The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

declassified. There was a whole lot more in the archives of the Nixon Library.
    ‘So this material is now publicly available?’
    ‘Only if you know where to look. Some of it’s quite funny. There’s a memo of a discussion between Kissinger and Defence Secretary Schlesinger when they say the French have, and I quote, “the worst nuclear program in the world”, unquote. Because of US laws against the transfer of nuclear secrets they set up a system called negative guidance, under which the French nuclear technicians would say they were thinking of doing it this way and the Americans would shake their heads. They’d go on through the design until the Americans didn’t shake their heads and that’s how they built the triggers for the French nuclear explosions. I had fun writing the chapter with all that stuff.’
    ‘Why would the Americans do this?’
    ‘Kissinger makes it quite clear that the purpose was to ensure that the French were dependent on American technology and stressed that “the real quid pro quo is the basic orientation of French policy”. Once De Gaulle was out of power, Kissinger could use the nuclear bait to turn the French into good little allies again, on the American leash just like the British.’
    ‘Are these documents still in your files?’
    ‘I photocopied them, turned them into pdf files and have them all stored on the cloud. Get me a computer and a printer and I’ll print them out for you.’
    ‘Have you told the Mayor all this?’
    ‘Not in such detail, no. I told him the funny stuff. He was the one who said my book would make quite a stir. But I’ve given seminars on this material at the National Defense College and at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. I have a couple of graduate students who’ll get their doctorates out of this.’
    ‘Is your book finished?’
    ‘The text is finished and I’m just about done with the footnotes. I expect I’ll be sending it to Yale University Press by the end of the month. My editor there has already seen most of it.’
    ‘This is the English version you’re talking about. What about the French edition, when will that be ready?’
    ‘I’ll translate it myself and I’m aiming to have it done by the end of the summer vacation, which would mean publishing it sometime next year.’
    Bruno was thinking how this would play in French public opinion if extracts from the book or even a summary of itshighlights turned up on the front page of
Le Monde
, a week or so before the election. Nuclear independence had been one of the cardinal principles of French governments for the last half-century and to learn that it was all a sham would come as a national shock. He could envisage a row in the
Assemblée Nationale
, public inquiries, denunciations and even fist-fights on TV talk shows.
    ‘I can see why people might want this kept quiet,’ he said.
    ‘But it’s our history, Bruno, yours and mine and that of every other French voter and taxpayer. Why shouldn’t they know about it?’
    Why not indeed, he thought. But the timing would be important, the timing and the way the information was released. Was it all that wicked for the Brigadier and his political masters to delay the information for a few weeks until the election was over? Would it not even be a huge distortion of the political process to have the final days of the election campaign dominated by an angry public debate over France’s nuclear status?
    Bruno shook his head, suddenly angry at himself. He was thinking like the Brigadier or like a politician. These were not decisions to be taken by agents of the state, thinking of the French electorate as so many children to be protected from monsters in the dark. This was a free country, a cradle of modern democracy and the home of the Rights of Man. This was for the French people to decide, not a handful of politicians who wanted to cling to power by suppressing the truth.
    ‘You look like a man who’s just made his mind up about something,’ said Jacqueline. ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’
    ‘First, you’re invited to dinner tonight with me and some friends in Sarlat, and if you agree I’d like to share this with them,’ he replied. In the distance, he could hear the familiar sound of a police siren. The Gendarmes were on their way. ‘One’s a magistrate and another is a journalist with
Paris Match
. I trust them and I’m confident that you can, and this may be the only way that you can control how this