Word: dewavrin
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...foregone conclusion that "Colonel Passy" would not last long. Communists, seeing in him a determined enemy, had attacked him ever since liberation. The Socialists had followed suit. Nor was any love lost on the "boy wonder" by the Army, whose stuffy "Deuxième Bureau" was eclipsed by Dewavrin's secret service...
Solitary Confinement. Last May, a few days before the critical referendum which marked the surprise setback of Communism in France, Dewavrin was spirited away to solitary confinement in a Metz Army fortress. The Government's only explanation: Dewavrin had been guilty of "grave administrative faults...
This week Pierre-Henri Teitgen, Minister of Justice, offered a fuller explanation: "Dewavrin used his 'caisse noire' [secret funds] to make clandestine deposits in France and abroad which he did not reveal to his successors; his accounts were incomplete and inexact to the tune of 40 million francs [$3,335]." But the Government (which had dealt with the Passy case secretly at Cabinet level) was prepared to be lenient. "You don't do counter-espionage with choir boys," said Teitgen. There would be no public trial: "It is necessary ... to safeguard certain secrets...
London's Communist Daily Worker offered a sensational explanation: "Dewavrin had been hiding millions of francs in Latin America and Spain to finance a new underground in case France went Communist, or in the event of war between Russia and the Western powers. It is a current affirmation in circles close to the General [De Gaulle] that war against the Soviet Union is inevitable and that, when it breaks out, Spain will become the principal base from which the opposition will be directed against Russia and the democratic movement in France...
...referendum and make heavy gains in the succeeding elections. Before taking over key ministries in the Government, they wanted to strip De Gaulle of his most dangerous lieutenant and thereby prevent the possibility of a Gaullist coup d'état to overthrow a Communist-dominated Government. Dewavrin's imprisonment was the Communist price for maintaining shaky tripartite unity in President Félix Gouin's Government...