart Seven days a week nothing happens. Sadly, despite all optimism, It’s been the same every week since the much bally-hooed talks began on May 10. Plenty is written in the world press about the one day a week when something, even nothing, happens at the Hotel Majestic. But what of the other days? It’s a sunny day, and it's hot In grimmer days we would have kept well clear of the Majestic, then known as the Gestapo headquarters for Paris. Even now it’s barricaded with steel railings and patrolled by bored thirsty gendarmes, wearing walkytalky radios. The Majestic with Its ornate, somewhat weatherbeaten architecture is majestic in the grand Paris manner.

A modem plastic sign “Centre des Conferences Internationales” contrasts against the stonework.

There's no sign of activity inside—and the gendarmes see to it that there’s nothing doing outside. The scene of utter boredom is broken only by the gay flapping umbrellas and awning of a cafe across the road. The cafe is unremarkable but for the fact that it charges four francs for a beer and a lemonade, and in New Zealand terms 70 cents is a bit stiff. However we do sip our lemonades or whatever and stare at the nothingness of the Hotel Majestic. And the bombs, the street fighting, the mangled bodies, the parentless children and the poison gas seems a world away—as well they might. But if we feel divorced from reality we must pity those sad members of the peace delegations who in the cause of world peace must stay in 80 suites at the Crillon (room with bath £l6 a night) indefinitely. Not for them the stale French loaf and mouldy cheese on the banks of the Seine. No, each night they must face a too-often-read menu, and know with a sickness in the stomach that there is no untried brand of champagne on the wine list We salute them in their suffering. War may be hell. Making peace is heller.