The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  The philosopher Raymond Aron, writing roughly at the time of the Drummond murders, argued that the conservatism of French politics was due to the votes of women and peasants, and the maintenance of a strong agricultural population was a necessary barrier to communism and Marxism. Within twenty years this barrier was lowered by more than 50 percent, and the Left increased its representation correspondingly. Thus, the dwindling of the peasantry strengthened the Left. This may very well be true in aggregate, but the case of the Dominicis proved different. We saw how successful the Communist Party was in specific areas of rural France and how the party supported the family members until they were finally denounced by the local party secretary, who in turn was dropped when he was compromised by the police. By that point, only the Italian communists still championed the Dominicis, with their party newspaper, L’Unità, cooking up the outlandish tale that the Drummonds had been assassinated on orders from the U.S. government.

  The discourses of the occupation of France and the Resistance were intertwined with that of the Dominicis to the point that the Communist Party initially stylized the police attack on them as an attack on the antifascist struggle, a desecration of the memory of the “85,000 shot,” and a sinister shift to the right. Once it could no longer be denied that the Dominicis were at least implicated in the crime and when the local party organization became seriously compromised, the party no longer openly supported them. The Dominicis’ defense team, however, comprised prominent communist lawyers, and the party did everything it could to counter the conspiracy theories suggesting that the Drummonds were the victims of a Soviet-instigated assassination. Gaston’s claim to be franc z’loyal and the association of the Dominicis with the Resistance are part of the reason why his reputation underwent a sea change from sadistic brute to maligned patriarch.

  The radical politics of certain areas of rural France stem in large part from opposition to Paris rather than any carefully considered ideology. Thus, at the time of the Dominici trial, the communists, with 28.8 percent of the popular vote in the 1946 election, were the largest party. They were popular first and foremost because of their close association with and significant role in the Resistance after 22 June 1941. Even in 1951 they dropped only 2.8 percentage points and were still the largest party due to their stand against the Americanization implied in the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the rearming of Germany. The party’s quixotic stand against modernity had much appeal in backward and declining areas such as Lurs. Little attention was paid to the party’s bizarre denunciation of refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, and vacuum cleaners as dehumanizing, because such key items in the new consumer society were unknown in rural France. The drug-addicted, alcoholic novelist, playwright, and essayist Roger Vailland, who joined the party in 1952, gave literary expression to this view but delighted in driving around in a Jaguar in pursuit of libertinage. Similarly, the party’s robust antifeminism and the denunciation of birth control as “bourgeois” were perfectly acceptable in this chauvinist and fecund society. Party leader Maurice Thorez, an unabashed Stalinist who was denounced Nikita Khrushchev for his 1956 speech attacking the great man and who in the same year spoke of “Hungarian fascism,” was a serious, intelligent, cultured, charming, and immensely popular figurehead.

  As the Communist Party ossified and went into steady decline, it lost all attraction as a locus of inchoate protest. Its place was taken by such disparate movements as the ultra-right Front National (National Front) or various fringe groups of Trotskyites, Maoists, and ecologists. Anticommunism played precious little role in local politics. There were matters of more pressing concern such as the ukases from Brussels on the types of birds hunters were no longer permitted to slaughter, the closing of a local post office, or the building of subsidized housing for homeless Maghrebis. The association of the Dominicis with the Communist Party was thus no impediment to their rehabilitation. Gaston could be seen as yet another victim of Parisian arrogance and of the typically disdainful attitude of those on high who were utterly ignorant of his milieu. His world had disappeared and was now regarded with romanticized affection.

  Meanwhile, cases such as that of Gaston Dominici that have not been fully explained provide rich humus for conspiracy theories, but even those that have been investigated still give rise to paranoid fantasies. Thus, the murders of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lennon have spawned all manner of exotic explanations. A horror as complex as the Shoah is explained away as never having happened. Delusional theories such as that of the world Jewish conspiracy or of a Masonic mafia are still afforded widespread credence or are transformed into an all-embracing anti-Americanism that serves to explain everything that is wrong with the world. These ideas are not simply the obsessions of tyrants such as Adolf Hitler or Stalin; they can also be the product of exceptional minds. The eminent Austrian orientalist Baron Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall wrote a paper for the Austrian Academy in 1855 uncovering the Templars as a powerful secret society, thus providing rich material for further wild speculation and literary invention. Conspiracy theories provide fruitful material for the sensationalist press and radio talk shows, Hollywood movies, pseudo-scholarly books, best-selling novels, and even election campaigns.

