Americans in Paris_ Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation - Charles Glass [145]
PART FIVE
1943
THIRTY-ONE
Murphy versus Bedaux
ON THE MORNING OF 2 JANUARY 1943, Charles Bedaux and his son were making plans for their survey of the Sahara pipeline route at their auberge in ’Ain Koussa near Algiers. Suddenly, French police came to the inn and arrested them again. The gendarmes confessed that they were obeying American orders, because the French authorities had nothing against them. Most French officials in Algeria had cooperated with the Vichy regime more than Bedaux had and were unlikely to indict him for doing business with the Germans as they had. The policemen could not tell Bedaux why the Americans wanted him.
Two days later, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a confidential memorandum on Bedaux’s arrest for his senior staff, Clyde Tolson, E. A. Tamm and D. M. Ladd. The memo stated that the army had told Hoover:
There are six documents connecting Bedaux with the Germans: (1) A passport. (2) Bedaux’s permit to pass between the occupied and unoccupied zones. (3) Bedaux’s document of release from the internment camp at Compaigne [sic], dated October 1, 1942. (4 and 5) Two documents issued by the German commander in France designating Bedaux as an expert in economics and calling for recognition of the French government and asking all authorities to assist Bedaux. (6) Telegrams from Bedaux to his French associates complaining that the Nazis had not carried out their agreement to obtain gasoline and tires for him. General Eisenhower does not consider it advisable for political reasons to hold the trial in North Africa.
At 3.15 that afternoon, senior Justice Department, FBI and army intelligence officials discussed Bedaux in Washington in US Attorney General Francis Biddle’s office. Colonel Pierce of Army G-2 said that he would ‘inquire of General Eisenhower whether it was agreeable for a representative of the FBI to proceed at once by plane to North Africa for the purpose of getting [an] investigative report upon which appropriate prosecution could be initiated … It had been indicated by General Eisenhower that he did not want to try these two men in Africa because of the peculiar local situation.’
The French held the two Bedauxs for five days, until American Military Police arrived to take charge of the pair. The MPs incarcerated them in a shed at one of their posts in Algiers. When Bedaux protested at the appalling conditions, the MPs moved them to a base just outside Algiers. According to Gaston Bedaux, father and son were ‘lodged comfortably in a villa near El Biar’, the diplomatic quarter overlooking Algiers.
On 10 January, the army informed the FBI that Eisenhower ‘requested an FBI agent be sent to Algiers’. Assistant director Percy Foxworth and agent Harold E. Haberfeld were summoned to Washington to receive yellow fever injections and instructions for their journey to Algiers. Foxworth, who had led the investigation of Bedaux in the United States, would at last have the opportunity to question the man whose life he had painstakingly dissected for the past year. FBI Agent D. M. Ladd wrote to Hoover on 10 January that he had asked the War Department for its complete file on Charles Bedaux. Bureaucratic competitiveness asserted itself, as Ladd wrote to Hoover:
I have had photostatic copies made of the entire file, unbeknownst to the War Department, and a photostatic copy of this file is attached here for your information. It will be noted that the top serial is a radiogram from General Eisenhower which briefly outlines the information available concerning the subject Bedaux. It does not appear that there is much of an espionage case from the facts set forth in this wire, which contains nothing beyond definite dates. (Author’s italics.)
Two days later the FBI’s Percy Foxworth and Harold Haberfeld reported