The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

Christian Democrats, naturally wanted a return to the party system and they accused De Gaulle of wanting to be a dictator. Then the other two wanted to get rid of the Communists as the Cold War got under way and the Gaullists started building their own party, the RPF. Politics are expensive, so that’s where a lot of the money went, but maybe it was more virtual than real.’
    ‘Virtual? I don’t understand.’
    She looked at him. ‘Suppose you’re an American diplomat in Paris in 1946 and 1947, and the Communists are the biggest political party. Remember the Cold War is just getting started. What would American policy be?’
    ‘Stop the Communists, I suppose. And try to strengthen the other parties, the anti-Communists.’
    ‘Right, and if you’re an American diplomat, with all the money in the world, you’d use it to help the anti-Communists, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No, wrong,’ Jacqueline said firmly. ‘At least wrong if you do it in public where there’s immediately a scandal about Americans buying up the French political system. But if some loyal Frenchmen with fine Resistance records start handing out wads of money with a nod and wink and a discreet murmurabout
le train de Neuvic
, nobody asks any questions, even if the money really came from the Americans.’
    ‘But wouldn’t they have to change it from dollars?’
    ‘Yes, but remember how the Marshall Plan worked. The Americans gave dollars to the Europeans to buy food and goods and machine tools to restart their factories. They were repaid in local currency, which the Americans could do nothing with. There were no real exchange markets in those days. So the various American embassies suddenly found themselves sitting on this vast slush-fund of French francs, Italian lire, Dutch guilders and so on. The money went to stop Communism through funding election campaigns, subsidizing newspapers and student organizations, backing Socialist trade unions to undermine the Communist ones.’
    ‘Two slush-funds, the Neuvic money and the Marshall Plan, and who knows which was which?’
    ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Jacqueline. ‘That’s why my father’s memoirs are the key to all this. He was in it all the way through, from late 1945 to 1952 when the Marshall Plan became the Mutual Security Plan.’
    ‘And how much was the Marshall Plan?’
    ‘Altogether? About thirteen billion dollars. But another thirteen billion had already been sent in aid to Europe between the end of the war and the Marshall Plan starting in 1947. So the US pumped in a total of twenty-six billion, at a time when the American GDP was just over two hundred billion a year. Thirteen per cent of GDP is pretty generous if you ask me, but not too expensive to stop Western Europe going Communist. And it was certainly a whole lot cheaper than a war.’
    ‘I had no idea,’ said Bruno.
    ‘Not many people do. If you want to know what really happened in history, it’s like those two
Washington Post
reporters said in the Watergate scandal: Follow the money.’
    ‘The Mayor is right about your book having a big impact,’ Bruno said. ‘I think you’ll be rewriting the recent history of France.’
    ‘Oh goody,’ she said, an impish grin lighting up her face, making her look years younger and very much more attractive. ‘And wait till you see what I’ve dug up on secret nuclear cooperation. French independent nuclear weapons aren’t nearly as independent as you think.’ She said it as casually as if she were talking of the vegetables in her garden, went to one of her bookshelves and handed him a slim paperback. He looked at the title:
Le partage des milliards de la Résistance
, the distribution of the Resistance billions.
    ‘That will get you off to a good start; most of the background is in there. Let me have it back when you’re done. More coffee, or can I offer you something stronger? You look like you could do with a drink.’
    Even as he was thinking that a stiff scotch would be welcome, Bruno’s mobile rang. It was Albert, head of the
pompiers
, the local fire brigade, which also acted as the emergency medical service.
    ‘Got an emergency call from somewhere up in the hills by St Chamassy about somebody badly hurt with head injuries,’ Albert said. His voice was faint, the signal weak. ‘We’ve just got here and the Gendarmes should be on their way if they can find it.’ He gave Bruno directions. ‘And bring a doctor for a death certificate.