THE BEN BARKA CASE 'IT IS A SHABBY BUSINESS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100350038-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: September 11, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

SEP 1.1 1966
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-001
THE BEN BARKA CASE
:`It Is a Shabby Business'
CPYRGHTBy DAVID IIAL.nEnSTAM
Apeclel to The New York Tlmef
0
needy Frenchmen drawn into the wiles of Moroccan;;
domestic politics.
how much of It was cynicism on the part of the
French counterespionage agents and how much of
"it really was innocent avarice-well-intentioned,
process named after the man w o s no er .
The case began last October when Mehdi Ben;
Barka, Morocco's leftist opposition leader, living
here and In Geneva in exile, was kidnapped on a
crowded Paris street. Subsequent events indicated
that Mohammed Oufkir, the Moroccan Minister of
the Interior and Mr. Ben Barka's sworn enemy, had
been here at the time and had masterminded the
kidnapping, but had been helped by a strange as-
sortment of French counterespionage agents, police-
men and underworld figures.' Though Mr. Ben Barka
Is presumed dead, the trial of the five men arrested
opened this week.
11 Since then, here in France It has become a matter
of how high the involvement in the case went, andj
PARIS, Sept. 10--Rarely, if one Is to take eac
of the accused at his word, has there been such an
assemblage of innocence on trial. Rarely have men
of such high motivation and good intention been
so maliciously treated for doing what they assumed'
was the right thing.
The trouble with all this protestation is that on,
closer inspection of the five men accused of kidnap-
ing Mehdi Brn Barka, it is each individual alone,
who is innocent. Each man gets up, protests his own;
selflessness, and then turns in the dock on his fel-;
low accused: It is they who are cynical, they who;
are shameless, they who are responsible for this
sorry affair.
It is a shabby business, this Ben Barka trial, a
h i th e
Guesswork i
Just how far the involvement goes will probably
remain a matter of guesswork, for the French Gov-F;
ernment has refused to let Ministers testify before
the court, The Government's position is simply that .l
%It is a Moroccan affair. (Mr. Oufkir, subpoenaed to
. appear at the trial refused to come, noting that he t
had no objections to being tried in Morocco, where.
,.he controls ' the police system.) The Government'
also says the Frenchmen involved were the lowly'
and "the vulgar." to use President Charles do
Gaulle's word. The accuracy of that descriptions
has been more than borne out by the testimony
so far.
But the loftiness of the Government's view prob-,
ably will not be accepted quite so readily by the'
average Frenchman, willing to assume the very,
worst of any Government anyway. And in this case)
thc,fact that a police inspector testifies that the,
Treason he got into the case was that his supe-i
{ rior, a middle-ranking counter-espionage official?
assured him that even bigger boys-an Elysce Pal-
ace friend and confidant of General de ,Oauile--~
were in on it too, will not ease suspicions.
This is the first of four weeks in the trial. (At
?,tlte end, Mr. Oufkir and.sia others, ranging from]
high Moroccan officials to small French crooks, will'
,,be tried In absentia.) Day by day it has gone on'
with charge and countercharge among the accused;
Mr. Ben Barka himself has seemed more and more,
to slip Into the background' and become a distant
' And vague figure,
CPYRGHT
What Is In the foreground has been a quickl
limpse of some ranks of the French counterintelli-j
ence service and its friends. It has hardly been a
mantic glimpse: there are no James Bonds, no i
ool, smooth operatives. Rather there has been a
roceision of small-time operators, a little bit onj
e take, serving two masters instead of one, And,.
metimes three masters instead of two, rather:.
There has been Antoine Lopez, a middle-rank',
unterespionage man, the top Air France man'
Paris's Orly airfield, also involved In several:
her deals in housing and hotels; a man,1.
ccording,to the presiding judge, who worked for 201
osses at once and managed to please every one?'
a real turnpike." Lopez is a small, vain con man,,.
t first a hit of a disappointment, and increasingly,,
no senses, well cast for this role; Peter Sellers1
laying the part of Lopez could not do better.
urnalist, sometimes a writer, sometimes a publio'
clations man and advertising man and opinion-
aker. He was apparently the bait in the plot; he,
alked with Mr. Ben Barka about a movie on de-1
olonization, and it was that movie. which brought'
he Moroccan into the trap. Almost daily he pro-;
ests what a good friend he was of Mr. Ben Barka's,s
nd perhaps he was, but one feels for the Moroecan,l
ceding friends like this.
The action takes place every afternoon, and 134
Bing fully and very well covered by the French]
ress., But the French radio and television, which 1s
tate-controlled, has not gotten around yet to 'gtv-s
02g It more than a few seconda?o>' coyeraae:,~,; ,,
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000100350038-5