Postmarks of a Life
(c) Case 1-13622820191
There have always been men who are drawn to desolate places; General Charles “Chinese” Gordon of Khartoum comes to mind as does Colonel T.E. Lawrence, forever known to history as “Lawrence of Arabia”. Closer to our own times was Lt. General Sir John Glubb, “Glubb Pasha”, Commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion. To different extents they all impacted our lives by changing the course of history.
Bruce Chalmers was such a man as these; a man who found his bliss in a part of the world not known for its hospitable climes nor gentle cultures.
He was born in San Juan Capistrano, California, on December 5, 1913. The boy was later orphaned and put up for adoption. In his loneliness and desire to escape his present condition through imagination, he began collecting postage stamps which led to his seeking pen pals in order to exchange interesting items. Young Bruce learned the geography of the world through his expanding collection, and, with the innocence of childhood, he wrote to the King of Yemen, a feudal country rumored to have once been the Biblical realm of the Queen of Sheba. In his letter he asked to swap stamps. The King, Imam Ahmad Seif al-Islam, was amused by this and showed the letter from California to the secretary of the young Crown Prince, Muhammad al-Badr. In turn, the secretary replied to the American boy “His Majesty has commanded me to be your friend”. Then the secretary informed the Crown Prince that he had a new pen pal. Thus began a friendship between two children on two very different continents and a series of events that would ultimately alter the lives of both.
As the years passed the boy entered manhood. Chalmers left his foster parents and changed his surname unofficially to Yorba and then officially, by obtaining a judgment of the Superior Court for Alameda County, California, to Bourbon-Conde, the surname of his grandmother who claimed descent from the Princes of Bourbon-Conde, a cadet branch of the Royal House of France. The Conde dynasty was ancient but became extinct on two occasions: first in 1830 and then again, after some legal and genealogical sleight of hand had sought to perpetuate it, in 1866. In any event the title was certainly vacant by 1913, the year of Bruce Chalmer’s birth. Though all this may seem extraneous to his story it is central to understanding his character.
Chalmers - now Conde - enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles. At UCLA he earned a degree in Spanish and then taught that language in several private military academies. He enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Second World War and joined the 82nd Airborne Division as a counter-intelligence officer. He was posted to North Africa which was then composed of French colonies and protectorates. Of the territories he saw, Morocco seemed to be the most to his liking. Everything there seemed to be in its place; the French handled the administration, the Sultan instructed his people by his example; they, in turn, may have lived in poverty but were not poor in spirit or principles. Minorities were protected and respected, including the Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492 and sought refuge just across the Gibraltar strait. It was often remarked in the Moroccan bazaars that there were more synagogues in Casablanca than in Seville, and it was undeniably true. The Moroccans seemed proud of that fact.
And then Conde saw the desert.
The desert; ever present, ever changing. As old as time, or, possibly older. The complete quiet except for the wind, which was sometimes strong, sometimes softer. It may have seemed calming to him especially when compared to a heretofore turbulent life. Conde would always remember his pleasant days in Morocco and that would serve him well in the years to come.
The Allied campaign against Nazism finally arrived on European shores. He joined the staff of Gen. Matthew Ridgway in time for the Battle of the Bulge. Ridgway had been an instructor of Spanish at West Point and Conde was a scholar in that discipline. This may have facilitated Conde’s posting.
Chalmers now decided to reinvent himself again; he was now Bruce Alfonso de Bourbon, Prince of Conde. Some may ask how an American Army officer could possibly present himself as such. It must be remembered that in war eccentrics are known to appear. The Second World War was no exception: General George Patton wearing his ivory handled pistols, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, 15th Baron Lovat, who landed on Sword Beach on D-Day carrying no more than a M-1 carbine and ordering his regimental piper to play “The Black Bear” as German machine gun fire hit the incoming tide and the men of the 1st Special Service Brigade. And then there was Major General Orde Wingate, stripped to the waist, fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma, wearing a garland of garlic and onions to “ward off mosquitoes”, he explained. More likely it was to ward off politicians from his headquarters so he could complete his missions without interference. When the Prime Minister was asked whether Wingate should be promoted to Supreme Commander in Southeast Asia instead of Admiral Mountbatten, Churchill said “No”. Asked why not, he replied, “Too mad”. To the “average” or “common” soldier (both awful terms), these eccentricities had no meaning. Their attitude was that if an officer wanted to call himself the Prince of Bourbon-Conde - whatever that was - so be it. As long as that officer was competent and could assist in winning the war his personal foibles were of no importance. And Conde was a competent officer, of that there was no doubt. Because winning the war meant going home. Home: to Mom and Dad, to Sis and that girl - you know the one, she waved from the platform as the train pulled out of the station. Home: to fish and chips at the corner pub, to a baseball game on Sunday afternoon, to a pétanque match and then an aperitif. Home.
