A General's betrayal
Sam White
Paris After the end of the war and, finally, the elimination of de Gaulle, the Fourth Republic, like its predecessors, began to lookaround for a 'safe' general —one, that is to say, who lacked charisma, who could be relied upon not to try and cut a political dash, and someone of sound republican background: another Gamelin in short. They thought they had found one in Rene Salan, a desk-bound general who had somehow managed to collect more decoraions than any other officer in the French army. He was noted for his discretion and was of impeccable family background —with socialist schoolteacher parents. As a further recommendation, he had a deep detestation for de Gaulle. This was the man who was to commit two acts of treason — one against de Gaulle's Fifth Republic, when he was one of the four generals who led the mutiny against de Gaulle's Algerian policies, and the other, much earlier, against the Fourth Republic which had showered him with honours and promotion. This first incident occurred at the time of the Indochinese war. It is this earlier act, going back to 1954, which remains virtually unknown in France and has remained the secret of a small coterie of journalists and politicians. Now, with the publication of a full-scale history of L'Express, the weekly founded by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber and Franwise Giroud and recently sold to Sir James Goldsmith, the full story is finally out. It makes fascinating reading.
The story begins with the founding of L'Express in 1953 with the backing of the Servan-Schreiber family, who owned the highly successful financial daily Les Echos. The publication was then left-wing, dedicated to Mendes-France and opposed to the war in Indochina. It quickly gathered around it the best journalistic and literary talent in Paris, and its contributors included Mauriac, Malraux, Camus, and for a time Sartre. One of its most interesting features, however, in those early months of its existence was its weeklycommentary on the military situation in Indochina which was signed 'a student of military affairs'. The identity of this 'student' soon became a matter of intense speculation in government circles, as it became clear that the author was singularly well informed and often in possession of information which the authorities regarded as secret. Clearly he had excellent sources, either in the government or in the army. It became something of a security obsession to nail him and his contact or contacts. Then came the fall of Dien Bien Phu, and a military disaster of the first order threatened the French army.
A mission of inquiry was hastily dispatched to the scene, headed by generals Ely and Salmi. Their report on their return was a gloomy document. It said that only massive reinforcements from France could save the French expeditionary force. This, however, already consisted of virtually the entire French professional army, and reinforcements therefore could only come from conscripts doing their national service. As it was known that the government, for political reasons, had set its face against sending conscripts to the war, the report concluded with a study of the various means of extricating the army from the massive trap into which it had fallen, and thereby securing its safe evacuation. It was this report — the so-called 'Ely Report' — which Salan leaked to L'Express. Within days of his return to Paris, Salan contacted the publication and a meeting was arranged between him and the paper's deputy editor, Viansson-Ponte.
Salan dictated his piece and, after it was typed and finally approved by him, it was taken back in triumph to Servan-Schreiber. He had only one suggestion to make before it was passed for publication, and that was that a footnote should be added saying: 'the above is a summary of the Ely Report.' We must show them how well informed we are', he said by way of explanation. Next day the storm broke. All copies of that week's L'Express were seized in newspaper kiosks and railway stations, and a search warrant of its premises was issued. Fortunately for Salan, before the police search could get under way, Frangoise Giroud had managed to smuggle herself into the building despite the heavy police guard outside it. She had remembered that there were a couple of letters from Salan on file in the office. She retrieved them almost from under the noses of the police, went to the lavatory, tore them up, and pulled the chain. It would be difficult to imagine a more discreditable scoop than this one. It was one which, quite simply, endangered the lives of soldiers in the field. That journalists of the standing and reputation of ServanSchreiber and Viansson-Ponte should have brought themselves to countenance it — even going to the length of underlining its official character for the greater benefit of Hanoi — is barely credible. But what is even more incredible is that a French general should have lent himself to such an enterprise. What Salan's motives were continues to be a matter of speculation. Vanity and political ambition may have been factors. Or it may have been bitterness at having been replaced as commander-inchief in Indochina by General Navarre, although he must have been shrewd enough to know that his personal ambitions were more likely to prosper in Paris than in Saigon. He had at the time a reputation for being a left-wing' general, and it was a reputation which was to follow him to Algiers (in fact it very nearly cost him his life when an extreme right group fired a bazooka at his headquarters). However, like Soustelle who was also suspected of liberal sympathies, he managed to live it down and finally to become, after the collapse of thegenerals' revolt, the leader of the murderous OAS in Algeria and metropolitan France. It is his subsequent arrest and trial which prove a piquant sequel to the story I have just unfolded. At his trial, Salan decided to adopt the same tactics as Petain by making a preliminary statement from the dock and then remaining silent for the rest of the proceedings. His opening sentence was: 'What first broke my heart as a soldier was the betrayal of Indochina'. There was no laughter in court at this, except for a quicklY repressed one from me. I then expected that someone on the left, either in a newspaper or in open court, would challenge this statement by recalling his association with L'Express at the time. Not a bit of it. What I had forgotten was that, in the eyes of these estimable organs. and of these estimable politicians, the real enemy was not Salan or the OAS but de Gaulle. Worse still, the greatest threat to many men on the left was not that the war lin. Algeria might continue, but that de Gaul" would succeed in making peace. It was prospect too awful to contemplate, for ha" it not become a matter of dogmat de tha , Gaulle could not end the war and could nO: impose discipline on the army? In any easc far from the left taking the opportunity admittedly a somewhat embarrassing 0 rte„ of Its of exposing Salan's murky past, one to, leading figures, Francois Mitterrand, ac;ve h ally went into the witness box to gic'ti, evidence on his behalf. A sorry tale vv de however, had a happy ending. Whenvan, Gaulle was finally defeated, Ser first Schreiber was able to write: 'For the otid time a man of my generation can feel rt. not of being a Frenchman'. Salan c°ul have said it better.
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