Metropolitan Police

The Metropolitan Police is drawn into the search for the assassin through Assistant Commissioner Anthony Mallinson, who receives Claude Lebel’s discreet appeal for help. Its role is significant less as an independent force in the French manhunt than as a channel for confidential cross-border inquiries: the institution must decide what can be checked, who should be told, and how to avoid revealing the threat before the suspect is identified.

Institutional Position and First Contact

Lebel’s appeal reaches Mallinson through a person-to-person call on the International Criminal Police Organization link. Lebel carefully distinguishes the request from an official inquiry between the two police forces: the French authorities do not yet know whether a crime has been fully planned or prepared, and they have neither a name nor more than a poor description. At the same time, he makes clear that the suspected man would be a professional political assassin with successful killings behind him. The caution in the request reflects the uncertainty of the evidence; its substance makes the stakes unmistakable.

Mallinson understands what Lebel cannot state openly. A first-rate political killer in France in August 1963 could have only one plausible target, Charles de Gaulle. After putting down the telephone, Mallinson leaves the communications room without acknowledging a young policeman’s salute, still weighing what the French request implies. His reaction establishes that the Metropolitan Police is not being asked to investigate an ordinary criminal matter: even a preliminary check carries consequences for the security of a head of state.

Discretion and Procedure

Mallinson chooses not to raise the matter at the daily heads-of-department conference. Instead, he decides to send a formal but private memorandum to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. The memorandum records Lebel’s call and its nature, while the decision to keep the request out of the meeting preserves discretion and gives Mallinson a defensible explanation should the omission later require one. He allows the inquiry to proceed without disclosing its underlying purpose more widely.

After attending the morning conference, Mallinson returns to his office and types the report himself. He leaves the bottom of the memorandum form blank and locks it in his desk before returning to the day’s work. The detail makes secrecy a matter of practical handling, not merely an abstract instruction: access to the information is limited, and the document remains under the control of the officer responsible for passing it upward.

Mallinson then directs that a routine check be made before the matter is passed to Special Branch, and asks for an answer by midday. He later gives the head of Special Branch the remaining copy of the memorandum. The Metropolitan Police response is therefore staged: a restricted check first, followed by referral to the unit concerned with threats to politicians. The sequence reflects the difficult balance between acting quickly and avoiding an unnecessary disclosure of a still-unverified warning.

Special Branch and the Suspect Profile

The head of Special Branch sees why Lebel’s position is unusually difficult. The unit is accustomed to monitoring potential threats to visiting politicians, including unbalanced fanatics and embittered foreigners living in Britain. Such suspects, however dangerous, are generally understood as amateurs who may fail when confronted by experienced professionals. The French case is different: the target is the French head of state, the suspected adversaries include former soldiers of the OAS, and the assassin may be a foreign professional hired for the task.

That distinction also narrows the British search. The head of Special Branch expects that the records will contain no Englishman of the required calibre, while recognizing that a hired foreign assassin leaves fewer possibilities to investigate than a broader field of potential attackers. This is an assessment, not a confirmed identification or a report of the check’s final result. The inquiry is framed around a specific professional profile, but the available information still does not provide the suspect’s identity.

Role in the Manhunt

The Metropolitan Police’s contribution illustrates how the pursuit depends on a network of institutions rather than on a single investigator. Lebel must seek assistance abroad while withholding the reason for the search; Mallinson understands the danger but must answer to his own superiors; Special Branch can assess the British side of the suspect profile without taking over the French investigation. The organization’s measured response supplies a route for intelligence while preserving the secrecy on which the hunt depends.

Its limited, procedural role also throws the uncertainty of the case into relief. The French police are trying to identify a man whose timetable only he knows, while British officers are asked to search records before they can be told the whole story. The Metropolitan Police helps turn an indistinct warning into a bounded inquiry, but the evidence here does not show that it identifies the assassin or resolves the threat.