So, the general feeling in the ranks was, if an officer is a Prince of someplace in Europe or the owner of a diamond mine in South Africa or the King of Siam, fine. Let’s just all try to get back home. Conde had picked his persona at the perfect time.
After the war he was stationed in Japan from 1945-1948 and there, either by duty or desire, learned Japanese. Little is known of “Prince Conde’s” time in Japan except that he had transferred from the Army to the Air Force in 1947. He left the service in 1950 retiring as a Major after serving as the Chief of the Air Force Overseas Counter-Intelligence section at the Pentagon.
In the same year, now as a civilian, Conde traveled to Lebanon where he enrolled at the American University of Beirut to learn Arabic. Beginning in 1956 he started writing for “Linn’s Stamp News” specializing in articles on the postage stamps of Yemen. Many thought that this was a flimsy cover for his duties as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA officially denied it but as a quotation attributed to Bismarck states, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied”. In his book “Beyond The Arab Cold War; The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68”, Asher Orkaby describes British colonial officials as dismissing Conde in a cable to the British Embassy in Washington as a “Middle East crank”. Conde paid no mind. He had a feeling that greater things were to come.
In 1956 the allure of Yemen became irresistible. Conde arrived there and was received by the King and then finally met his long-ago childhood friend the Crown Prince Muhammad al-Badr. They got along famously, remembering their stamp collecting hobby when they were young boys. As a result, Conde was made Director of Yemeni Propaganda and Postal Affairs. The new Director began designing postage stamps which, among other things, advertised the existence of the Mutawakelite Kingdom of Yemen to an unknowing world. “Mutawakelite” was the name of the dynasty that provided the rulers of the country. Today, the only example of such a moniker is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. These dynasties considered it an honor to the populations they ruled that they should bestow their names to their lands. What the people thought of it was another matter entirely.
He continued at his duties until two years later he made the decision that would change his life forever.
Bruce Alfonso Conde relinquished his American citizenship and became a citizen of Yemen. At almost the same time Conde - a Roman Catholic - converted to Islam. The wearing of Yemeni dress came soon after. In British parlance this is called “going native”. He also designed postage stamps that depicted the shared prophecies in Christianity and Islam of such Biblical and Quranic events as the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary of the birth of Jesus. All this was apparently too much to bear for his superior, the Minister of Communications, who, either through jealousy or suspicion, denounced him to the King and had him deported amid charges of espionage. In the process his passport was confiscated. A “Director of Postal Affairs” without a post office is indeed a very sad state of affairs.
Shortly - and wisely- after being deported, he found his way to Egypt and then lived for three weeks at the Cairo airport. He then traveled to the Sheikdom of Sharjah, one of the Trucial States bordering the Persian Gulf. The Trucial States were a collection of mostly very small Sheikdoms and Emirates who had at one time been engaged in piracy and the slave trade and had been subsequently shown the error of their ways by the Royal Navy. As a result, they signed truces with Great Britain by which they agreed to become British protectorates, hence the name of the country. The Trucial States later evolved into the United Arab Emirates, one of the greatest successes of the British Foreign Office and the Foreign Military Intelligence Branch (MI6) in the latter part of the 20th Century.
