THE CASE OF HENRI CURIEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100260031-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: March 15, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100260031-0
i V uL ,tu L Iy:SLa~ _
THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZI
oa i':.G 15 March 1981
BY CURE NEWS
evolutionaries around had a foolproof system for evading-ar-
the world, including ter- rest. "My dossier is the thickest.one in
rorista, mourn the asses- the DST, but they can't do a thing
aination of Henry Curiel, about it,'r he once remarked, rightly- --
leader -of a Paris-based Henri Curial ran something 'politi-
support apparatus that - funneled tally chic and vaguely charitable called
money, arms, documents, training and Aide et Amitii (Help and Friendship).
other services to scores of leftist He liked to say that it was meant for
groups." Thus, as if in. a trade paper's people working against "undemocratic
in-house column of Bir+?hs, Deaths and countries in the Third World," and he
Marriages, did the Central Intelligence would often confide that the operation
Agency note the passing of a true was slightly illegal. The-added spice of
craftsman. breaking the 'law just a little bit in a
Henri Curial, a gray and fatherly- worthy cause made it all the more at-
looking figure in half-rimmed glasses, tractive. A hundred orso young volun--
was shot dead on May 4, 1978, in the tears of various nationalities were on
elevator of-his Left Bank-Paris - apart. --- his. helpful and , intind-
ment, by two featureless gunmen wear- ing Catholic worker-priests and-Protes-
ing gloves-=the only detail his neigh- tent pastors. A Dominican priory in the
bors noticed. A stateless Egyptian Jew, Rue de la Glacimere gave him house-
he had beenliving in-Paris for 27 years. room for meetings; a group called
For nearly all that time, he was listed France, Terre d'Asile (France, Land of
as foreign-agent 5531916 in-the files of- Asylum) gave. him hostel facilities just
the DST, the French internal security up the street: the Protestant aid mis-
service, Every major counterespionage sion Cimade gave him the use of its
agency in the West had a file on him, refugee shelter in the suburb of Massy.
and almost anybody in the trade. read- The foreigners he bedded down for the
mg through these would assume he night, the nocturnal visitors, the cou-
worked for the KGB. Nevertheless, he riers to and from distant lands-Afri-
ca, South America, the Middle East?
attracted little public attention. It was
Adajdted from The Terror Network by all part of his benevolent if rather in-
Claire Sterling, to be published April distinct image as a doer of good works,
century. The lid was lifted by Georges
Suffert, a respected journalist who
spent three months investigating the
story he wrote for the weekly Le Point-
One alluring glimpse from Suffert and
the lid was clamped down again, un-
mistakably from somewhere above. -
Two personal stories gave Suffert his
n the-summer of 1968, a Pa an
woman named Michele Firk
went to Guatemala with a false
,
passport in the name of "Isabelle
Chaumet." A member of the
- French Communist Party for some
t-,are,- she--hade viaentty chosen a more-
active life- of revol ? :tionary combat..
After several weeks in Guatemala, she
rented a car there on Aug. 22. The
American ambassador was.assasai A ed.
six days later. Her hired car, used in
the attack, led police to the hideout of
the Cuban-backed FAR (Armed R.evo-lutionary? Force), which claimed credit'
for the killing Rather than face inter-
rogation, Micbale Firk committed
suicide. Her FAR comrades claimed to
know nothing about her, except that
she had worked in Paris with an "im-
portant" Haan known' as "Julien" or
"Raymond." .
Seven years later, the-South African
= ^ y--L-^h (also
15 by Re Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100260031-0