The Losing Hand

At 36, Air Force Captain George H. French of Mount Vernon, N.Y. had two consuming passions--flying and gambling. As a bombardier-navigator, French was skillful and courageous: during World War II, slim, alert Airman French flew 35 missions in B-17s, in Korea he logged five more missions in B-29s. But as a gambler, French was inept and intemperate. Since his assignment in June 1956 to a B-36 crew at the Strategic Air Command's Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico, George French, grown fat and dissipated, had piled up almost $10,000 in losses, gone in debt to banks and loan companies to cover them.

Last spring French left his wife and three children in Puerto Rico, returned to the U.S. temporarily for a weapons refresher-training course. At the end of the course he got leave, proceeded to put into action a plan that would wipe clean all his debts. French went to Washington, on April 5 took a late-evening stroll past the sand brick Russian Embassy on 16th Street. At the embassy he paused, tossed through the fence a letter addressed "To Whom It May Concern." For $27,500, said the letter, "I believe I can furnish you with valuable military information." The information French volunteered to hand over: documents and diagrams of a B-36's atomic bombs, their fusing and explosive powers. The letter also established a rendezvous; if the Russians were interested, they were to get in touch with French within the next two days at Room 1877 of Manhattan's Hotel New Yorker.

Next day came a tap on the door of Room 1877. French opened it warily, found not Russians but the FBI and agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. For reasons that spoke volumes about the vigilance of the FBI, the letter had never got to the Russians inside the embassy. No sooner had French tossed it into embassy grounds than it was retrieved--unknown to him--by an FBI agent who must have been keeping a close and effective watch on the Russians. The agent took one look, decided that "To Whom It May Concern" meant the U.S. Government.

Last week, in Second Air Force Headquarters at Barksdale AFB (Shreveport. La.), Captain French, career officer in the U.S. Air Force, went on trial before a general court martial. The charge against him: violation of Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by attempting to communicate national-defense information to a foreign power. French pleaded not guilty, listened while a military lawyer pleaded that he had been a good Air Force officer, had no Communist affiliations or beliefs. But at the end of the four-day trial. Captain George French's biggest gamble went against him. The court martial of three generals, two colonels, two lieutenant colonels, ordered him dishonorably discharged from the service, sentenced him to life imprisonment.

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