The ruler of Sharjah had invited Conde to his sheikdom and promptly made him a citizen; thus he now had a new passport. The ruler also made him the founder of Sharjah’s postal service including the designing of the first stamps. One of the stamps depicted the Sheik’s portrait and a map of his country. The Sheik was delighted; the rulers of neighboring countries, much less so. The map substantially increased the borders of Sharjah, to the disadvantage of their own states. They demanded that Conde be terminated occupationally and, perhaps, also physically. So, Conde’s career in the Trucial States was short lived. But then he received a letter from the royal government of Yemen and it was now that his life of adventure, and danger, truly began.
King Ahmad of Yemen had died on September 19, 1962, succumbing to wounds sustained in an assassination attempt some months earlier. Conde’s boyhood friend was now King Muhammad though his reign was destined to be one of the shortest in history. On September 27th there was a coup d’etat by the army which immediately proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of a republic. This was done with the undoubted support of Gamel Abdel Nasser, President of the United Arab Republic, the new name of Egypt. Nasser hated Western influence in the Middle East. He hated the French and the Americans and the Israelis - don’t ever forget the Israelis. But he really despised the British who had dominated Egyptian domestic and foreign policy for decades.
In short, President Nasser held a great deal of hate for a great many people. His dream was to redraw the map of the Middle East by eliminating colonial or post-colonial political entities, destroying monarchies or what he considered feudal states, end the existence of Israel, and generally terminate the Western presence in the region. All would eventually come under his control as President of an ever-expanding United Arab Republic which would, occasionally, seek the assistance of the Soviet Union. Nasser has been accused of many things in the annals of history, but he has never been accused of thinking on a small scale.
By 1962, Nasser had already helped a military clique overthrow the Kingdom of Iraq four years previous in a particularly bloody and brutal fashion. British embassy staff in Bagdad cabled London and stated that it was as if the “Russian revolution had been carried out by the Mau-Mau”. Yemen was the next logical move. This was because it bordered a British creation “The Federation of South Arabia”, a loose collection of sultanates and emirates with the port city of Aden as its’ capital.
As successful as the United Arab Emirates was to become, the Federation of South Arabia was an epic failure. The rulers bickered amongst themselves and an insurgency promoted by the Soviet Union and Egypt destabilized the country. The British, who were the protecting power, decided to leave though they knew the outcome might be disastrous. This was in keeping with Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s policy of closing all British bases and leaving all British territorial possessions “East of Suez” regardless of the consequences. Therefore, with the British soon to leave, the prize of Aden and its geographical importance presented itself.
Britain had built an empire of colonies established on one of three criteria: the possession of natural resources, the potential for trade or a strategic geographical location to facilitate the protection of that trade. Aden was of the latter variety. It controlled the access of commercial shipping to the Red Sea, allowing ships to sail north to the Suez Canal and to then enter the Eastern Mediterranean. The bulk of the shipping involved the transport of one commodity: oil. President Nasser and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia both knew that oil was the life blood of the modern world’s economy. To control its transport to Europe was to influence Western policy decisions concerning the Middle East. This made their involvement in the affairs of the southeastern portion of the Arabian Peninsula inevitable. To assist the insurgency in Aden and to bolster the new Yemeni Republic, Nasser did something that he had not done in Iraq: he sent an army. It was at this juncture that King Muhammad, who had fled to Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, remembered Conde’s considerable military experience, wrote to him and asked for his assistance in regaining his throne.
Major Conde arrived in Yemen almost immediately and joined the Royalist army in the hills surrounding Sana, the capital. In some way Conde knew that this was his destiny. The King, who had now returned, made Conde Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General of the 2nd Army.
In 1963, Conde was interviewed by the Associated Press in al-Jauf while on leave. In the article he described his military background and confessed that up until the war in Yemen he had never been in combat. Throughout North Africa and Europe he had always been at headquarters analyzing intelligence and suggesting tactics. Even now he said “I’m supposed to be handling information but I’ve spent most of the time in combat shooting and acting as First Aid Officer”. He lamented the lack of medical supplies “I have bandages and Mercurochrome and sometimes some Sulfur powder and that’s about all”.
