Angrily, Bourguiba ordered the immediate evacuation of the French garrisons still in Tunisia under treaty, in the meantime blockading them in their barracks, and accused France of "aggression" before the Security Council. Dismayed at the disarray of an ally, the United States and Britain offered to send a "good offices" mission, comprised of the veteran Robert Murphy and Harold Beeley of the Foreign Office, to heal the breach with Tunisia. … But the United States government made little secret of its hopes that the "good offices" mission might also provide a first foot in the door to direct peace negotiations between the F.L.N. and France. That France should even have accepted the principle of such foreign arbitration was, in F.L.N. eyes, something of a victory in itself.

XREF: Connects to broader decolonization history and great-power mediation patterns in North Africa during the Cold War.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 779