In all our meetings, it marked the first and only time the Prince was interrupted not once by his cell phones.
We discussed a variety of topics, starting with the Prince’s recent travels in the USA, where he had visited Mount Rushmore, and my experience infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s. It was a good warm up for the topics that followed.
I briefed the Prince on the SICCFIN fracas over Andorra and confirmed that the first formal meeting of the informal micro-Europe intelligence association would convene in Luxembourg on October 24th. The Prince was enthused, even excited, about this.
The Prince was also pleased to learn that Paul MASSERON had visited M-Base and also that soon-to-be police chief Andre MUHLBERGER would follow presently.
Philippe NARMINO: The proof was in. I presented new documentation. The Prince nodded grimly and promised action.
And finally, funding: I made his case that the whole team worked overtime. I had built a solid intelligence service from scratch on a shoestring, an investment into the Prince’s future. With my name now out there, I probably needed a bodyguard, but couldn’t justify the cost in view of other needs.
The Prince agreed to increase the budget by twenty-five percent.
Despite so positive a meeting, I understood the Prince’s psyche by now. For only one day later, I jotted in my journal: A2 does not really care, just going through the motions.
Even with increased funding, I wrote myself a note to terminate my service to the Prince on June 30th 2007, five years after it began, giving myself ten months to establish the micro-Europe intelligence association and the restructuring of SIGER.
Just two weeks later, after bouncing through London to Washington, D.C. to California and back again to London, then a delayed EasyJet flight from Luton to Nice, I scribbled: My heart no longer in this.
Back in M-Base, I was beset by new intrigue. Months earlier, Jean-Paul PROUST and Franck BIANCHERI had pitched Jean-Luc ALLAVENA (JLA) on commissioning Kroll, the private investigation company, to produce a study on how to remove Monaco from the OECD’s tax haven blacklist.
I briefed the Prince on the SICCFIN fracas over Andorra and confirmed that the first formal meeting of the informal micro-Europe intelligence association would convene in Luxembourg on October 24th. The Prince was enthused, even excited, about this.
The Prince was also pleased to learn that Paul MASSERON had visited M-Base and also that soon-to-be police chief Andre MUHLBERGER would follow presently.
Philippe NARMINO: The proof was in. I presented new documentation. The Prince nodded grimly and promised action.
And finally, funding: I made his case that the whole team worked overtime. I had built a solid intelligence service from scratch on a shoestring, an investment into the Prince’s future. With my name now out there, I probably needed a bodyguard, but couldn’t justify the cost in view of other needs.
The Prince agreed to increase the budget by twenty-five percent.
Despite so positive a meeting, I understood the Prince’s psyche by now. For only one day later, I jotted in my journal: A2 does not really care, just going through the motions.
Even with increased funding, I wrote myself a note to terminate my service to the Prince on June 30th 2007, five years after it began, giving myself ten months to establish the micro-Europe intelligence association and the restructuring of SIGER.
Just two weeks later, after bouncing through London to Washington, D.C. to California and back again to London, then a delayed EasyJet flight from Luton to Nice, I scribbled: My heart no longer in this.
Back in M-Base, I was beset by new intrigue. Months earlier, Jean-Paul PROUST and Franck BIANCHERI had pitched Jean-Luc ALLAVENA (JLA) on commissioning Kroll, the private investigation company, to produce a study on how to remove Monaco from the OECD’s tax haven blacklist.
JLA had shot it down on the basis that such a ploy would make Monaco look bad. He thought he’d killed it, but PROUST and BIANCHERI went forward anyway, behind JLA’s back. Months later, someone began a campaign of phoning JLA’s former employers to enquire about him.
Who authorized this? Was it somehow connected to Kroll?
LIDDY had the answer, even though I asked him about it as an aside after plowing through a number of items on both our dockets.
It wasn’t an answer LIDDY wanted to provide, but I went at it a number of ways, prepared not to let him leave M-Base until I knew.
