The Seeds of Fiction
Page 43
Graham and Bernard Diederich (with rum punches) with Torrijos’s friend Rory Gonzales on Contadora Island, Panama, the day Graham met the General in 1976
Graham in 1976 on the Panama Canal train linking Balboa with Cristóbal (above) and (right) at Cristóbal station in the then American-run Canal Zone
Graham fumbles with his camera on arrival at Cristóbal railway station; he was never at home with mechanical items.
Graham and Bernard Diederich in the gardens of the George Washington Hotel, Colon, Panama, 1976
Graham at the Panama Canal, 1978, with (above) José de Jesús Martínez, known as Chuchu, a Panamanian poet and professor of mathematics who was one of the men closest to Torrijos
Graham with Torrijos on one of several visits he made in 1978 to Torrijos’s house at Farallon on the Pacific coast; they enjoyed one another’s company.
Graham and Chuchu rest against the sea wall at Portobelo, Panama, where Sir Francis Drake’s body had been buried at sea; in 1978 Graham, Bernard Diederich and Chuchu had set out to try to locate the coffin. Torrijos provided a helicopter for the trip.
Above: Having given up the ‘search for Drake’, the party set off in search of Nombre de Dios, the Spanish town at the end of the Camino Real. They came across an Indian village where Graham rested.
Graham as co-pilot in Chuchu’s Cessna flying to Farallon to visit Torrijos in 1978
On his last fleeting trip to Havana in 1983, Graham and Gabriel García Márquez drank whisky while they waited for Fidel Castro. They had previously met in Panama, and both were friends of Torrijos.
Left: Graham in a market in Panama City with Chuchu, 1980; Graham and Bernard Diederich were waiting to meet the legendary Salvadoran guerrilla Salvador Cayetano Carpio to arrange for the release of the kidnapped South African ambassador Archibald Gardner Dunn.
Graham was decorated with the order of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa by Panamanian President Ricardo de la Espriella (second from right) in 1983; Torrijos’s two sons also attended (Martín Torrijos, far left, won the presidency in 2004).
Graham is honoured for his literary work by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, 1987; they awarded him the Order of Rubén Darío, named after Nicaragua’s most famous poet.
Bernard Diederich with Aubelin Jolicoeur — on whom the character Petit Pierre of The Comedians was based — in 1986 after a popular uprising finally forced Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier to flee to France
This painting of Baby Doc was in the lavatory at Graham’s Antibes apartment.
Graham with his pen and midday martini at his writing desk in Antibes, 1989
Bernard Diederich with Graham in his flat in Antibes, 1989 this was the last time the two men met before Graham’s death in 1991.
Graham and Yvonne Cloetta, his partner, having lunch at Chez Félix au Port in Antibes
Bernard Diederich, Yvonne Cloetta and Graham’s publisher Max Reinhardt at the memorial service for Graham at Westminster Cathedral, London, 6 June 1991
Yvonne Cloetta at Graham’s grave at Corseaux Cemetery, Vevey, Switzerland; Graham died there on 3 April 1991.
Jean-Claude Bajeux lecturing on ‘La Métaphysique du Mal Chez Graham Greene’ in Haiti in 1995; having left the priesthood he subsequently served as Minister of Culture in the post-Duvalier government.
In September 2001 Bernard Diederich was invited to give a presentation at Graham Greene’s alma mater, Berkhamsted School, as part of the annual Graham Greene International Festival. The title of the talk was ‘Graham Greene: Among Demons and Dictators’.
By the same author
1959: The Year That Changed Our World
Blood in the Sun
Bon Papa
Una Camara Testigo de la Historia
The Fools of April
The Ghosts of Makara
Island of Fear
Navidad con Libertad
Papa Doc: The Truth About Haiti Today (with Al Burt)
Le Prix du Sang: La Résistance du Peuple Haiïtien à la Tyrannie — François Duvalier
Somoza: The Legacy of US Involvement in Central America
Le Trophée
Trujillo: Death of the Goat
PETER OWEN PUBLISHERS
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Peter Owen books are distributed in the USA and Canada by
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First published in Great Britain 2012
© Bernard Diederich 2012
Foreword © Pico Iyer 2012
Introduction © Richard Greene 2012
Previously unpublished material by Graham Greene © Verdant SA 2012
Extracts from the published works of Graham Greene (The Comedians, The Quiet American, Travels With My Aunt, A Burnt-Out Case, Ways of Escape, Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement, The Captain and the Enemy, In Search of a Character: Two African Journals, Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party) used with the permission of the Estate of Graham Greene through David Higham Associates
Extracts from Blessings in Disguise by Alec Guinness used by permission of the Estate of Alec Guinness through the Sinclair-Stevenson Agency
Materials from TIME Magazine © copyright Time Inc. Used with permission.
All pictures by the author or from the author’s collection except Rodrigo Castano: Graham and Gabriel García Márquez in Cuba, 1983 Jean-Bernard Diederich: poster of The Comedians, Port-au-Prince, 1986; Bernard Diederich with Aubelin Jolicoeur, 1986; Graham with his lunchtime martini, 1986; Graham with Yvonne Cloetta having lunch in Antibes Guardian newspaper: Bernard Diederich, Yvonne Cloetta and Max Reinhardt at Graham’s memorial service, 1991
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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