Rot at the Heart

The discovery that France's vital military secrets had been systematically betrayed to the Communists was dismaying enough. But Frenchmen had even more reason to be shocked last week as the unfolding story of I'affaire Dides laid bare a picture of political decay that made politicians ready to risk their country's safety and their compatriots' lives over pride of office and reach for power.

A week of clashes, innuendoes, accusations and denials revealed the spectacle of Cabinet members conniving against successors, of police chiefs withholding information from their superiors because of political differences, of high defense officials deliberately leaking military secrets to the government's political opponents to contrive its fall.

Day after day, French officials and party leaders trooped to the gloomy Reuilly barracks to testify in the espionage investigation that began last month with the arrest of a Red-hunting cop named Jean Dides. The witnesses ranged from ex-Premiers Paul Reynaud and Georges Bidault to dumpy ex-Pastry Cook Jacques Duclos, France's No. 2 Communist, who long has been running the party in the absence of ailing Maurice Thorez. In prison, nimble, wire-haired Andre Baranes (TIME, Oct. 11) methodically set to work fuzzing up his story of how he delivered records of France's most secret Defense Committee meetings to the Communists. His original story had been that he got them from Roger Labrusse, a Defense Committee official. Labrusse in turn had got them from Rene Turpin, personal secretary to Jean Mons, head of the Defense Committee's permanent secretariat. "I did not pay them a franc," boasted Baranes. "They acted out of ideological sympathy for Communism."

"He Laughed." But then Baranes changed his story, not once but repeatedly. He claimed, in succession: 1) that he was "100% Communist and party spy," 2) that he was "a patriotic Frenchman who deserves a Legion of Honor for uprooting a Red espionage net," 3) that he was a Communist, but an "anti-Moscow" Red devoted to the welfare of France. He said that he had delivered his records to Duclos. He then said that he had not delivered them to Duclos but to two other fellows. He later said that he had delivered them to Duclos but Duclos had refused them. "He laughed in my face. He said the party knew everything I was offering,"explained Baranes. Then who gave Duclos his information? the police asked. "Very important people," said Baranes, "but it's up to you to track them down."

When confronted with Baranes' stories, portly Communist Boss Duclos denied he had ever met him. "All I can tell you is that Andre Baranes is a dirty dog," he growled to reporters. Then, to add to the confusion, Turpin and Labrusse renounced their confessions. "I never gave Baranes any documents," said Labrusse. He said he had only "chatted" with Baranes as he would with any newspaperman. Turpin said he had only been "imprudent," but he had hoped his "imprudences" would reach Laniel opponents, who were trying to stop the Indo-Chinese war--someone, for example, like Mendes-France.

But as the foreground of the story whirled with contradictions, the background became clearer. Obviously, there was something very peculiar about the activities of ex-Chief Police Inspector Jean Dides. He had known about Baranes' access to defense secrets since May, even paid him $570 a month to stay in the Communist network. But, apparently, Dides was content to go on "watching" as the ring delivered crucial defense decisions and information of France's plight in Indo-China without lifting a finger to stop it. Why? What was he waiting for?

Fingerprints. Out of the mixture of lies, facts and opinion, supporters of Mendes-France felt last week that they were arriving at a partial explanation. If they were right, the answer went to the heart of France's political sickness. Their theory: Dides, under the direction of disgruntled right-wingers of Mendes' own Radical Socialist Party, had deliberately used the defense leaks to try to discredit Mendes and bring the downfall of his Minister of the Interior, Franc,ois Mitterrand.

For proof, the Mendes men pointed to evidence heavily marked with Radical Socialist fingerprints. It was no secret that Mendes incurred the personal enmity of some of the Radical Socialist old guard when he took the Interior Ministry, which they had long considered their own special bailiwick, away from Radical Socialist Leon Martinaud-Deplat and gave it to young, energetic Francois Mitterrand of the moderate, splinter-sized Democratic and Socialist Resistance Union. The bitterness was quickly evident. Though Martinaud-Deplat had learned of the first leak before Mendes took office, he neglected to tell his successor Mitterrand about it. Bitterness increased as Mitterrand began cleaning out Martinaud-Deplat's proteges, fired Prefect of Police Jean Baylot and demoted Dides from his Red-hunting job. Then, say the theorists, the plotting began. Certainly, Dides scarcely acted like a disinterested cop. When he learned through Baranes of new leaks, Dides did not tell his boss Mitterrand; he took his information to an old right-wing Gaullist friend in the Cabinet. At the same time, allegedly at the urging of Martinaud-Deplat and Baylot, he planted reports with U.S. intelligence that Mitterrand was a pro-Communist security risk who was disinclined to crack down on Communist sympathizers. Dides also refused to tell Mitterrand or anyone else how the spying was done. The plan, insist Mendes' friends, was to expose the leaks during the London Conference, discrediting Mitterrand and perhaps even toppling Mendes himself.

When Dides was suspended, he gave the theory a kind of backhanded support. "Certain elements of the government think I don't agree with their policies," he said. "That is why they suspended me."

If that was the plan, it had misfired. The discovery that the first leak had occurred during Laniel's government diverted the onus from Mendes personally, and the arrest of Turpin and Labrusse scotched the innuendoes that Mitterrand was willing to be overtolerant to Communist infiltration of the government.

But the rot exposed by I'affaire Dides could not be cleaned out simply by arrests and crackdowns. It would take a national change of heart.

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