Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

essence of French politics’. But politics in France, as in most countries of the world, were doomed to be polarized by the Cold War.
    Simone de Beauvoir had lunch that day with Merleau-Ponty at the Petit Saint-Benoît to discuss the referendum. But in the evening, the
famille Sartre
forgot politics and rallied round Jean Genet, who had just been through an author’s worst nightmare: Gallimard had apparently lost his only manuscript of
Funeral Rites
. This resulted in a series of furious rows between Genet and Gaston Gallimard’s son Claude.
    The other news which people had to digest that day was of a scandal in intelligence circles. The previous evening, just before voting finished,Agence France-Presse announced that Colonel Passy had been arrested. The motives for making the announcement at such a moment are unclear. Félix Gouin’s government, alarmed by the upset in the elections, may have leaked the news either as a belated attempt to alter the outcome or as a warning shot to de Gaulle, whose prestige would be enhanced by the results. The Passy scandal was a murky affair from which the government emerged with little credit.
    On 4 May, Passy was summoned to the offices of the organization which he had originally built up in London, now called the SDECE. * ‘We have discovered some irregularities,’ the new chief told him. ‘Where are the secret funds?’ Although no formal charges were made, Passy was accused of embezzling intelligence service funds and was held incommunicado. His wife, not knowing what had happened to him, became frantic. One of the reasons for the sudden announcement of his arrest on the night of 5 May was the difficulty of keeping it a secret for much longer.
    American intelligence, which may have been misled by representatives of the government, reported that the financial irregularities had been known about for some time. The real reason for Passy’s arrest, it said, was that he had been trying to sabotage Léon Blum’s efforts to seek an urgently needed loan from the United States. The Socialists and their coalition partners were both outraged and alarmed.
    There was never any question of Passy embezzling funds for personal use. The main charge of irregularities in London was ridiculous. The BCRA had been so afraid of Vichyist infiltration that very few written records were kept. What Passy had almost certainly been trying to do was to build up a fighting fund. He shared with General de Gaulle a conviction that a third world war, this time against Communism, was inevitable; and, as the General had said to Passy only a few months before, ‘I hope we won’t set off as ill-prepared as we were the last time.’ Passy wanted to ensure that the Gaullist resistance would never again have to go cap in hand to the British or the Americans.
    Passy was locked up without any form of trial or access to lawyers. Conditions were very bad, and he feared that his gaolers were drugging him. He went on hunger strike, lost twenty-three kilos, and his blood pressure fell alarmingly. When his wife finally managed to have him removed to the Val-de-Grâce hospital, the doctor told him, ‘You’ve been poisoned.’ When he asked what the poison was, the doctor replied laconically, ‘We’ll know after the autopsy.’
    During his imprisonment, Passy passed a message to the Americans claiming that Gouin’s government was blackmailing him to hand over any written instructions from de Gaulle to do with the money. Such evidence would have enabled Gouin and his government to tarnish the General’s reputation and destroy his political hopes. This Passy refused to do. One thing was certain. The government did not want a public trial. ‘It appears that the more the affair is investigated,’ Caffery reported to Washington, ‘the more it becomes apparent that a number of important politicians belonging to different parties have either had their palms greased or have received money from secret funds.’
    At the end of August, on an order from the Council of Ministers, Colonel Passy was stripped of his rank, the Legion of Honour and the Order of the Liberation, and suffered the confiscation of personal property to the value of the sum exported. (Most of his honours, including the Legion of Honour, were later restored.) Passy, with justification, protested angrily that the Council of Ministers was not a court of justice: if he was to be tried, it should be in front of a properly constituted tribunal. Even