ESPIONAGE: The Murder of Mehdi Ben Barka

On the gray afternoon of Oct. 29, 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka—a self-exiled left-wing Moroccan politician and a well-known critic of King Hassan II —was stopped outside the Brasserie Lipp on Paris's Boulevard St. Germain by two French agents. "You have a rendezvous with some politicians," said one of them. Ben Barka, 45, who was accustomed to being tailed by the police, climbed into the back of an unmarked Peugeot 403. The car drove off. Ben Barka has not been seen in public since.

The disappearance of Ben Barka grew into a scandal that rocked France. Because of widespread rumors that...