Lamia [Code Name: Lamia] P. L. Thyraud de Vosjoli [De Gaulle's Chief of Intelligence in Washington]. Publication Date: 1970 Condition: Very Good

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Title: Lamia [Code Name: Lamia]

Publisher: Boston, Little Brown

Publication Date: 1970

Binding: Hardcover

Book Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Fair

Edition: 1st Edition

Signed: By author

SIGNED INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION BY THE AUTHOR TO HIS LEGAL COUNSEL. 344 pages.Ink inscription on half title page ("For Tony Hoolahan with thanks for his wise advices. Phillipe de Vosjoli"). 15.5 x 21.5 cm. Original green cloth (slightly bumped on top edge). Complete with original dust-jacket (slightly torn and creased at the corners, edges, top and bottom of the spine). Provenance:-This copy was acquired from the descendants of Tony Hoolahan Q.C., a prominent libel lawyer who successfully prosecuted Private Eye, (represented by John Mortimer of Rumpole fame) on behalf of Desmond Wilcox (married to Esther Rantzen of "That's Life" fame) in 1982. The author exposed Soviet infiltration in the French government. American and French intelligence relations were damaged after Anatoly Golitsyn's defection in December 1961 Golitsyn, an unusually knowledgeable and experienced defector from the KGB in Finland, revealed that some of de Gaulle's top advisers were working for the Soviets. Rodney Carlisle's book Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco, p. 215, claims that Vosjoli, member of the French intelligence service SDECE, said just that to Army intelligence officer Frank Brandstetter in 1961. In the early summer of 1962, de Vosjoli became aware of rumors of a Soviet buildup in Cuba, apparently of surface-to-air missiles. He flew to Havana in August, where he began to receive reports that a new type of missile was also being seen that was much larger. They included reports from a former French officer who could tell the difference between the two models. De Vosjoli passed that information on to the director of the CIA, John McCone. The spy scandal sometimes known as the Martel or Sapphire affair that took place in France in early 1962 became public knowledge in an exposé in Life magazine in 1968. A friend of de Vosjoli, Leon Uris, used a highly-fictionalized version of his life & the whole spy affair as the basis for the novel and the movie Topaz (1967) in which Topaz was the pseudonym for Vosjoli. Vosjoli, fearing assassination, became the first and only known defector from the French to the American secret services. In 1970 De Vosjoli wrote his own memoirs from his refuge in Lighthouse Point, Florida, in English under the title Lamia. Vosjoli sued Leon Uris for breach of contract claiming to have helped Uris write "Topaz" & in 1972 was awarded $352,000 for royalties from the book and Hitchcock's film version. Probably in connection with this legal action, Vosjoli engaged the legal advice or wise advises (Vosjoli refers to in his inscription) of Tony Hoolahan, Q.C., the leading libel lawyer. Tom Mangold s Cold Warrior (1991), was derived partly from FBI sources, some from Walter Elder, former aide to Director John McCone (who asked Elder to speak for him), and from de Vosjoli himself, whom Mangold caught up with in Geneva, Switzerland. De Vosjoli later threatened to sue Mangold's publisher for millions if the true story were told about him, thus the story in the book was considerably diluted to satisfy Simon and Schuster's legal experts; Vosjoli was no stranger to legal disputes by then. This copy is unique in being gratefully inscribed to his lawyer who helped secure his financial future as well as control the flow of information on his secretive life, but it is also the only signed copy currently available for sale. Seller Inventory # 5083