Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War

by Vaughan, Hal

  My assistant in New York, Pamela Zimmerman, has helped me through three books now—to Pam and her husband, Gerry, a million thanks. And to Dr. Alain T. Marty, thanks for sharing his unpublished and monumental “A Walking Guide to Occupied Paris: The Germans and Their Collaborators.”

  Mlle Chanel’s grand-niece, Mme Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, offered a unique vision of Chanel. Her warm and gracious hospitality helped me appreciate and admire Coco Chanel’s work. Mme Labrunie knew I would follow the Chanel story wherever the documents took me.

  Thanks are due to my lawyer, John Logigian; my agent, Tina Bennett, at Janklow & Nesbitt; and legal counsel. Bennett Ashley, for help in dealing with a host of thorny problems. In France, special thanks go to attorneys André Schmidt, Jean-Marc Baudel, and Wallace Baker who helped unknot tricky French legal questions, as did Yves Ozanam at the Paris Palais de Justice. And thanks are due to friend and CUI colleague, historian Pierre de Longuemar.

  Many thanks to copyeditor Laura Starrett for a superb job. I haven’t words enough to thank Carmen Johnson at Alfred A. Knopf for her attention to detail and her assistance throughout the last months of my work.

  Finally, I am forever indebted to Victoria Wilson, senior editor and vice president of Alfred A. Knopf, for her support on the long road to editing and completing this book.

  I could not have written this book without the help of my wife, Dr. Phuong Nguyen, and B.B.B.