In September 1952 Georges Piquart was very close to going to prison. His handlers at SDECE thought it had been no coincidence that the Wrights had been murdered soon after Helene’s report had come from Washington. They’d heard about Georges’s proclivities and his hatred of Americans. He had professed his innocence, of course, stating that he’d immediately ceased his investigations after he’d received the cable instructing him to avoid confrontations with Americans. And the investigators at SDECE had no proof. It might have been different had the two legionnaire henchmen turned up, but they had disappeared. So Georges had been discharged from the intelligence service. He’d been instructed to stay out of Vietnam and away from any contacts with American intelligence agents, including Helene.
