BOOK REVIEW: THE AFFAIR-THE CASE OF ALFRED DREYFUS

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000624333
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: April 1, 1987

Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333TITLE: BOOK REVIEW: The Affair-the Case of Alfred DreyfusREVIEWER: John T. KirbyVOLUME: 31 ISSUE: Spring YEAR: 1987Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333TUDIES ININTELLIGENCEA collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence. -All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333Book ReviewsThe Affair?the Case of Alfred Dreyfus. By Jean-Denis Bredin. George?Braziller, Inc., New York; 1986; 628 pp.The Affair by Jean-Denis Bredin (translated from the French by JeffreyMehlman) is a fascinating account of an extraordinary legal case with insightsinto intelligence and security tradecraft as they were practiced in turn-of-the-century France. It is a detailed reconstruction of the case of Captain AlfredDreyfus, accused and convicted as a spy for Germany and confined in solitaryfor more than five years on Devil's Island off French Guyana. Much of the bookreads like a gripping espionage novel.Although the Dreyfus case may be known to many Americans in somedetail, others are familiar with it only from French history courses or from the1930s Hollywood film which starred Paul Muni as Emile Zola, the most famousand most loyal of Dreyfus' many prominent defenders.There is much to attract readers of nonfiction writings on intelligence inthis book. It is rife with details of the tradecraft and internal politics of Frenchmilitary intelligence and security services in the 1890s when France expectedwar with Germany to develop at any time. But it is also a careful sociologicalstudy of the most insidious influence in French politics and society of theperiod?antisemitism?which was the cause of Dreyfus' ordeal.The scion of a wealthy Alsatian Jewish mercantile family, Dreyfus had oneabiding passion; he was a patriot who loved the French Army in which heserved as an artillery officer specialist assigned to the General Staff. Confrontedone morning in his office by his military superiors without warning and madeto write out a brief statement about himself, Dreyfus was soon charged withtreason on the basis of the alleged similarity of his handwriting to that of asuspected spy in the General Staff.After a long trial in which he maintained his innocence, he was convictedof engaging in espionage for Germany. He was discharged from the army indisgrace in a public ceremony witnessed by his family. The conviction wasbased on evidence contrived by his antisemitic colleagues and superiors on theGeneral Staff. They had prepared detailed false documents incriminating himas a secret agent of the German embassy in Paris and even provided the judgeswith further falsified secret evidence which was never surfaced in the court.A high-living Hungarian-French officer, Colonel Esterhazy, the real traitorin the case, had left a letter addressed to the German military attache in Paris,for whom he was a paid secret agent, containing a list of French militarydocuments from the General Staff that he could provide for a price. The lettersubsequently reached the French counterintelligence service whose collectionassets included the cleaning woman at the German embassy who regularlypassed along everything she gleaned from the wastebaskets of the attaches (thiswas described in French service records as "coming from the usual channel").Dreyfus' brother worked unceasingly for a retrial on the basis of clearevidence of gross misconduct of senior military officials and glaring irregular-ities in the trial proceedings. When after a few years the case appeared to belosing its appeal to the Paris press, his brother planted a story in the London85Approved for Release: 2014/07/29000624333Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333Book Reviewspress intended to revive public interest. The story alleged that Alfred's escapefrom Devil's Island was being planned by his supporters. Military headquartersin Paris thereupon sent an urgent cable to Dreyfus' jailers to reinforce hissecurity immediately. His limited view of the sea from his solitary cell waspromptly cut off and he was shackled to his bed. His correspondence to andfrom his wife was subjected to ever heavier censorship (he wrote only of hisinnocence, his suffering, his love of France, his family and the army, andeventually of his despair because of his failing health).After a political storm slowly developed in France over the case whenofficial duplicity was exposed, Dreyfus was returned to France for a retrial.After interminable legal proceedings that brought down several governmentsand led to several self-expatriations and suicides, he was found innocent andwas reinstated in the army with his former rank. He was allowed to resign fromthe army for health reasons after a short period.When France entered World War I Dreyfus volunteered for activeservice. He was wounded in combat after distinguished service. He died inretirement, not of the wound but of complications derived from his incarcer-ation.This case was not the finest hour in French military (or intelligence)history. Dreyfus suffered total ignominy because of the cynical complicity ofpoliticians and senior military officers, including the head of military intelli-gence and his senior staff aides in a veritable orgy of antisemitism.Bredin, the foremost living expert on the Dreyfus case, has compiled abrilliant history of legal and social developments in France in the period. Thebook is superbly annotated and expertly translated, withal a monument toDreyfus.86JOHN T. KIRBYApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000624333