A chill rain whipped Rue Desfontaines at noon one day last week as a carload of plainclothes police pulled up at No. 25. The six-story building was barely distinguishable from dozens of other new, white apartment houses in the middle-class European quarter of Algiers—even to the crudely painted SALAN across one wall. But the plainclothesmen had made no mistake. Minutes later, they were inside a three-room, ground-floor apartment, their service revolvers leveled at ex-General Raoul Salan. In the heart of the city where his men boasted of being "as safe as fish in the sea," almost one year to the day since his arrival in Algiers to take part in the abortive Generals' Revolt, the head of the murderous Secret Army Organization had been captured at last. Said one jubilant gendarme: "He fell into the trap like a beginner."
The arrest was like a scene from a Simenon thriller. From informers' tips and details gleaned from a captured S.A.O. leader, special teams of security police in France and Algiers laboriously pieced together Raoul Salan's hour-to-hour movements, decided the best chance of taking him alive would be to catch him on an unguarded visit to Rue Desfontaines, one of many hideouts used by his wife Babiche and daughter (who were also arrested). After patient weeks of waiting, police learned that Salan was going to spend Easter weekend with his family, burst into the apartment before he had even removed his hat.
Shock for a Concierge. Pale, black-mustached, his silver hair dyed black, blue-suited Salan, 62, looked like a typical Paris businessman, which he claimed to be. From behind the desk where he was seated when they arrived, he wordlessly handed a police inspector an identity card in the name of Louis Carriere. (Methodical Raoul Salan took the name from the Paris street where he once lived.) After a studied silence, the cop pointed his revolver at the general's chest, drawled: "You are Salan."
Captured in the apartment with Salan was his aide, former Captain Jean Ferrandi. who had served under the general in Indo-China, came with him to Algiers for the April putsch. As police bundled them outside, one cop could not help identifying their catch to other residents in the hallway. When the concierge heard that M. Carriere was Raoul Salan, she fainted. Silent and deathly pale, Salan was taken with Ferrandi by helicopter to Reghai'a, French military headquarters 20 miles from town, where the S.A.O. chief huddled bleakly on a bench between two gendarmes. There he was spotted by an old comrade-in-arms, loyal Gaullist Gen eral Charles Ailleret, who was relieved last week as Algerian commander in chief. "You know who I am," barked Ailleret. "You are responsible for all the crimes committed by the S.A.O. in your name." Clenching and unclenching his hands, Salan stared silently at the floor.