LIDDY finally responded, couching it in whimsical hypothetical terms, but the answer was clear: Thierry LACOSTE was trying to dig whatever dirt he could on JLA with a view to having him replaced as chef de cabinet.
Who authorized this? Was it somehow connected to Kroll?
LIDDY had the answer, even though I asked him about it as an aside after plowing through a number of items on both our dockets.
It wasn’t an answer LIDDY wanted to provide, but I went at it a number of ways, prepared not to let him leave M-Base until I knew.
LIDDY finally responded, couching it in whimsical hypothetical terms, but the answer was clear: Thierry LACOSTE was trying to dig whatever dirt he could on JLA with a view to having him replaced as chef de cabinet.
LIDDY had not thought to mention this on his own because he had not perceived it as a danger to the intelligence mission.
I corrected him: Any threat to JLA was a threat to the good work they were doing in service to the Prince.
After LIDDY departed, I sent e-mail to JLA saying he had an answer to the mystery we had discussed.
JLA phoned me immediately and was utterly astonished by his news, having met LACOSTE for breakfast the morning before in Paris, and confiding in him to boot.
“You warned me when I arrived in November about Lacoste’s kitchen cabinet,” JLA said to me. “You were right.”
JLA instantly phoned the Prince to convey this information, and then called me. “The Prince wants to hear all the details from you.”
And next morning, indeed, the Prince phoned. “Doctor ERINGER?”
“Yes, my patient.”
“I need an antidote for Thierry LACOSTE.”
“Doesn’t everyone. I’m working on a cocktail.”
“That might ease the pain.”
We agreed to meet early evening.
After a long day of meetings with the interior minister and various assets, I welcomed the Prince to M-Base. He seemed relaxed in a striped shirt and khaki trousers and freshly shaven head. He had just met with the Venezuelan education minister.
Over martinis, I related the Kroll/LACOSTE incident, trying to put everything into proper perspective--and de-escalate the situation.
“Everybody around you will constantly try to undercut everybody else around you in a never-ending war for greater access and influence,” I said. “Everybody especially wants to cut away at JLA, who now stands in the way of everyone who expected to reap much influence and power during your reign by merit of their friendship with you. Thierry LACOSTE’s behavior was to be expected. My only surprise is that anyone is surprised.”
I reminded the Prince that LACOSTE tried to do me in as well; that LACOSTE had complained about me when I had supposedly “interfered” in the Tamara ROTOLO affair, after LACOSTE had asked me to assist, after the lawyer’s own incompetence had become obvious.
My advice to the Prince was to take it in stride. “As Walter BAGEHOT wrote in The English Constitution,” I said, “royalty must rise above the fray to retain its mystique.”
Mid-afternoon that day, waiting to board a delayed flight at Nice Airport, I received a phone call from an extremely irate LACOSTE. Sounding like a man caught with his pants down, LACOSTE denied that he had been digging dirt on JLA and demanded to know why I would tell the Prince such a thing.
I corrected him: Any threat to JLA was a threat to the good work they were doing in service to the Prince.
After LIDDY departed, I sent e-mail to JLA saying he had an answer to the mystery we had discussed.
JLA phoned me immediately and was utterly astonished by his news, having met LACOSTE for breakfast the morning before in Paris, and confiding in him to boot.
“You warned me when I arrived in November about Lacoste’s kitchen cabinet,” JLA said to me. “You were right.”
JLA instantly phoned the Prince to convey this information, and then called me. “The Prince wants to hear all the details from you.”
And next morning, indeed, the Prince phoned. “Doctor ERINGER?”
“Yes, my patient.”
“I need an antidote for Thierry LACOSTE.”
“Doesn’t everyone. I’m working on a cocktail.”
“That might ease the pain.”
We agreed to meet early evening.
