L'Affaire Koutiepoff

Ten weeks ago General Alexander Paul Koutiepoff, head of all Russian royalist military organizations in Europe, kissed his wife perfunctorily goodbye, put his bowler hat on his head and strolled off down the Rue Rousselet in Paris to attend a staff meeting at the Russian Officers' Club. As instantly and completely as a conjuror's rabbit, he disappeared. An hour later Mme Koutiepoff was in hysterics.

"Boche moi!" she sobbed. "It is the Bolsheviks! I know it ! I know those people! They will pull out his finger nails, they will put out his eyes! No one will ever see him again."

Within a week I'Afiaire Koutiepoff was a serious international incident. Menacing crowds gathered in front of the Soviet Embassy in Paris, French Conservatives loudly demanded the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Newspapers offered prizes for the most plausible solution to the mystery, reprinted long accounts of the nefarious doings of the Russian secret service (G. P. U.) in foreign countries. French agents of the Surete Generale complained that the number of entirely unauthorized amateur detectives was seriously interfering with their investigations. Round Paris cafes spread lurid accounts of secret underground torture chambers in the Soviet Embassy. One story persisted--of a mysterious red taxicab and a man dressed as a gendarme who helped the occupants bundle General Koutiepoff into the car as he was walking down the street.

Last fortnight brought the first definite answer to the Koutiepoff riddle. La Liberte, Parisian evening daily, published a special edition, charged that six days earlier General Alexander Paul Koutiepoff was seen battered but still alive in a cell in Moscow's Loubianskaia prison.

Surprisingly enough, the French secret police partially verified the rumor. General Koutiepoff had been kidnapped in a red taxicab in the Rue Rousselet, they admitted. On the evening of Jan. 26 an unidentified Russian woman at Cabourg, tiny Norman fishing village, had seen the red taxicab and a mysterious grey limousine draw up by the shore. A man dressed as a gendarme and a woman in a tan coat had stepped out, carrying a limp figure which was placed in a motor boat which instantly sped off in the direction of Houlgate. Other witnesses announced that a Russian merchantman had been lying off the mouth of the Seine near Houlgate for several days, that it disappeared on Jan. 27. La Liberte demanded once more the breaking off of diplomatic relations with Russia, invited Parisians to a monster mass meeting.

So juicy a scandal as I'Affaire Koutiepoff could not be laid on the shelf without a sniff and a playful poke from that irrpressible gourmet, M. Leon Daudet, editor of the flamboyant Royalist sheet Action Franc,aise. "Mark my words!" he wrote. ''War will come of this in a few months!"

Last week all Paris was agog with rumors that Prime Minister Andre Tardieu was seriously pondering whether to break off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Excitement grew when the private airplane of Sir Henri Deterding, Anglo-Dutch oil tycoon, arrived from London at Le Bourget and Sir Henri sped by motor to confer for two hours with M. Tardieu, then dashed back to his plane, flew home to London. Observers pondered the most widely believed explanation of Sir Henri's movements: he came at the request of M. Tardieu who wanted to know whether French consumers of certain petroleum products (especially naphtha) which they now buy from the Soviet Union could be sure of a reasonably priced supply from Sir Henri's associates should France decide to break with Russia.

Sir Henri was supposed to have pledged his word that M. Tardieu could count on adequate supplies, fair prices.

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