Historian Defends Alleged Collaborator

France’s pursuit of accused Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, 87, took a new twist when historian Michel Berges, whose research in 1981 identified Papon as a senior official of the wartime Vichy regime handling Jewish affairs, said Papon helped Jews rather than send them to their deaths. Berges said in an interview that his studies since 1981 have convinced him that Papon did not order arrests or deportations and that the state’s case is faulty. Also, in court, defense lawyer Francis Vuillemin showed an Uzi machine gun and said it was a present from Israel for Papon’s help in smuggling weapons to the Jewish state during its 1948 fight for independence.