The Heart of the Matter

A secret-service man must have many special qualities, but the one of least service to himself, or his country, is too ready and human a sympathy with the causes he is supposed to keep an eye on. Switzerland's Attorney General Rene Dubois, who personally operated the country's efficient 40-man counterintelligence organization, could not help but feel for France in her North African dilemma. A modest, hard-working tracker of spies, 48-year-old Rene Dubois, born on the French side of Switzerland and a member of the Swiss Socialist Party, spoke with impatience of the Arab political leaders who visited, or lived, in neutral Switzerland: "They give me a lot of trouble."

But if Dubois, a Swiss, felt deeply for France, another secret-service man in France's own Deuxieme Bureau in Paris was differently affected by his own government's handling of Algerian policy. The Deuxieme Bureau man tipped off the Egyptian embassy in Bern that its telephone lines were being tapped by Dubois' outfit. Furthermore, the information thus obtained, including the support the Algerians were getting from Egypt's Nasser, was leaking back to Paris.

The Egyptians complained to Swiss Foreign Minister Max Petitpierre, and an investigation began. Swiss newspapers spoke guardedly of Swiss agents who were being questioned by Dubois. Then the heat was turned on Dubois: the interrogator was interrogated. Returning home one afternoon Dubois took out his Swiss army pistol, and shot himself through the head. He left a note for his wife: "Forgive me. I am innocent."

But the Swiss government was of another opinion, issued a brief communique saying that "clues" indicated that Attorney General Dubois had illegally furnished information to a foreign service, and hastened to assure the Swiss that it was "information which does not affect Swiss affairs." Dubois had committed the unpardonable error for a secret-service man and, above all, for a neutral Swiss: he had taken sides. Said the cleric who buried him last week: "He was not only a functionary. He also had a human heart."

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