The Egyptians, now numbering about 28,000 men, had heard of him; “The Yemeni Republic and the Egyptian Army that’s supporting it put a price of 1,000 gold coins on my head”. This was something of a compliment to his reputation; Arabs hate paper money, it is not honorable, especially as a reward for the death of a foe. Yet, he was very confident of the future: “We have three months supply of ammunition and in some places enough for two years. We have captured so much from the Egyptians, who don’t know how to fight in Yemen, even with their tanks and rocket launchers. We are better armed than ever; we’ve armed 10,000 men on captured Egyptian equipment alone, and we are ready”. This was during the Egyptian “Ramadan Offensive” which sought to control select towns and roads by pushing out from Sana into the countryside. However, Conde was never in doubt over the ultimate conclusion of the war and he freely shared it with the reporter, “…if the Egyptians pull out as they are supposed to under the United Nations agreement, we will take Sana, the Republic will fall, and the Imam will be King again”.
Conde, like most people at the time, had great faith in the United Nations which was still a relatively new creation. Born after the Second World War, it was almost educational doctrine in the West to teach schoolchildren and even college students that the U.N. was man’s best hope of avoiding the calamities of conflict and therefore would be the foremost and indispensable instrument of saving the human race from extinction. It would take a few decades for this fantasy to be acknowledged as such.
As the war evolved so did Conde. He took on roles and responsibilities that he had never prepared nor studied for, “on the job training” as it were. Promoted to Lt. Colonel, Conde was eventually given command of all artillery in his sector, both field and mobile, i.e. tanks. He was eventually promoted to General.
Conde by now had changed his name again to HSH Abdurrahman: His Serene Highness “Slave of the Merciful”, (the “Merciful” being Allah). This sobriquet was possibly given to him by his soldiers due to the fact that he took prisoners after a battle, a practice the Yemenis regarded as both novel and somewhat farcical. When informed of his friend’s new name and self-assumed title the King was so astonished he commanded it to be so.
The Royalist plan was to stay in the hills, fight a guerilla war and lay siege to Sana with artillery fire. As an American, Conde knew his country’s history. He must have recalled that during the early days of the American Revolution General Knox had attempted to find every artillery piece available and haul them to the hills above Boston. Knox even ordered guns from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to be dragged to Dorchester Heights. Conde, no doubt, resolved to do the same. When many said that it couldn’t be done, Conde knew it could. He located cannons, tanks and mortars, and began a bombardment of Sana in an effort to drive the Egyptians out of the city. He also insisted that the Royalist position remain in the hills, remembering the ancient military dictum “He who controls the heights controls the field”.
Thus Conde, the King, various ministers and tens of thousands of tribesmen who had remained loyal lived in caves for months, sometimes years, periodically shooting at the convoys below sent to resupply the Republican frontline formations. Set piece battles were avoided by the Royalists because of the threat of Soviet and Egyptian airpower. Instead, ambushes by small groups numbering no more than 500 men were preferred.
The war was, of course, a political struggle. But it was also a civil war rooted in the ancient strife between the tribes, each choosing the side of the contest that best fit their goals or resentments.
Some clans and sub-clans chose the Republican position out of age-old hatred for the Mutawakelite dynasty. The possibility for plunder was also a consideration. Others became royalists out of age-old hatred of foreigners (in this case Egyptians), a new unfamiliar form of government, or an affection for, or a connection with, the Mutawakelite dynasty. One sheik explained his tribe’s allegiance to the throne this way: “The Imams ruled us for a thousand years. Some were good, some bad. We killed the bad ones sooner or later and prospered under the good ones”. A simple societal equation which perhaps might not be possible under a republican form of governance. There were also tribes that rallied to a banner merely because a hated rival tribe had rallied to the opposing one. And then the religious aspect must be acknowledged; the Shia joined the King’s camp, the Sunni (in kneejerk reaction) overnight became Republicans. It was a civil war on every visceral and unthinking level. The same was the case with the countries that supported the warring interests; the Republicans had Egypt, Iraq, the Warsaw Pact and the Soviets in their corner. The Royalists were aided by Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Iran and France. Thus, it was “modernists” versus “traditionalists”. It was, also, a proxy war in which the peripheral players (with the exception of the Egyptians) would suffer few casualties. As for the suffering of the people of Yemen the consensus in various world capitals was well, life is often unfair.