After a long day of meetings with the interior minister and various assets, I welcomed the Prince to M-Base. He seemed relaxed in a striped shirt and khaki trousers and freshly shaven head. He had just met with the Venezuelan education minister.
Over martinis, I related the Kroll/LACOSTE incident, trying to put everything into proper perspective--and de-escalate the situation.
“Everybody around you will constantly try to undercut everybody else around you in a never-ending war for greater access and influence,” I said. “Everybody especially wants to cut away at JLA, who now stands in the way of everyone who expected to reap much influence and power during your reign by merit of their friendship with you. Thierry LACOSTE’s behavior was to be expected. My only surprise is that anyone is surprised.”
I reminded the Prince that LACOSTE tried to do me in as well; that LACOSTE had complained about me when I had supposedly “interfered” in the Tamara ROTOLO affair, after LACOSTE had asked me to assist, after the lawyer’s own incompetence had become obvious.
My advice to the Prince was to take it in stride. “As Walter BAGEHOT wrote in The English Constitution,” I said, “royalty must rise above the fray to retain its mystique.”
Mid-afternoon that day, waiting to board a delayed flight at Nice Airport, I received a phone call from an extremely irate LACOSTE. Sounding like a man caught with his pants down, LACOSTE denied that he had been digging dirt on JLA and demanded to know why I would tell the Prince such a thing.
I could not believe two things: 1) Why and how this was being blown out of proportion and 2) Why the Prince would be so indiscreet as to call LACOSTE and say, “Robert told me…”
Was this kindergarten?
I explained to LACOSTE that when he learned certain things from credible, tested sources, it was my duty to convey such things to the Prince, and for the Prince to decide for himself whether or not it warranted further investigation.
LACOSTE changed gears, commencing new rants: “I heard you were investigating me?”
Nonsense. The only time LACOSTE had featured in one of my investigations was when Steven SALTZMAN insisted he meet FLOATER (Operation Hound Dog) in LACOSTE’s office.
Rant two: “French intelligence came to me and said they cannot tell you everything because of your connection with U.S. intelligence—but they can tell me.”
I patiently explained that, despite my nationality, the DST and I had found a comfortable level on which to cooperate.
Rant three: “I hate Monaco and all its back-biting gossipers. That’s why I’d never live there.”
LACOSTE added, in ominous tone, he would travel to Monaco the following day and spend the weekend with the Prince at Roc Agel.
Implication: The knives had now been unsheathed for me.
Truth be known, I did not care.
I had long since lost faith in the Prince’s ability to take decisive action; I was tired from travel, weary from the constant carping of others, and I no longer enjoyed spending time in Monaco.
And sure enough, next day brought word from JLA that LACOSTE had demanded the Prince fire me for providing him “bad information.”
Meaning: information that was bad for LACOSTE.
I related LACOSTE’s violent reaction to being caught with his pants down to Jean-Leonard DE MASSY. The Prince’s godson countered with his own LACOSTE story: At dinner in Paris recently, LACOSTE had bitched to him about JLA, “I’m sorry I gave him the job. I drew up the contract. He is dangerous for the country.”
LACOSTE then introduced DE MASSY to Mr. Pork, Steven SALTZMAN, who suggested that “a group of us” will run things in Monaco, and asked, “What role would you like to have in the principality?”
And sure enough, next day brought word from JLA that LACOSTE had demanded the Prince fire me for providing him “bad information.”
Meaning: information that was bad for LACOSTE.
I related LACOSTE’s violent reaction to being caught with his pants down to Jean-Leonard DE MASSY. The Prince’s godson countered with his own LACOSTE story: At dinner in Paris recently, LACOSTE had bitched to him about JLA, “I’m sorry I gave him the job. I drew up the contract. He is dangerous for the country.”
LACOSTE then introduced DE MASSY to Mr. Pork, Steven SALTZMAN, who suggested that “a group of us” will run things in Monaco, and asked, “What role would you like to have in the principality?”