TO BERNARD DIEDERICH

as from: 51 La Résidence des Fleurs | Avenue Pasteur | 06 Antibes. | 30 May 1967

Dear Bernard,

[…]

Baptiste, to whom you introduced me in the lunatic asylum at Santo Domingo, came down here during the last days of the filming of The Comedians with a man whom I did not take to much. He had been an officer in Duvalier’s army until 1964 and I didn’t trust him a yard. Poor Baptiste under his influence seriously thought that he could get some 80,000 dollars out of the film stars to – partly – finance an attack on Haiti. Unfortunately our director had lost some 50,000 dollars in giving mistaken support to Père Georges and the news had got around. I did my best to help them, writing personal letters to the Burtons and to Guinness, but there was no response. I sent Baptiste a small cheque to help him continue his search, but with my responsibilities I could do no more. I was also very suspicious of the other man. Perhaps I am learning suspicion from the Haitians themselves.

[…]

Fred Baptiste was born in the town of Jacmel. His brother Rénel (sometimes spelt Reneld) was also a rebel leader. Graham first met them in January 1965 in their camp at an abandoned insane asylum near Santo Domingo. In 1964 Fred Baptiste led a failed invasion of Haiti. In April 1965 he and his commando joined and fought beside the Constitutional forces in the Dominican civil war. In 1966 he left the Dominican Republic to travel in Europe and went as far as China seeking support for a new venture against Papa Doc. The brothers were captured in 1970 when they infiltrated intoHaiti. They then disappeared into Fort Dimanche, Duvalier’s place of torture and execution. Graham made repeated inquiries on their behalf, but Fred died, insane, of tuberculosis at the age of forty-one on 16 June 1974; Rénel would die, at thirty-five, of the same disease on 19 July 1976.²²

Father Jean-Baptiste Georges was a former Duvalierist who tried to organise a small invasion from Florida. Peter Glenville gave him the $50,000 donation. Georges obtained more money by selling documentary rights to CBS for the hardly secret expedition. In early 1967, customs officials seized their equipment and arrested him. The episode came to be known as ‘The Bay of Piglets’.²³

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 664