A Letter From The Publisher: Dec. 7, 1962

I THINK I draw him as a monument, a statue which walks and speaks, something mythical and historical.” So says the cartoonist who drew this week’s cover of France’s President Charles de Gaulle—43-year-old Louis Mitelberg, who calls himself “TIM” simply because an editor once put that name on a cartoon he had neglected to sign. He is France’s leading political cartoonist.

The fact that TIM does not always draw De Gaulle with pen and acid is a conversation piece in French journalism and politics. For TIM works for L’Express, a newspaper that views De Gaulle through beady eyes from the left. It is said that one of TIM’s fellow workers has refused to shake his hand ever since the cartoonist shook le grand Charles’s hand at a reception. “I think I’m the only one who draws him as if he were seeing himself,” says TIM. “If there’s humor in it, it’s probably due to the complicity of the reader. There is also a bit of complicity on my part—putting myself in his skin. Indeed, there’s so much complicity between us that there may even be a certain tenderness.” Why draw De Gaulle as a conductor? The fact is that TIM has always been fascinated by the gestures of conductors: How much is musician and how much is actor? He thinks De Gaulle would have made “a terrific orchestra conductor.” And why have him leading musicians in his image? “The new Deputies,” says TIM, “have no program except fidelity to De Gaulle. They struck me as resembling an orchestra which follows every movement of the conductor’s baton—to the very tenth of a second. Formerly the National Assembly was a platform for soloists. There were first violins doing their act—all kinds of virtuosos performing. Now we have arrived at an age which has a real conductor and an ensemble following his baton.” PULLING together the story for De Gaulle’s seventh appearance on the cover (the first was Aug. 4, 1941), TIME’S Paris bureau deployed a staff of correspondents over ground they know well. Bureau Chief Curtis Prendergast and Correspondent Judson Gooding concentrated on French politics and De Gaulle the man. Israel Shenker dealt with the French economic picture, Godfrey Blunden with the feeling and spirit of France, Jeremy Main with French foreign policy and the country’s place in NATO. Common Market Correspondent Jason McManus reported on France’s stake in the Market. In New York, their reports provided the basic material for the cover story written by Michael Demarest and edited by Edward Hughes, taking studied measure of Charles de Gaulle’s triumph.