In June 1956 the Sultan, now King Mohammed V, received the Chavannes, Lobsteins, Guessous and others who had taken part in these events. He likewise sent a message to Buchman: 'I thank you for all you have done for Morocco, the Moroccans and myself in the course of these last testing years. Moral Re-Armament must become for us Muslims just as much an incentive as it is for you Christians and for all nations. Material re-armament alone has proved a failure. Moral re-armament remains the essential. My desire is that your message, which is founded upon the essential moral values and the Will of God, should reach the masses of this country. We have complete confidence in the work which you are doing.'10

Mohammed Masmoudi, the Tunisian revolutionary, had returned to Paris after his visit to Caux in 1953. At the MRA centre in Paris he met some of the French most concerned with Tunisia, among them Jean Basdevant, then responsible for Tunisian affairs at the Quai d'Orsay. He also met Robert Schuman, then Foreign Minister, who was moved by the story of his experience at Caux. Pierre Mendès-France had earlier offered to defend Masmoudi when he was arrested, and when he became Prime Minister in 1954 the two men talked. Mendès-France's historic journey to Tunis, when he promised Tunisia internal self-government, followed. Though still under thirty, Masmoudi was appointed one of the three Ministers of State to negotiate independence with the French government. After nine months of hard talking, independence was granted, and Masmoudi became the first Ambassador to France.

Throughout this period Masmoudi was in close touch with Buchman. At a difficult moment in the negotiations with France he heard that Buchman was passing through Paris and hurried to the Gare de Lyon to see him. 'You will be the William Pitt of Tunisia,' Buchman told him. In December 1956, while leading the first Tunisian delegation to the United Nations in New York, President Bourguiba declared, 'The world must be told what Moral Re-Armament has done for our country.'11 To say that Buchman or Moral Re-Armament brought independence to Morocco or Tunisia would, of course, be nonsense. The tides of the times and the determination of the people would eventually have achieved that in any case. But it was Robert Schuman who wrote to Buchman, 'There can be no doubt that the history of Tunisia and Morocco would have been different if it had not been for Moral Re-Armament.'12

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