The anonymous driver who saved the republic from an oil catastrophe…

The anonymous driver who saved the republic from an oil catastrophe…

Sometimes the resourcefulness of an ordinary man determines the course of history. And this is how it happened.

Prince Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s interior minister, who was visiting France these days, had a meeting scheduled at the Élysée Palace with President Giscard d’Estaing. The meeting was set for an early-afternoon hour. The French president was having a working lunch with senior guests, while Prince Nayef had lunch at the luxury restaurant “Tour d’Argent.” Here a mishap occurred [illegible]: the Saudi prince did not appreciate the establishment’s delicacies or the French style of eating at all. He ate little and quickly. Afterward the princely motorcade set off for the Élysée Palace.

But an urgent message came from the organizers—the president had not yet finished his working lunch—and it could be very unpleasant, undiplomatic, and altogether dangerous, given what Prince Nayef represents, if he were simply forced to wait for an audience with the president. By then the motorcade had already reached the Place de la Concorde, and anyone who knows Paris a little will understand the scale of the danger. And here, almost on the verge of despair, one anonymous driver saved the whole operation, understanding what the danger meant. He deviated “slightly” from the route, and before the astonished prince, one by one, appeared all the charms of Paris he might have missed: the Hôtel des Invalides, the Eiffel Tower, the Palais de Chaillot, the Arc de Triomphe in the square [illegible], the Champs-Élysées. In short, he eventually reached the president’s palace, tired but [illegible], quite certainly at the appointed time—if not a little after it.

I do not know whether the prince’s driver will receive the Legion of Honor for saving the republic from a new oil catastrophe. But I think that if you were ever fresh tourists in Paris, you undoubtedly had the privilege of riding in this very driver’s car and paying the bill, too. So you should know he was only practicing on you. All for the homeland.

On the noble journey and drugs…

One day in the spring of 1977. Christina [surname unclear], daughter of [Opel?], is staying at her brother’s villa in Saint-Tropez. [illegible.] A yacht belonging to a businessman, Baron Vildrich von-del-[illegible], arrives from Lebanon. [illegible.] Following an informant’s tip and a raid on the villa, about 1,300 kilograms of fine Lebanese hashish are discovered, believed to have been intended for distribution in Germany, Switzerland, and Paris. Christina and her lover Michael Karz are arrested on the spot. [Two Lebanese men are mentioned later, Rabih Khader and Mohammed Kurdi, as well as a third man named Agar, who managed to escape to Munich.] The affair grows more complicated: hashish in exchange for weapons. [illegible.] Two young Englishmen claim that the baron offered them twenty thousand francs to smuggle Christina out of prison. [illegible.] The baron will not be at the trial.

“Accreditation” in “Figaro Magazine” [the subtitle is not entirely clear]

[Passage about “Le Figaro Magazine” and a French group of intellectuals identified with the “New Right.” Louis Pauwels, Alain de Benoist, Michel Droit, “Nouvelle École,” Olivier Giscard d’Estaing, Michel Poniatowski, and Robert Hersant are mentioned. The text describes the group’s affinities with nationalist, racist, and antisemitic ideas and its connections with public figures and politicians. Large parts of the column are damaged or not sufficiently legible for reliable transcription.]

[Additional passages in the left-hand column are not fully legible.]