Maurice Couve de Murville; Former French Premier

Maurice Couve de Murville, 92, a stalwart of French diplomacy in the 1960s and President Charles de Gaulle’s last prime minister. Couve de Murville entered diplomacy after his escape from Vichy France in 1943 to join the provisional French government under Gen. de Gaulle in North Africa. He was appointed French ambassador to the United States in late 1954. He also held posts as ambassador in Rome, Egypt and Germany and was briefly the French representative at NATO. He became prime minister after the May 1968 student revolt that rocked French society. Replacing Georges Pompidou, he served as foreign minister for 10 years, starting in 1958, and was the longest-serving foreign minister in two centuries of French history. A vigorous advocate of greater unity in Europe in the 1960s, he was foreign minister in January 1963 when de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signed the Franco-German “reconciliation treaty,” an attempt to end postwar bitterness between the two countries. During his tenure as foreign minister, France, under de Gaulle, also pulled out of NATO’s integrated military command. It has never rejoined. Although de Gaulle was a devout Roman Catholic and Couve de Murville was a Protestant, the late French leader used to say that his austere foreign minister understood his thoughts and policies better than anyone else. Their relationship is best illustrated by a popular anecdote from de Gaulle’s meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Discussing their foreign ministers, Khrushchev, referring to Andrei Gromyko, reportedly said: “Mine is so loyal that if I told him to sit on a block of ice, he would do so until it melted.” De Gaulle said: “Mine would too--but the ice would not melt.” Couve de Murville left his post when de Gaulle retired in April 1969. He became a senator from the Gaullist Rally for the Republic Party in 1986. On Friday in Paris.