From: Robert Richardson
September 10, 2003
Re: Response to Paul Smith
Pierre Plantard was, in my opinion, a front man for older,
more mature individuals. He was promoted in his late teens
as a speaker to groups of the Catholic Rover Scouts prior
to emerging in Alpha Galates. According to Mr. Plantard,
his uncle was a priest and, as Paul Smith has correctly
pointed out in some of his research, his family was associated
with extreme Catholic Traditionalist beliefs (which would
also manifest later in some ideas presented in the Priory
of Sion). The Catholic Rover Scouts were a breeding ground
for, and feeder to, the Ecole Nationale des Cadres, which
were established during the Vichy regime to counter the
liberal and Masonic ideals that French rightists and extreme
nationalists saw as leading to the decline of French culture
and the defeat of France. Alpha Galates and its publications
are characterized by articles and philosophical positions
which parallel the ideas promulgated by the Ecole Nationale
des Cadres. To my point of view, I find it difficult to
see Mr. Plantard as the founder of Alpha Galates, given
its known contributors and supporters, but I do believe
he was the front man on their behalf and was promoted as
such by them. That experience and his friendship and association
dating from that time with Phillipe Cherisey formed part
of the basis of his later beliefs and actions, beliefs which
reappeared in the Priory of Sion. The latter at times recycled
the articles and philosophy which appeared in Alpha Galates
publications. As the front man for Alpha Galates and its
titular head, he would most certainly have been held responsible
for its failure to register with the authorities.
I think all of this is a matter of interpretation and that
is in the eye of the beholder. Paul Smith is basing his
conclusion on the statements in the Alpha Galates publications
that Mr. Plantard is the founder and animator of Alpha Galates.
I am well aware of those statements, but am not prepared
to trust publications issued by that organization or its
successors, such as the Priory of Sion, because of the repeatedly
demonstrated pattern of constantly engaging in outright
fabrications to achieve their ends. However, those publications
do provide clues to what really took place, and certainly
some of the information in them is not fabrication. I personally
see a lot of other hands moving behind the scenes at Alpha
Galates, rather like puppet masters, using Mr. Plantard
to shield themselves from occupation authorities (after
all, however we may regard their actions, they saw themselves
as patriots after their own interpretation of French patriots,
as different as that may have been from the Resistance)
and to act as a lure to attract young supporters, similar
to the goal of the Ecole Nationale. In later Priory publications,
the reverential invoking of the names of deceased rightists
associated with Alpha Galates, as if to give Mr. Plantard
some credibility, rather strikes me as the actions of a
man attempting to cloak himself in what he views as the
credibility of others with whom he, as a young person, had
some association - as the Alpha Galates publications appear
to confirm - but to whom he was a 19 year old subordinate.
Again, these are matters of interpretation by different
investigators. The key issue is not to engage in endless
debate over some perceived "definitive conclusion"
in these matters, because there may yet prove to be accuracy
in both theories, but to establish that there was a pattern
of activity motivated by certain political positions and
also characterized by a extreme Traditionalist Catholic
position in Alpha Galates, patterns which reappear later
in the Priory of Sion. To do so further develops the basis
for an understanding of what is really going in the Rennes-le-Chateau
affair and to move closer to fully exposing the fraud.
With well over 100 published books advancing the fabrications
of the Rennes-le-Chateau affair and with the immense success
of the novel "The Da Vinci Code", further promoting
many of those falsehoods, we must spend our energies in
working to provide information which allows people unfamiliar
with the subject matter and deluded by all these fabrications
to find some sources that provide them a realistic picture
of this affair. However imperfect our pictures may be, they
are still far more accurate and clearer than other sources.
The more information that is developed, the more accurate
that picture will later become. There are some questions
in this investigation where it will be impossible to ever
reach a definitive conclusion, but we cannot provide a positive
service to people victimized by this fraud if we expend
our energies in debates about matters such as this. Let's
move on with more important business.
Robert Richardson
Reaction from
Paul Smith
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