Medford mail tribune., June 23, 1963, Image 44

Nowadays General GauUe rides in artnored sefa Caaaaa
THE PLOT TO -KILL
When general Charles de Gaulle
lunched with Queen Juliana of the
Netherlands, he was protected by a se
curity cordon such as Western Europe'
had never seen in peacetime, not even
for Khrushchev.
Thousands of French and Dutch police guarded
him. His time and place of arrival were changed
at the very last moment and so was the luncheon
rendezvous.
So anxious were the Dutch to keep de Gaulle
from being murdered on Dutch soil that they
even cheated on their royal obligations and flew
the royal standard from a palace other than the
one where the Queen was in residence.
Why, among Western leaders, should only de
Gaulle live in such constant fear of his life? Why,
with the conspiratorial O.A.S. all but broken,
should he consider himself closer to assassination
than ever before?
The answer lies in the character of the coun
try : France, so urbane, civilized, and prosperous,
has become more than ever a land of murderous
conspiracies.
If the O.A.S. (Organisation de 1'Armee. Se
crete) is indeed broken, there are plenty of other
conspirators ready to take over its apparatus for
murder, even as the O.A.S. itself took over from
an organization called the Red Hand.
The Red Hand was a group of Algerian French
men dedicated to killing agents who supplied
arms to the Algerian rebels. Their most extraor
dinary murder was that of a Swiss arms dealer,
Marcel Leopold, in 1959.
Leopold's wife answered the doorbell of their
apartment in an elegant quarter of Geneva and
looked into the contorted face of her husband. He
had time only to say to her: "I have been poi-
soned," before he dropped dead at her feet.
But he died under an illusion; he had, in fact,
been killed by a tiny arrow that penetrated his
heart The arrow was propelled from the tube of
a bicycle pump concealed inside the assassin's
sleeve between elbow and wrist. Triggered by an
explosive, it made no more noise than a sigh. "It
was the invention of a ballistics genius," said the
Geneva police. The murderer was never caught
The apparatus of the Red Hand was taken over
by the O.A.S. when the French generals in Al
geria rebelled against de Gaulle in 1960. To coun
ter the O.A.S., de Gaulle surrounded himself with
a secret corps of killers who have become famous'
as the barbouzes (which means "the bearded
ones") . Most of these men are ex-officers and for
mer intelligence men from de Gaulle's wartime
Free French forces. They work alone; ther
French security organizations know almost noth
ing about them.
Terror in Algeria
After de Gaulle decided to grant Algerian in-
dependence, he sent the barbouzes into Algeria to
smash the O.A.S. Mercilessly, the two groups set
about killing each other. The O.A.S. blew up four
barbouze headquarters in succession. In three
months, 70 barbouxet were killed by bazookas,
plastic bombs, and machine guns. Once a gang of
O.A.S. men opened fire on a car carrying four
bandaged barbouzes to an Algiers hospital Then
without waiting to see whether they were dead
or alive, they threw gasoline over the car and set
it on fire.
Sometimes the fight between a barbouze and an
O.A.S. man took the form of a personal duel, since
the two may well have been old comrades-in-arms
in Indochina or during the early fighting in Al
geria. They had a word for it: ponctualitt. They
would Bet out to keep a "punctuality" secreUy;
In old dayt before assassination attempts,
de Gaulle pushed into mobs, supremely con
fident that no Frenchman wished him harm.
Family Weekly j June S3, 1963
In today's France, where
murderous conspiracy has
become an accepted part of
politics, the question is
not whether Le Grand Charles
can stay in power but
whether he can stay alive
DE GAULLE
and at the end of it one of them would be lying
dead in an Algiers gutter.
With Algerian independence, the O.A.S. faded
away into Spain and Germany and the bar
bouzes followed them. By now, many of France's
finest soldiers were desperate outlaws with only
one aim: to kill de Gaulle.
Two events point up the viciousness of the con
tinuing struggle between the O.A.S. and the bar
. bonzes. The first was a near triumph for the
O.A.S., and the second was a brilliant victory for
the barbouzes.
