{"id":30280,"date":"2008-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-21T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/1970\/01\/01\/the-fourth-republic-comment-le-pd-va-til-part-four\/"},"modified":"2008-06-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-21T03:00:00","slug":"the-fourth-republic-comment-le-pd-va-til-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/the-fourth-republic-comment-le-pd-va-til-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fourth Republic Comment le Pd Va Til Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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My associate has had a variety of names in his official life. Let\u2019s pick one for him now. \u201cAssociate\u201d seems so cold and detached, though that is part of the business personal involvement can lead to attachments, which in turn can lead to bad decision-making.
\u00a0
Let\u2019s call him \u201cTom,\u201d since that links nicely to Dick and Harry, which in the counterintelligence world is just who you want to be. Any Tom, Dick or Harry.
\u00a0
\u201cTom\u201d tells the next bit of the story this way:
\u00a0
\u201cThe Military Airlift got us to France on an RD6- the military version of the DC-6. It was the first pressurized airliner, and could make 275 knots over the clouds, even a little faster with the tailwind going east. We landed at Orly Airport, then the biggest airport serving the capital. It is south of Prais proper, and partly in the villages of Orly and Villeneuve-le-Roi.
\u00a0
It had been a secondary field to Le Bourget, where Lindbergh landed on the first non-stop flight across the pond, but bigger airplanes needed more runway. The Germans had used the field during the Occupation, and then the Air Corps, which flew P-47 Jugs out of it after the Liberation.
\u00a0
There was still a large US Air Force\u00a0air transport facility on the field in those days, since NATO was still headquartered in Paris in those days.
\u00a0
I climbed down the ladder and walked across the ramp to the terminal. It was good to stretch my legs. It was the 7th\u00a0of December, early on a Sunday morning. I had covered a lot of ground since my shiny new passport had been issued three days before.
\u00a0
Inside, I was met by a slim gentleman with an angular face and dark eyebrows. He was in civilian clothes, and\u00a0\u00a0introduced himself as Captain Maurice DeWolf, the ALUSNA. That is the shorthand way of saying American Legation- U.S. Naval Attache to France. We got into a dark embassy sedan and drive north into the capital.
\u00a0
The US Embassy is located in the 8th\u00a0Arrondissement, on the Avenue Gabriel near the Champs de Concorde. It is a nice location, and my eyes were wide as we passed the Louvre and the ceremonial gardens. The Captain swung the car around back where a Marine guard waved us through the gate and into the motor pool. We went through the back entrance and up to his office in the silent corridors.
\u00a0
I was still marveling over the ride into town. I had finally saw the Eiffel Tower, which I had been thinking about since the DNI offered me the chance to volunteer for this job, whatever it was.
\u00a0
The very first thing the Captain did on entering the office was to brusquely ask for my passport.
\u00a0
\u201cYou cannot do the job with the Surete’ with that in your possession,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would completely break your cover. You are going to be an ordinary sailor on leave.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cCan you tell me exactly what this is all about?\u201d I asked. \u201cI did not get much back in Washington except that it was about funny money and the Fleet.\u201d
\u00a0
The Captain smiled thinly. \u201cI can give you the outlines of it, but it is a complex matter. Parts of it are secret, parts of it deal with our relationships from the war, and part of it is about France finding its way in the world again after being partitioned by the Nazis.\u201d
\u00a0
He lit up a cigarette and exhaled the smoke thoughtfully. I waited for him to give me some kind of clue as to what I was expected to do, one guy sent from Washington to help.
\u00a0
\u201cFirst off, Nice is a special town. It is not completely French, as they say. The city has bounced between control of the Italians since Napoleon\u2019s time. It has been a part of Italy in living memory- Mussolini occupied it in the early part of the war, when Marshall Petain set up the government in Vichy. So there is that. Consequently, there is a lot of informal connection. The princely enclave of Monaco is just up the road, and the Mob is powerful there.\u201d
\u00a0
It was common knowledge that something funny had occurred between the government and the New York crime families during the war- hell, there had been a Humphrey Bogart movie about the patriotic American mobsters who broke up Nazi spy rings called \u201cAll Through the Night.\u201d It was a good film.
\u00a0
When the war was over, the biggest hood in custody was strangely paroled and deported. Lucky Luciano was living the good life down in Naples.
\u00a0
\u201cIt is a new kind of mob, though,\u201d said the Captain. \u201cThe Corsicans are in charge, and they are even tougher and more dangerous than the Sicilians we know back home. They were starting to infiltrate before the war. The first heroin labs were discovered near Marseilles in 1937. The Boss responsible for that is Paul Carbone.\u201d The Captain stubbed out his cigarette. \u201cHe is a very bad man.\u201d
\u00a0
I did not know then just how bad he was. The Corsicans made a truce with Luciano\u2019s organization, and their rugged green island formed a neat triangle anchored on the Cote D\u2019Azure of France, with Marseilles on the western end and Nice on the other. They were targeting the US for their increasing trafficking business. It would later be known as The French Connection and was built on networks that had been formed during the war with the French and American services.
