BLOCKADE: Brush with Brousse

A very resourceful man is Charles Emmanuel Brousse. Thrice turned down by the French Army in World War I because he was so woefully puny, he had his appendix removed, promptly filled out and with the help of his father, deputy from Perpignan, not only got in the Army but became commander of famed air bombing squadron Brequet 126.

After the war this hearty and charming southerner took a share of his family’s publishing fortune (L’Indépendant of Perpignan) and proceeded to found an importing business in Indo-China which soon hit the jack pot, permitting him to amass one of the world’s most important private collections of Napoleonana. As a press officer in the Air Ministry in World War II. “Chariot” Brousse acquired the reputation of being the most prodigious wangler in Paris and gained the gratitude of all U. S. newsmen for his many feats of bypassing departmental red tape in their behalf.

Even after the defeat, Captain Brousse was still operating in high gear, getting no less than 10,000 litres of gasoline for the U. S. Embassy in Vichy when there was no gasoline, fighting correspondents’ battles against the military censorship, ar ranging impossible interviews. He did not do so badly on his own behalf. Appointed press attache to the French Embassy in Washington last month, he went from Vichy to Paris, outshouted the Germans, returned with 23 trunkloads of belongings, put them and his lovely Georgia-born wife in a car and trailer and drove all the way to Lisbon with a chauffeur who was under 40 and hence by terms of the armistice not supposed to be permitted outside France. Last week wangling Chariot Brousse brooked the first brake in a long and happy career.

When the American Export Liner Exeter arrived in Bermuda for the now customary inspection of mail and passengers by the British, two customs officers took Captain Brousse to his cabin. They asked for his papers and were shown his diplomatic passport. They then asked if he was carrying any letters. He showed them two sealed paquets de courrier from Foreign Minister Paul Baudouin to Ambassador Henry-Haye. To the Captain’s astonishment the British demanded them.

Not until the Exeter’s master could come and witness the surrender would Charles Brousse turn over the letters. The

British said the letters would go to the British Embassy in Washington, then be sent to the French. As to the extraordinary practice of seizing the diplomatic correspondence of a nation with which diplomatic relations were still in effect, they had nothing to say. The positions of the two ex-allies with respect to each other had become even more bizarre.