Capture of Spada

Corsica's chief exports to France have been olives, Napoleon Bonaparte and Paris Police Chief Jean Chiappe. Two years ago Corsica's chief imports were General Fournier, 800 gendarmes, armored cars, airplanes and bloodhounds to hunt out Corsica's fourth best-known product: burly, pouting Bandit Andre Spada. Spada, whose name means ''sword," acquired much newspaper fame from loose comparisons of his activities with those of the oldtime Corsican mountaineers. who waged simple vendettas against one another. Andre Spada was just a gangster.

For nine years Andre Spada worked to make banditry a beautiful thing in Corsica. In 1922 he shot two policemen in the back, killed one. When a youth ran away with Spada's mistress, he murdered the boy's uncle and a woman cousin. Total murders: about twelve. Travelers on the road between Ajaccio and Sopigna paid him tribute as a matter of course. In 1931 when Depression-hit Corsicans asked for a reduced tribute, he ended the quibble by ducally closing the road for two months. Other income: extortion, blackmail. To this local boy who had made good rallied many an ambitious young Corsican. On the grounds that he mulcted the rich, he was popular with the poor.

He sometimes told poor Corsicans whom to elect, was obeyed. After a visit to Corsica, Singer Mary Garden "loved him so much I named my dog after him."

In 1931 Spada's proud pout deepened when General Fournier and his men began combing the wild, pine-covered mountains, posted a fat reward to breed traitors among Spada's kin, gave rifles to 200 reporters and let them join in the hunt. A few lesser bandits were caught, but not Spada. Reporters, Fournier, armored cars and bloodhounds went home. A few of the gendarmes stayed, plodding patiently over the mountains, baying now & then on Spada's faint trail. But Spada was nowhere.

Last week a lean, ragged, jabbering man fell on his knees before the village church at Coggia. A cross dangled on his chest, a crude crown of twigs sat on his tangled hair. Hoarse with a stale fear, he shouted. "What have I done?" A peasant saw that it was Andre Spada, alone and half-witted. Peasants tugged at his elbow to make him rise and hide from the police. Spada pushed them away, rose and wandered about in a daze, jabbering to himself until gendarmes took him away.

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