1. June 1967 Introduction

In June, 1967, I boarded the Aurelia, a passenger liner of the Cogedar line, to spend a year in Strasbourg, France, during my junior year abroad. This was the first of several pivotal years in my life, and it is fitting to take some time to set down as many recollections as I can of that fateful year. I left the US a somewhat moderate liberal, having successfully transitioned from an adolescent infatuation with William Buckley; I returned a dogmatic Maoist who had witnessed les evenements de Mai. When I left, I had little to show for the 5 years of French I had studied until that point (3 in high school, 2 at Fordham); when I returned, I was thinking and dreaming in French, was inserting French phrases unconsciously into my speech, and was reading Les Communistes, by Louis Aragon. I had travelled throughout Western Europe, Tunisia, Greece and Turkey. I was a confirmed Europhile, and a world citizen, and saw life and world events in a totally different manner.