In all the F.L.N.’s aspirations for international influence over the period, there was no more important element than the dynamic figure of Habib Bourguiba. With blazing blue eyes and prognathous features that give him an appearance of determined aggressiveness, the Tunisian leader was as unashamedly unretiring and as dedicated to the “cult of the personality” as the F.L.N. was opposed to it. The world produced few more remarkable statesmen in the turbulent third quarter of the twentieth century; still in power after two unbroken decades of paternalistic though moderate rule, in terms of years at the helm Bourguiba is surpassed by few modern statesmen. But only a remarkable leader could have survived the powerful opposing pressures exerted on him: on the one hand by the French, at various times apparently poised to re-occupy his infant state; on the other by the F.L.N., its more extreme moods backed up by the presence on Tunisian soil of seasoned, well-equipped djounoud that would soon be several times stronger than Tunisia’s own embryo army (hence, partly, the urgency of Bourguiba’s plea for Anglo-American arms). In addition, there was always the arch-enemy, Nasser, subverting from the sidelines.

XREF: Connects to decolonization dynamics in North Africa and Cold War politics of the postwar period.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 768