When The Messianic Legacy [1] was published in 1986 it made no reference at all to the origin of the official Committee of Public Safety located in Algeria in 1958, or to its president, General Jacques Massu – instead it referred to other Committees of Public Safety and to a phoney version founded by Pierre Plantard that was located in Paris.

The French newspaper Le Monde decided to publish a few short articles about Plantard’s version of ‘Committee of Public Safety’ – appearing within its pages dated 6 June, 8-9 June and 29 July 1958. Plantard also appropriated the pseudonym ‘Captain Way’. In August 1959 Plantard claimed to have received a letter of gratitude dated 27 June 1959 from General de Gaulle but this alleged ‘letter’ was never published, [2] although quotes from an alleged ‘letter’ dated 3 August 1958 from de Gaulle to Plantard appeared during the 1970s. [3]

When Pierre Plantard formed his version of the Committee of Public Safety located in Paris in 1958 it was only another one of his gimmicks to attract attention to himself – the same way that he formed the phoney ‘order’ of the Alpha Galates during the 1940s in order to attempt to attract the attention of Marshall Pétain.

This is agreed upon by French authors who have researched Plantard.

Quoting Jean-Jacques Bedu: One must doubt whether Pierre Plantard, after trying the save France for the first time in 1940 by warning Pétain of a Gaullist plot against him, was not going to entertain us with another extraordinary knockabout farce of a kind of which he was a past-master [4]

Quoting Laurent Bucholtzer: Bragging about a forged letter he had received from General de Gaulle conveniently beginning ‘My Dear Plantard’, Plantard claimed to be the director of the Central Committee, and inundated newspapers, especially ‘Le Monde’, with press releases, which in the ensuing haste were produced verbatim before the newspapers started asking themselves who this ‘Monsieur Plantard, an accountant with a Parisian company’ actually was. In fact he was acting on behalf of no one very much except himself. His new pseudonym, ‘Capitaine Way Paix’, actually corresponded to his telephone number at that time, WAY 6139 decoded, just in case any credulous individuals were foolish enough to want to place themselves under his command. [5]


Notes

[1] Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy, pages 287-299 (Jonathan Cape, 1986. ISBN 0224021850)

[2] Circuit: Publication Périodique Culturelle de la Fédération des Forces Françaises, Number 2, page 6, 1959 (Bibliothèque Nationale, 4-JO-14140)

[3] Found in Louis Vazart, Abrégé de l'Histoire des Francs, page 272 (Suresnes, 1978). Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln on page 292 in The Messianic Legacy (1986) mistakenly claimed this ‘letter’ originated in Anne-Léa Hisler, Rois et gouvernants de la France, page 103 (1964). Page 103 in Hisler’s document is about Napoleon Bonaparte.

[4] Jean-Jacques Bedu, Les Sources Secrètes du “Da Vinci Code”, page 105 (Monte-Carlo, Èditions du Rocher, 2005. ISBN 2-268-05385-7)

[5] Laurent Bucholtzer, Rennes-le-Château: Une Affaire Paradoxale, page 49 (Les Èditions de L’Oeil du Sphinx, Collection Serpent Rouge Nº 13, 2008. ISBN 2-914405-45-6)