And for those who believe that other considerations may have played a part as to which nations supported which side, let the truth be told: Yemen has no oil. Again, it was Yemen’s geographical position north of Aden that made the war worth fighting for these external parties.
As in most civil wars it was thought that it would last approximately six months. It lasted six years with varying degrees of savagery. The men who had taken up for or against the King were “true believers”. When the recoilless rifles jammed and the grenades ran out, men reached for swords and daggers. Fighting was often hand-to-hand. Faint hearts did not fare well in this contest and the huge casualties proved the measure of commitment of both sides.
The years passed relentlessly, as they are known to do. Royalists numbered about 200,000 men not including British and French mercenaries, Belgian adventurers from Katanga province in the new Democratic Republic of the Congo, and retired MI6 operatives. The mercenaries were all paid by the Saudis. Yemeni princes arrived from New York and London to assume field commands. France sailed supplies across the Red Sea from French Somaliland. The fighting intensified and Nasser poured troops into the conflict. Up to 180,000 men were sent by the government in Cairo to achieve the great victory against “the imperialists”.
It never came.
In fact, by 1967 the war in Yemen was called “Egypt’s Vietnam”. The United Arab Republic was spending $5,000,000 per week on the war effort and taxes were raised on almost every commodity in Cairo and Alexandria; people were becoming tired and angry - never a good situation in a volatile part of the world. Yemen had become a stalemate, UAR casualties were now approaching 30,000 dead. In that same year, however, Egypt began withdrawing its’ soldiers in preparation for the attack on Israel that would ultimately culminate in “The Six-Day War”.
Then, in November, the war in Yemen rapidly changed. The Kings’ armies numbering 56,000 men laid siege to the capital, he had another 120,000 men in reserve and stationed throughout the kingdom. The long struggle seemed won, but Soviet MIG jet fighters piloted by Russians and a few Yemenis drastically changed His Majesty’s fortunes. Their constant air assaults decimated the royalist positions and broke the siege of Sana in February of the following year.
Thankfully, no war lasts forever, and the opposing sides started the process of disengagement with hopefully having something to show for all the effort and heartache. Negotiations began, stalled, and began again. Since both sides of the conflict were exhausted, compromise seemed the logical conclusion.
Egypt agreed to withdraw its’ army. Saudi Arabia agreed to end its’ funding of the royalist cause and subsequently recognized the Republic of Yemen.
King Muhammad, feeling that he had been betrayed by the Saudis, fled to England, hoping to fight another day. He never returned to Yemen but never abdicated.
And he never saw his boyhood friend again.
HSH Abdurrahman knew that the adventure was drawing to a close. The days of sunlit glory were now over. The twilight of his life was about to begin.
After bidding farewell to his officers, Conde escaped to Lebanon and then to Morocco; magical, romantic, Morocco that he had first experienced long ago during Operation Torch. It was now that he met and married Beatrice Dolgoruky daughter of Ceclava Czapska and her husband Prince Nikolai Dolgoruky.
The marriage was a calculated exercise for mutual benefit; Beatrice’s mother claimed to be the Grand Duchess Maria, third daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Beatrice, in turn, claimed to be descended from Ukrainian royalty which didn’t prevent her from marrying Victor Brimeyer, an engineer in the Belgian Congo where their son Alexis was born. Alexis was another royal imposter seeking recognition of his descent from a long list of famous dynasties, making himself an incredible nuisance to the publishers of the Almanach de Gotha. It must be remembered that all this nonsense was years before the development of DNA research and analysis. Brimeyer even wrote King Juan Carlos of Spain demanding recognition of his titles. One can only imagine His Most Catholic Majesty’s reaction.
When Conde married Beatrice he adopted Alexis who was not a child at the time, but a young man. Alexis was only too happy to add “Bourbon-Conde” to his ridiculous claims of royal descent. Brimeyer then aided his new stepfather by securing a passport for him from the “Knights of Malta Ecumenical”, a heretofore unknown order of knighthood which issued “diplomatic” passports to their members. Nevertheless, it was accepted by the Spanish immigration officials (probably out of sheer ignorance) when Conde visited Spain with Beatrice.
