In 1956, France, embroiled in the Algerian War, decided to grant full independence to Tunisia and Morocco in order to concentrate on keeping Algeria--and its 1 million loyal French and European settlers under French rule. France militarized Algeria's borders with Tunisia and Morocco, thereby cutting off the sizable number of Algerian rebels who operated out of the sympathetic nations. However, these rebels continued to harass French forces along the frontier, and on February 7, 1958, French planes flying over the Tunisian village of Saqiyat Sidi Yusuf were machine-gunned by Algerian forces. The next day, France responded by bombing the village, and sixty-eight Tunisians were killed, including a number of children from the local school. The bombing caused an international diplomat crisis for France, and on February 13, the French ambassador to the United States was heard defending the military action. French-Tunisian tension would increase dramatically in 1961, when France rejected...