The Rising Wave

In Algiers, the Place du Gouvernement, a sun-baked square between the casbah and the harbor, is known as "L'Abattoir" (the slaughterhouse). There, during the bloody struggle for Algerian independence, Moslem terrorists have taken a steady and fearful toll of Europeans. Last week, L'Abattoir butchers claimed two fresh victims in as many days. The deaths underscored an ugly new dimension that has been added, in its expiring moments, to the senseless 7 1/2-year Algerian war. Both victims were newsmen.

First to die was Jean-Hubert Poggi, 38, of the daily Depeche d'Algerie (circ. 50,000). A gentle giant of a man who was born in Algiers and lived alone on the edge of the casbah, Poggi ignored the advice of friends that he move to a safer place. "The Moslems know me," he said, "and I know them." But that did not stop one of his neighbors from putting a bullet through Jean-Hubert Poggi's brain. Next was a reporter for Paris' Le Figaro, Jean-Claude Dadant, 26, gunned down as he left his office in the Admiralty building.

No Time for Sentiment. For newsmen, Algeria has become the most dangerous assignment in the world. In January an enraged mob of Europeans broke the arms of a photographer for Look magazine who had snapped pictures of a race riot in Bab-el-Oued, an Algiers suburb. Last month, a French TV cameraman, James Bantos, was shot to death. Fortnight ago, Camille Pelletier of United Press International, emerging from a building in downtown Algiers, was set upon by a razor-wielding thug of the S.A.O., the Secret Army Organization, and viciously slashed about the face.

In their war against the European enemy, Moslem terrorists draw no line between the journalists and the French colonists. But the Moslems are not the only danger. From the carefully considered terror of the S.A.O. no newsman is safe. In an earlier day, the S.A.O. welcomed both French and foreign reporters, believing--wrongly--that they would render support for an Algerie Franc,aise. Arriving newsmen were met at the airport by S.A.O. representatives; with S.A.O. leaders, interviews were easy to obtain.

But of late, as the correspondents reported S.A.O.'s killings to the world, the attitude toward newsmen of any nationality has veered from affection through suspicion and hostility to hatred. Rare is the man on the Algiers beat who has not been threatened by the S.A.O. Recently, two LIFE men were forced to surrender their film at gunpoint. ABC Correspondent John Casserly was told to leave town on pain of death; he now covers Algeria from Tunis. "We have no time for sentiment," an S.A.O. gunman told the New York Herald Tribune's Tom Lambert, after Lambert's arrival in Algiers in late January. "If we have to, we will not hesitate to kill any of you."

By the strange logic that guides its movement, the S.A.O. has singled out Italian newsmen as prime prey. Algeria is heavily populated with Italian immigrants, and the S.A.O. assumed that the Italian press would sympathize with its cause. But Italian radio broadcasts (easily heard in Algiers) and imported Italian papers were disillusioning, and with disillusionment began a saga of terror.

Grade-B Thriller. The campaign reached a peak with the arrival in Algiers last month of six men from Italy's state-owned radio-TV network, RAI. Scarcely had the newcomers registered at the flea-bitten Hotel Aletti when S.A.O. gunmen invaded the hotel and, under the studiously indifferent gaze of hotel employees, not only made off with $8,000 worth of RAI equipment but kidnaped an Italian newsman as well. Fifteen minutes too late, the armed French riot police showed up.

The hostage, Giovanni Giovannini, 41, of Turin's La Stampa, was being driven at furious speed through the night--past police who respectfully saluted the kidnap car--and wound up in a circle of executioners. "The commandant," he later reported, "was a distinguished man in his 60s, and extremely polite. 'Signore,' he said to me, bowing, 'I have the honor of informing you, in the name of our supreme commander, General Raoul Salan, that you have been sentenced to death.' Turning to the others, he said, 'Shall we get it over with?' "

Pleading for his life, Giovannini finally promised to sing Salan's praise in print. The "commandant" stayed his execution and returned him to the Aletti with a message for all twelve Italian newsmen in Algiers: leave, or die. Eleven left by the next available plane. The twelfth, Nicola Caracciolo, 30, of Milan's Il Giorno, defiantly holed up in the Italian consulate for three days ("It is my moral and professional duty to stay at my post"). Then he, too, prudently fled to Rome.

Newsmen in Algiers have little hope that matters will improve immediately after a cease-fire is signed. For a few weeks, the S.A.O. will probably still control Algiers. "We cannot even protect ourselves," said one police prefect to foreign newsmen appealing for protection from the rising wave of terrorism. "How can we be expected to protect journalists?"

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