An agreement on the reactivation of the Bizerta base has been signed between the U.S. Tempa Ship Repair Company and the Tunisian Government. Under the agreement, the American company will provide capital and technicians for putting into operation in time the four dry docks, several repair shops, an underground command-post, an anti-atomic shelter and an airforce base with runway for jet planes. The United States and Tunisia have reached a tacit understanding by which the U.S. sixth fleet may use the base freely. Since the French troops withdrew from Bizerta on October 1963, the U.S. has been seeking to turn Bizerta into a repair dock because its ships- civil and military- were primarily undergoing repairs at Villefranche and Malta. It was impossible to expand the base further at Malta and the French Government had ordered U.S. withdrawal from Villefranche. The U.S. has been active in seeking new naval and airforce bases along the Mediterranean off North Africa since they were ordered to withdraw.
(This French weekly in another article disclosed that the U.S. was conducting negotiations with Morocco on the reactivation of its air force bases there. It was seeking negotiations with the Spanish authorities for a similar purpose. The article suggested that it was clear from these moves that the U.S. was seeking to turn Spain and Morocco into the "strategic pivot of all American intervention in the Mediterranean basin and in Africa".)