One has transmitted to me your letter of 6 April; I was very touched by it. For the moment, I do not see where one must launch the counter-offensive, because it must strike the principal enemy. Where is he? One cannot exclude the Mafia (American?), nor even the Italian or Spanish [special] services. In any case, I have the strong impression of a betrayal in the entourage of G.L.[2] himself.
Attached is a copy of a letter recently written on this very subject.[3] I am quite in agreement on the fact that one must distinguish between those who decided upon the execution and those who have attempted or will attempt to make a counter-revolutionary utilization of it.
The simplest model of such a utilization would have been, in the first week afterwards, directly imputing the crime to the people of '68, by indicating this person or that person. I do not know if this opportunity has been exhausted. It would have been good to know if, by chance, the police had another lead: if they had immediately chosen a less plausible one, the set-up would have been indicated.
The newspapers have always said whatever they have wanted about me with impunity and in this they have had a kind of dividend. But they never accused me of having my friends killed in ambushes. In new times, new means, even legal ones! The simple announcement of the lawsuits has silenced them all.
As no one wants to evoke the real misdeeds for which one dislikes me, it appears that they only surveilled me for so many years because of a pure mystery surrounding my anonymity. This kind of clandestinity is today called terrorism or espionage. One already has the air of being guilty due to the sole fact that one has never wanted to explain oneself through the press. No doubt, this brief campaign of paid informing can later give a color of normality, not to an arrest, but to another assassination. After all, as one says in Spain: solo vivimos dos dias.[4]
Salud[1] Translator's note: Christian Sebastiani was a former member of the Situationist International held in high esteem by Debord; Jaime Semprun was an author published by Editions Champ Libre. Together, they would found the Encyclopedie des Nuisances (the Encyclopedia of Nuisances), to which Debord would contribute several articles in 1985 and 1986.
[2] Translator's note: Gerard Lebovici, murdered in an ambush on 5 March 1984.
[3] See letter to Paolo Salvadori dated 29 April 1984.
[4] We only live two days (that is to say, yesterday and today).
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 5: Janvier 1979-Decembre 1987 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2006. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! May 2007. Footnotes by Alice Debord, except where noted.)