  This paranoid attitude of mind was deliciously satirized by George Farquhar in his play The Beaux’ Stratagem of 1707 in which Squire Sullen’s servant Scrub exclaims:

  First, it must be a plot because there’s a Woman in’t; secondly, it must be a plot because there’s a Priest in’t; thirdly, it must be a plot because there’s French Gold in’t; and, fourthly, it must be a Plot, because I don’t know what to make on’t.22

  Then, of course, for some, there is always the lingering suspicion that Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

  In this case, for a conspiracy theory to have any credence whatsoever, Sir Jack Drummond—the distinguished scientist whose work was all in the public domain—had to be given a new persona. That he had worked at the government’s Porton Down Experimental Station on the decontamination of foodstuffs subsequent to a gas attack, about which he published a pamphlet, was converted into the fiction that he did extensive work developing poison gas. That a factory near Lurs had once been involved in manufacturing poison gas was taken as proof that he had been involved in negotiating a deal involving this weapon. That a British officer had parachuted into southern France during the war and had met with the Resistance was rewritten so that Drummond was the man in question. That he had gone behind enemy lines in Holland in the war’s final stages was evidence that he was in league with the Nazis. That Drummond had worked in Germany on nutritional problems was seen as proof that he had worked for Operation Paperclip, the secret recruitment of German scientists to work for the United States. (Paperclip was in fact a uniquely American operation that had been organized by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, which created a Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency as an operational staff for the program. It was not in the least interested in questions of nutrition and did not require Jack Drummond’s expertise.) That the British government formally denied Drummond was ever an intelligence agent was taken as proof that he was indeed deeply implicated in clandestine operations. Secret agents are, after all, kept secret.

  The most persistent of the conspiracy theories involved Bartkowski. His story fit the bill perfectly. Outsiders committed the crime. The perpetrators were in the service of the Soviet Union. British authorities hampered the police inquiry with their reluctance to admit that Drummond was in France on official business.

  It is now hotly denied that a French peasant was capable of committing such a terrible crime as the Drummond murders. It must have been the work of outsiders. Once again this belief is contrary to some singularly unpleasant facts. In 1973, shortly after the movie L’affaire Dominici starring Jean Gabin opened in Paris, an Englishman and his son went camping at Pélissanne near Salon-de-Provence, where the father was hacked to death with an ax. His son, the poet Jeremy Cartlan
d, was seriously wounded but survived the attack. This case provoked outrage in Britain.23 The French police suspected patricide, but the case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Again, unfounded rumors circulated that the sixty-year-old John Cartland had been a Special Operations Executive operative who had betrayed members of the Maquis.

  In 1977 two Britons were shot while camping in a remote area in the Forêt des Maures near Saint-Tropez. The following year two Britons in Cannes were killed by savage blows to the head. Despite these appalling crimes, the myth of a peaceful and placid Provence lives on, and Gaston Dominici is now seen as the victim of a gross injustice, as a typical peasant, and as a member of a class still perceived as forming the moral foundation of eternal France. His life is now seen as reminiscent of Tennyson’s “Tithonus”: “Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath.”24

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Times (London) said Elizabeth was “about twelve” (hereafter Times). She was in fact ten years old.

  2. For an excellent discussion of this complex issue, see Quintard-Morénas, “Presumption of Innocence.”

  3. Truche, “Rappport au président.”

  4. Sagnes, Le midi rouge.

  1. A Fatal Journey

  1. Rations were as follows:

  1 ounce (28 grams) cheese (about enough to fill one sandwich)

  2 ounces (56 grams) tea (roughly twenty teabags)

  2 ounces (56 grams) jam spread

  4 ounces (113 grams) bacon or ham

  8 ounces (226 grams) sugar

  1 shilling’s worth of meat (20 shillings = £1)

  8 ounces (226 grams) fats, of which only 2 ounces (56 grams) could be butter

  Later sweets and tinned goods could be had on a points system. Bread was not rationed until 1946.

  2. Paris Match, 30 August–6 September 1952, reprinted a section of Jack’s dotingly affectionate diary.

  3. The exchange rate was roughly 1,000 anciens francs (10 nouveaux francs) for £1, or $1.22. The allowance had been increased from £5 in sterling and £10 in foreign currency ($6.08 and $12.17, respectively).

  4. Wages for lower-paid workers in mining or the railways were £5 per week. A salary of £1,000 a year would guarantee an affluent standard of living, even with extremely steep marginal rates of income tax. Sir Jack earned £4,000 ($4,866) a year.

  5. The department was renamed the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in April 1970.

  6. The rates in 1952 were between 400 and 1,300 francs. Meals were within the same range. Although very cheap, the Drummonds’ currency allowance would have soon been depleted even at such low rates.

  7. The official designation was “un grand gala taurin avec tournoi de toro ball.”

  8. There is some doubt about the price of this ticket. Chenevier, De la combe aux fées, 15, claims that they cost 507 francs; but Guerrier, L’affaire Dominici, 163, puts the figure at 750 francs. Seats in the sun and the shade could explain the difference.

  9. According to Valerie Marrian’s testimony on 12 December 1953. Digne Archives.

  10. Maximilien Vox was the pseudonym of Samuel Monod. The meetings, known as Les Rencontres internationales de Lure, are still held every August. Monthly sessions are also held in Paris.