Do OaulU Outwits an Ambush
On Aug. 22 of last year, de Gaulle was being
driven from Paris to ViUacoubly Airport Behind
his automobile was a single security car and two
motorcycle policemen. As the little convoy slowed
down in the village of Petit Clamart, a man
jumped from the back of a van and opened fire
with a machine gun.
But the would-be assassins forgot that de
Gaulle was one of the best soldiers France has
produced in this century. The President instantly
recognized the classic military concept of the am
bush and ordered his chauffeur .to continue
straight ahead at full speed. The car roared into
another blast of machine-gun fire which riddled
the windows and blew out two tires. But the car's
speed took the second echelon of gunmen by sur
prise, and de Gaulle was saved.
Ten bullets' had hit the car, one missing de
Gaulle's head by inches. He remained calm and
even jocular, "but the incident persuaded him that
a helicopter is the best way to travel relatively
short distances. Because of the incident, de Gaulle
also has given up his old habit of plunging into
crowds to shake people's hands.
Within a month, the gunmen were caught The 1
ringleader, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, was a
young man of 35 and as handsome as a movie
star. A former test pilot he was a graduate of
the Polytechnic, France's finest school, which tra
ditionally produces the nation's top leaders.
At his trial, Bastien-Thiry created a sensation.
He said he had planned the ambush only after
receiving the blessing of the Church, which sanc
tions killing tyrants under certain conditions
conditions which, Bastien-Thiry believed, were
amply fulfilled in France. The Army, the Poly
technic, the Church de Gaulle's list of enemies
seemed to be endlessly multiplying.
The second incident the arrest last February v
of another Polytechnic graduate, Colonel Argoud,
was a great coup for the barbouzes. Three
Frenchmen called on Argoud at his hideout in
Germany and showed him police cards. Argoud
believed that they were detectives and decided
the game was up. He got into a van with them.
All at once, he realized they were barbouzes and,
certain that they were about to kill him, began
to resist He was given a brutal beating.
Somehow they smuggled Argoud out of Ger
many and into the heart of Paris. Here they acted
in a manner that defies explanation, except to
show that barbouzes are not required to behave
like other people. Leaving Argoud gagged and
trussed in the van in a busy street they went
into a cafe to telephone the police. Without mak
ing any attempt at secrecy, they informed the
police that Argoud was waiting for them in the
van. Several people at the bar heard them. The
barbouzes hung around until they aaw the police
cars approaching; then they vanished.
How has such a situation come to pass in
France? The unhappy answer is that France has
never recovered psychologically from its defeat
in 1940.
Let us examine briefly the career of a French
military man in his middle 30s. When he was 15,
Jt; V
1
A
By GEOFFREY BOCCA
France was overrun by the Nazis. The boy went
underground and joined the' Resistance. Along
with unforgettable experiences of heroism and
bravery, he also witnessed assassination, arson,
sabotage, and torture.
After the war, he fought for nine years in In
dochina and saw his comrades die while political
bickering in Paris allowed the Communists to
become strong. After Indochina, he went to Al
geria. Here the French decisively defeated the
rebels and drove them into hiding. But de Gaulle
granted independence to Algeria, and the young
Frenchman watched in impotent rage while hun
dreds of thousands of Algerians who had eagerly
supported France were delivered to the mercy
of the rebels.
Tho Qunslmgor Generation
All his life ho has known nothing but fighting
and frustration. He does not have to be a mem
ber of the O.A.S., but he cannot turn to parlia
ment Under the Third Republic, he despised it;
under de Gaulle's Fourth, it scarcely exists. But
he is an expert with a machine gun and plastic
bombs. He can booby-trap a car and plot a clever
ambush. Above all, he has access to innumerable
groups whose politics is plotting.
Conspiracy in France has a long tradition. The
fight between the O.A.S. and the barbouzes is
really a continuation of the fight between French
men who supported Marshal Henri Petain during
World War II and those who supported de Gaulle's
Free French. The bitterness has grown stronger
with the passing years.
De Gaulle has the majority of Frenchmen on
his aide. His real strength is that there is no
alternative to him. But his enemies argue that
the beat way to create an alternative is to kill de
Gaulle. The crisis may well last his lifetime, how
ever long or short that may be.
family Wwkly, J urn tl. INI