Hilaire du Berrier

Born as Hal du Berrier on November 1, 1906 in Flasher, North Dakota, he attended the Northwestern School of Journalism and, in Paris, the Institute of Political Science.[1]

He worked as a commercial artist in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925 and later joined a flying circus. He then moved to France, where took the name Hilaire. In Paris, he learned in 1936 that the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, was hiring mercenary pilots to fight against the Italian occupation and so in that year, he went to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. He was captured by the Italians, but escaped.[2]

From 1936 to 1937, Berrier joined the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republicans,[3] as a spy for the exiled King Alfonso XIII.[4] He was denounced by US communists and sentenced to death, but was later pardoned.[2]

In the Second World War, du Berrier was the only American member of Colonel Marcel Mingant's French-Chinese spy ring the "Reseau Mingant". He was captured in 1942 and tortured in 1943 by the Japanese.[2]

He worked for the Office of Strategic Services briefly, as an informant, in Shanghai after the Japanese surrender in 1945.

He was awarded the French Cross of the Resistance Volunteer Combatant.[5]

In 1955 he attended the "Big Four" Geneva Summit as an advisor to the Vietnamese.[2]

He worked as a journalist in Vietnam and wrote a strongly anti-communist article in the American Mercury. From 1958 until a few years before his death he wrote articles for American Opinion magazine published by the John Birch Society and Review of the News published by Robert Welch, and their successor The New American[2]

From June 1957 to May 2002 he published a monthly foreign affairs newsletter, the H du B report.[6]

He died on October 12, 2002 in Monaco.[2] His papers covering the period 1935-1991 are stored with the State Historical Society of North Dakota.[7]

He was married to Rosa Kadoori of Shanghai. They had one daughter, Jeanette du Berrier Cholewa.[2]

Articles

• "An Adventurer Retires." Esquire, vol. 10, no. 6 (December 1938) pp. 52, 220, 222, 224, 226.
• "How We Helped Ho Chi Minh." Freeman, vol. 4, no. 15 (April 19, 1954) pp. 516–518. Full issue.

Books

• Background to Betrayal: The Tragedy of Vietnam. Belmont, MA: Western Islands (1965)

Pamphlets

• Labor's International Network. New Orleans, LA: Conservative Society of America (1962)

• Wasserstein, Bernard. Secret War in Shanghai: Treachery, Subversion and Collaboration in the Second World War. London: Profile Books (1998). ISBN 978-1861971388. OCLC 231871253.
  • U.S. edition: Secret War in Shanghai: The Untold Story of Espionage, Intrigue, and Treason in World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin (1999). ISBN 978-0395985373. OCLC 229217277.

• The H. du B. Report digital archive
• Du Berrier's papers (1935-1991) at the State Historical Society of North Dakota
• Hilaire du Berrier at Geneanet