The Determined Ones

Once again, gunmen were at work in the streets of Paris, and Frenchmen huddled anxiously to speculate on the next moves of that ugly remnant of Algerian hatred, the Secret Army Organization. Each day's headlines brought some new reason for fear.

First, there was the murder of Henri Lafond, 68, president of the Banque de 1'Union Parisienne. France's second largest investment bank. In the fashionable Paris suburb of Neuilly one morning last week, he set out for his office but got no farther than the back seat of his chauffeur-driven

Rover. A stocky stranger, wearing a grey hat, a light raincoat and red gloves, opened the rear door and inquired. "Etes-vous Monsieur Lafond?" At Lafond's nod, he pumped two bullets into his victim's abdomen. then shot the chauffeur for good measure.

Excited witnesses reported that the killer limped as he ran to the getaway car, and police leaped to the conclusion that this might well be the work of the notorious S.A.O. terrorist, George Watin, nicknamed "The Limper." Whetting their suspicions was the discovery in Lafond's files of letters from the S.A.O. a year ago, demanding "voluntary contributions" to support the terrorist plots against Charles de Gaulle and other "enemies" of their movement. The wealthy banker had refused to cooperate.

Hitting the Bank. If cash was the desperate goal of the S.A.O.. two big armed robberies in quick succession fitted neatly into the pattern of violence. Six men broke into the offices of the Societe Generale Commerciale de 1'Est on Paris' Quai Anatole-France, forced the president to open the safe, and made off with $80,000 in gold and currency. In Beaune, 170 miles southeast of Paris, thieves looted the safe-deposit boxes of a local bank, getting away with an estimated $2,000,000 in cash and jewelry.

As if in reply to the S.A.O.'s shooters and looters, a military court last week handed down harsh judgments for the nine captive members of another S.A.O. group which had tried to assassinate De Gaulle in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart last August. For the ringleaders, the penalty was death. Ex-Lieut. Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry heard the sentence impassively, but flinched when the judge added that he would be expelled from the Legion d'Honneur; ex-Lieut. Alain Bougrenet de la Tocnaye was equally impassive as he stood at attention in his army uniform; Jacques Prevost, whose life had not even been demanded by the prosecution, heard the death sentence with a slight smile. Sentences for the six other defendants ranged from three years to life imprisonment.

Since there is no appeal from the military tribunal's decision, the only hope of the condemned is President Charles de Gaulle, who is empowered to grant pardon. In a front-page editorial, the moderate newspaper Le Monde asked De Gaulle to show mercy in order to finish "with the germs of civil war."

Before the Cameras. Whatever the President's decision might be, the plotting would certainly continue, either in France or abroad, where many of the S.A.O. chiefs have found haven. De Gaulle's most prominent foe. Georges Bidault, 63, the ex-Premier of France who is now head of the S.A.O. executive arm, was hiding out at a German Gasthof near the Swiss border, and this week was discovered by Bavarian police in the area. A month earlier he had slipped over to London, where press photographers were allowed to photograph him on the streets as a gesture of defiance to Paris.

It did no particular good to Anglo-French relations when the BBC put on a ten-minute film interview with Exile Bidault last week. Bidault wearily and evasively answered questions in French, to the embarrassment of British police, who were not even aware the fugitive was in the country. The French were sure it all had to do with British bitterness at De Gaulle's veto of Britain in the Common Market, though it seemed more likely just the work of an enterprising BBC television news team.

In any case, the clever work of the gunmen loose in Paris last week showed that the French police might profitably forget the activities of an elderly exile like Georges Bidault and give priority to the gunmen at home. By week's end, there was no trace of either Henri La fond's killer or the other S.A.O. maraud ers who were sworn to kill Charles de Gaulle--and to put France into chaos if necessary to achieve the task.

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