The failure of the Petit-Clamart assassination, and a subsequent betrayal of the next attempt on de Gaulle's life at the École Militaire, compounded by Bastien-Thiry's eventual execution by firing squad, likewise demoralise the antagonists.Īrgoud's deputy, Lt-Col Marc Rodin, carefully examines what few options they have remaining and establishes that the only way to succeed in killing de Gaulle is to hire a professional mercenary from outside the organisation, who is completely unknown to both the French government and the OAS itself. The French secret service, particularly its covert operations directorate (the Action Service), is remarkably effective in infiltrating the terrorist organisation with their own informants, allowing them to seize and interrogate the OAS operations commander, Antoine Argoud.
Following the apprehension of Bastien-Thiry and various other conspirators, the French security forces wage a short but extremely vicious underground war with the terrorists of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who believe de Gaulle to be a traitor to France after his grant of independence to Algeria. The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart. Plot summary Part One: Anatomy of a Plot The subsequent plot, however, is fiction. The novel is historical fiction: The OAS, as described, did exist and the book opens with an accurate depiction of the attempt to assassinate de Gaulle by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry on 22 August 1962. The novel remains popular, and in 2003 it was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The novel received admiring reviews and praise when first published in 1971, and it received a 1972 Best Novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Day of the Jackal (1971) is a political thriller novel by English author Frederick Forsyth about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French dissident paramilitary organisation, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France.
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