Guarding De Gaulle Difficult Task

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29841, 6 June 1962, Page 13

Guarding De Gaulle Difficult Task

(Special Correspondent NZP.A.) LONDON, June 5. Protecting President de Gaulle presented a problem of formidable dimensions, the “Daily Telegraph’s” Paris correspondent stated, discussing the President’s next meet-the-people provincial tour, which starts on June 14.

“For the last 10 days a lot of worried men have been pouring over plans, timetables and maps of eastern France.

“A thousand Government and local officials, policemen and gendarmes are involved in the vast security operation, but most intimately concerned arc four brawny, mid-dle-aged men personally responsible for the President’s life. The quartet, known as the ‘Four Musketeers’ and the ‘Gorillas' have been on the job since President de Gaulle was returned to power in 1958. ‘‘Two have thwarted O.A.S assassination plots and the knowledge that Secret Army suicide squads have infiltrated from Algeria to try and liquidate the President have made even grimmer the nightmare of what is at its best a nerve-racking business. “All are fanatically loyal

Gaullists who fought in the French Resistance. The four abandoned their normal occupations—judo instruction, garage, driving school and bar —to act as presidential body guards.

“Whenever the General appears in public, at least two of them are at hi* side. "President de Gaulle is disdainful for hi* own safety ( and has Insisted that they remain as inconspicuous as possible. Their appearance on television nearly as prominent as himself irritate* him. “The ‘Gorillas' know this and try their best to look like part of an official welcoming party But should assassins strike, they are ready to trip up the towering General and throw themselves on top of him as he falls to the ground, and if it is too late for that they will interpose their own bodies to meet bullet or bomb.” the correspondent stated.