So, for a while, the three imposters lived together, but certainly not happily ever after. Beatrice decided to stay in Spain and Conde returned to Morocco. Alexis, to his credit, found time to get Conde a small pension from the Spanish government; for what services remains a mystery.
Meanwhile, Moroccan authorities began to keep a close eye on Bruce Alfonso de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, lest he hatch a scheme to invade Algeria or overthrow the government of Andorra or do anything that would compromise the peace and security their country. Conde knew that he was under constant surveillance and he limited himself to researching materials for some of his forthcoming (but never published) books and articles. A wise choice. There are few things worse in life than a Moroccan jail.
He took up with a young man who said that he would help him to organize his diaries and papers for publication at some undetermined future date. In return, Conde spent his small savings on building a photographic studio for his protégé in the house they shared. As happens in many relationships, one person takes advantage of the other and this particular relationship was a textbook example. Conde was relegated by his “friend” to a corner of their apartment stacked almost to the ceiling with books, pieces of Yemeni memorabilia, rugs and memories. Writers and journalists would occasionally visit seeking an interview with “General Conde” and he would entertain them with stories of his adventures and delight them with his immense knowledge of Islam and the beautiful poetry of Arabia. But, for the most part, it was an increasingly quiet and solitary existence.
Stateless, penniless and ill, Bruce Alfonso, “The Prince of Bourbon-Conde” died in the casbah of Tangier in 1992. He probably wouldn’t have had it any other way – except, of course, for being ill and penniless.
After his death the young man tried to sell Conde’s books and mementoes, his photographs, medals, and stamp albums, to no avail. Conde was not famous and so his possessions were not sought at a premium. Out of some strange sense of resentment the young man burnt most of Conde’s things making a chronicle of his life difficult to reconstruct. As a result, there are some circles in Washington and London where his name is legend and in others where his is not even a name whispered in memory.
So ends the story of a little orphan boy who sought solace in his stamp collection and dreamt of lands far from his own. He experienced adventures that even he could not have conjured, but then settled into a life of obscurity that he could never have anticipated.
Chalmers was not a fool. He knew the world as it was but it was not the world he wished it to be. Though he changed his name several times, he had never altered his sentiments. His values had remained constant throughout his life, and that is something to be noted and perhaps applauded in our often-hypocritical world.
He preferred the company of princes and potentates to that of politicians; he must have reasoned that the former had at least some sense of duty and service toward their fellow citizens. His views may not have been popular in some quarters even during the height of his success but he didn’t take note. His likes and dislikes were his own and he didn’t seek the approval of others either for his political philosophy or the trajectory of his personal life. It wasn’t that he thought “outside the box”, he didn’t even accept the premise that there was “a box”!
It is said that America is a land where a person can start again or remake themselves. Bruce Chalmers certainly did that and more. He made himself a Prince and willed himself a warrior. Some would claim that he was another “Lawrence of Arabia” but that was hardly so; he strode on a much smaller stage. Yet, we can wonder what our lives would be like today if his efforts had been successful.
The world has changed many times since Bruce Chalmers’ passing. It is a world where established religions change their dogma in an attempt to recruit followers and organizations lecture the multitudes on how to live and what to believe, to the point that sovereign nations must alter their policies and prerogatives to gain financial assistance from these organizations in times of dire distress. Such an arrangement is nothing less than blackmail. The various histories and cultural contributions of nations over centuries have been cast aside and judged wanting. All this in a scant three decades.
Chalmers was undoubtedly a romantic seeking to preserve a world and a way of life that was, or would be, under attack not only in the West but also globally. It was an attack he was angry enough to oppose and fit enough to resist. Perhaps the “Prince of Conde” saw all these events just over the horizon of history and decided to make a last moral stand in the mountains of his beloved Yemen, in the deserts of his beloved Arabia. This, we shall never know. It was, after all, in the future.
And the future is, almost by definition, unknowable. But - to paraphrase the conclusion of the film “Khartoum” - we know this: a world without room for the Chalmerses, is a world that will return to the sands.
A splendid thumbnail portrait of a magnificent man.