124 The United States and Nortb Africa
to its simplest political terms has been the sorting out of relations between these forces and the search for a system in which each will have its proper place. This was first exemplified by124
the struggle into the national political structure, and later by the growing polarity berween the throne and various political groups, with cach seeking a mandate from the Moroccan people for the eventual shaping of a new framework. After the King had become the syrnbol of national resistance in 1953, there was an assumption in many quarters that he woud on his rerurn stay aloof from any political involvenent, that he would reign and not rule, and that he would remain che represencative of a precious but precarious national unity. The prestige of the monarchy was overwhelming and its latent power immense, as it still is. But berween 1956 and i96o that prestige was transfomed into active political power as well, although the step was not taken until the inability of the normal political organizations of the country to produce a needed stability had been demonstrated.the problem of incoporating all the undercover elements of
At the beginning of 1956 Morocco faced a host of problems, but none was more pressing than the insecurity and turbulence which reigned in both town and country. The several resistance movements which had come into being after 1953 had grown up, as it were, on the streets without proper guidance.
They had siphoned off, especially toward the end of the underground period, most of the active and aggressive young men in the country. With the return of normalcy many of these were unwilling to return to ordinary jobs or, in many cases, unemployment and dreary poverty, and they tumed to gangsterism, extortion, and various kinds of illegal activities. The field was almost clear because Morocco was dependent on French security forces, which were reluctant to intervene in purely Moroccan affairs, until the national police was formed in May 1956. Even as late as that summer, however, the police had to fight pitched battiles in Casablarica with the Black
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