  11. The name “Ganagobie” is of Celtic origin and means “hill of light.”

  12. Marque’s testimony can be found at “Le témoignage du gendarme Marque” (The testimony of Officer Marque), 11 April 2003, https://www.samuelhuet.com/fr/affaire-dominici/53-lursfacts/410-temoignage-marque.html. It was not made until 19 March 1953. The later date may account for some minor discrepancies, such as the color of Jack Drummond’s jacket, which was dark blue rather than black.

  13. The factory was founded during the First World War to produce chlorine. It was then run by various companies: Péchiney-Saint-Gobain, Rhône-Poulenc, Elf Atochem (1992), Atofina (2000), and Arkema in October (2004). After 1918 it produced a wide range of standard products. Saint-Auban was incorporated into the community of Château-Arnoux to become Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban in 1991.

  14. Absolutely nothing is known about Saint Donat. He may well never have existed, but he is much revered in Provence.

  15. The road is now the D4096. An autoroute, the A51, now runs parallel along the banks of the Durance.

  16. The money was equivalent at that time to $336 and $303.

  17. Fines were calculated at 1,000 francs (about €1.85 or $1.95) per minute of delay, a substantial sum in those days. Guerrier, L’affaire Dominici, 195. The small trains were “michelines,” equipped with pneumatic tires.

  18. That they went to the farm to ask for water was asserted by Zézé Perrin, who had heard it from Gaston and Marie, and his mother, Germaine, had heard it from Yvette. Yvette had ordered Zézé not to say anything about it.

  2. The Murder

  1. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1, part 1. Also, the N96 route is now known as the D4096.

  2. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1.

  3. Gustave said the body was that of a female (une morte).

  4. Guerrier, L’affaire Dominici, 245. Autheville wrote for communist dailies La Marseillaise and L’Allobroges.

  5. Judt, Postwar, 33.

  6. The Gras was an adaptation of the old breech-loading chassepot army rifle, adopted in 1874. It fired a single 11mm round. A powerful and accurate weapon, it was widely used by guerrilla fighters and was later adapted for use as a hunting rifle.

  7. Domènech, Lurs, 82.

  8. This is somewhat curious, as the socialists, or French Section of the Workers’ International (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière), had been formally allied with the communists since the liberation. The alliance later fell apart due to the pressures of the Cold War.

  9. Ernest Hemingway paints a singularly unflattering portrait of Marty in For Whom the Bell Tolls, where he appears as the character André Massart. He was a ruthless man obsessed with rooting out “fascist-trotskyite spies” and establishing rigorous communist orthodoxy, but he hardly deserves his nickname of “the butcher of Albacete.”

  10. Quoted by Warwick Charlton in Picture Post, October 1952.

  11. Quotes from Burrin, France under the Germans, 351.

  12. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1, part 1, procès-verbal (PV) 13 May 1953.

  13. It is characteristic of the amazingly shoddy police work in the case that neither the bus driver nor the passengers were ever questioned. Roure also must have crossed paths with Ricard on the main road, but again neither was asked this obvious question.

  14. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1, part 1, PV 15 August 1952.

  15. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1, part 1. The conversation between Yvette and Gaston was witnessed by Roure, who had just at that moment returned to the Grand’ Terre. It is not clear whether he went out of curiosity or to fetch Clovis, who should have been working at the Lurs station. Roure stated that Gaston had shown surprise when told of the murders, but it cannot be established whether this was indeed the case or whether, if true, the surprise was genuine. Gaston later testified that Gustave had told him about the crime but then retracted his statement.

  16. Archives Départmentales Digne, 1182 W 1, part 1.

  17. Paris Match, 16–23 August 1952.

  18. According to article 14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the police judiciaire (judicial police) are “charged with confirming infractions of criminal law, to collect proof thereof and to discover the perpetrators.”

  19. Sébeille, L’affaire Dominici, 31.

  20. Laborde, Un matin d’été à Lurs, 99.

  21. Sébeille, L’affaire Dominici, 290.

  3. The Police Investigation

  1. Sébeille claimed that the wound was on the left hand, but he is clearly in error.

  2. “Infortunés Drummond: Rapports d’autopsie” (Unfortunate Drummond :Autopsy reports), 20 August 2010, https://www.samuelhuet.com/fr/affaire-dominici/54-lursdocs/361-a
utopsies-drummond.html.

  3. See Deniau and Sultan, Dominici.

  4. This is suggested by Guerrier, L’affaire Dominici, 359, having consulted a traumatologist.

  5. National Archives, Kew, MEPO 2/9393.

  6. The Sten was a primitive 9mm automatic developed in 1941 and was supplied to the Maquis in large numbers. The name comes from the initials of its inventors, Reginald V. Shepperd and Harold J. Turpin, plus the first two letters of Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield.

  7. L’Humanité, 30 August 1952.

  8. Guerrier, L’affaire Dominici, 325, claims that this is nonsense since Elizabeth had been sleeping in the Hillman and would not have gone anywhere near the mulberry tree as she tried to escape. The map of the crime scene in plate 35 of his book, however, clearly shows that she would indeed have passed directly by the tree.