\u00a0
\u201cThis is particularly sensitive, since the\u00a0French National Police had a connection with them to help prevent the French communists from bringing the port of Marseille under their control. Marseille happens to be a perfect shipping point for all types of illegal goods, with frequent arrivals of ships going to all points of the earth. That is where the Navy comes in.\u201d He leaned forward and lowered his voice. I had to lean in to hear him.
\u00a0
\u201cThe Fleet is bringing greenbacks ashore when our ships anchor there. Sure, the sailors should convert their currency to military scrip, but the temptation to change it on the Black Market is too great. The profit from black-marketeering allows the thugs to launder profits from all their activities, and that includes counterfeiting.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cI am no expert on any of that,\u201d I said. \u201cI was a chief detective in the Occupation in Japan, and I know about what goes on around the military.\u201d
\u00a0
The Captain raised his eyebrows. \u201cYou should know this, Tom. The Fourth Republic is having a crisis of national identity. They are trying to re-establish the empire that the Germans and Japanese took away from them, and not everyone is happy to see them doing it. There are problems in Algeria, which is not a colony, but a province of France proper. Indochina has a guerilla war in process. The Franc is in trouble, and that is what this is about.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cI am not an economist,\u201d I said. \u201cI am a Boatswain\u2019s Mate.\u201d I lit up a smoke of my own with my Zippo, which had the symbol of Fleet Activities Yokosuka on one side, and a Tori gate on the other.
\u00a0
The Captain knitted his brown. \u201cThat is precisely why you were selected. You look like a Fleet sailor, but they tell me you think like a cop. Short and simple, France has elected a conservative government to try to fix the economy. Prime Minister Antone Pinay is a member of the petit bourgeoisie, a tanner by trade. He is the first of the old-line Vichyites who has been elected Prime Minister.\u201d
\u00a0
I looked at him attentively, though the politics of France was pretty far from where I put much interest up to this very moment. Now it had my complete attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cPiny was locked up for a while after the liberation, but he has rehabilitated himself along with a bunch of his Vichy friends. He helped create the conservative part- the National Center of Independents and Peasants. They call it the CNIP these days, and he was elected Prime Minister last March to fix the national finances. Part of that is an austerity campaign, but the other part is to crack down on the black market. That is why you are here.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cI was a pretty good cop in Japan,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know the waterfront here. I wouldn\u2019t know where to begin.\u201d
\u00a0
The Captain smiled grimly. \u201cYou are not going to have to. You are not here to be a cop. You are here to be a target. The Counterfeiting Section of the French National Police will take care of everything else.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cI need to have some identification if I get stopped in uniform. If you are keeping my passport, I will need to have something that looks like leave papers.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cGood point.\u201d He rummaged around in his desk and found a form that he handed to me. It was a leave request chit. I sat down at the typewriter at his secretary\u2019s desk. \u201cWhat carrier is assigned to Sixth Fleet now?\u201d I asked.
\u00a0
\u201cUSS\u00a0Tarawa\u00a0is operating near the Straits of Messina this week,\u201d He responded, and I dutifully typed the name on the form, and gave myself thirty days leave. Under the \u201cauthorized by\u201d block I typed in a name I made up on the spot: \u201cW. T. Hatch, LCDR, USN,\u201d not knowing there really was an officer by that name in the intelligence business. I asked the Captain to please scrawl some kind of signature that made the leave chit look halfway good.
\u00a0
At this point. Captain DeWoIfe handed me a substantial amount of U.S. currency. \u201cYou are probably going to need this,\u201d He said. \u201cNo receipts- it will make it look like you are on official business. Call if you need more, though you are never to come to this office again. He handed me a piece of paper with some numbers on it.
\u00a0
\u201cIf you need anything from now on, or any assistance or more currency, call my Executive Assistant, Barbara. The numbers are her direct office line and her apartment.”
\u00a0
He assured me that if anything went wrong on the project, the American Embassy would do everything in their power to get me out of a jam.
\u00a0
\u2018In the meantime, at high noon you will be met on the street comer just outside this building. I\u2019ll take you down there and show you where it is. A man by the name of Christides will pick you up and take you for the first meeting with the Surete. He walked me down to the side door to the embassy and pointed to the corner on the Place de la Concorde where I was to stand.
\u00a0
\u201cI wish you good luck,\u201d he said, \u201cThe fate of the Fourth Republic could count on it. He smiled again, enigmatically, and turned on his heel. It was a gray day in Paris.
\u00a0
Good luck was\u00a0exactly\u00a0what I was going to need.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com <\/p>\n

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My associate has had a variety of names in his official life. Let\u2019s pick one for him now. \u201cAssociate\u201d seems so cold and detached, though that is part of the business personal involvement can lead to attachments, which in turn can lead to bad decision-making. \u00a0 Let\u2019s call him \u201cTom,\u201d since that links nicely to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}