STOKELY CARMICHAEL HELD AT PARIS AIRPORT, THEN RELEASED
Officials high up in the French government were reported to have intervened with the police at Orly airport December 6 to secure the release of Stokely Carmichael.
The Afro-American black power leader had been halted as an "undesirable" and held overnight in a small quarantine room. The police told him that he would have to take a plane out of the country for any destination he chose. He had arrived in Paris from Stockholm to address a rally opposing the war in Vietnam.
Upon being freed, Carmichael was given a visa good for three months. The very same evening, he spoke to a huge, wildly cheering audience against the war in Vietnam and in support of the Vietnanese freedom fighters.
The incident recalled the way Malcolm X was received in Paris. On one visit he addressed a packed hall, explaining the struggle for black liberation in the United States. On his next visit, he was seized by the police at the airport and denied entry to France.
The police action against the famous exponent of black nationalism was evidently the result of pressure from the Johnson administration.
Shortly after that Malcolm X was assassinated in New York.