Use of Innuendo One ploy practiced by the communist hunters in the United States and taken over by the “sect hunters” in France is innuendo. McCarthy claimed in January 1953 to have heard “a lot of reports” to the effect that records had been destroyed in the government to cover up communist trails. “We’ve heard many reports to that effect, but have no way of running them down because we have no power to subpoena these individuals in Government,” he said. His colleague, Congressman Velde, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, answering a question from a reporter about “any destruction of files”, opined bluntly that such destruction could be taken as “an indication of real guilt.” Vivien marches to the same rhythm. On September 7, 1999, the president of the Marseilles court announced that his clerks had destroyed more than three tons of documents from 1,789 different court cases during a routine clean-out of old court files. One of those 1,789 cases concerned certain members of a minority religion in Marseille. On September 15, answering a question from a Le Figaro reporter whether the disappearance of the files was “instructive in showing attempts at infiltration”, Vivien answered that “may be it is a very big error. Or, on the other hand, something very very clever. Someone may very well have tried to smother the destruction of the key documents beneath the mass of the legal files to be destroyed, thinking that nobody would notice.” Vivien’s statements in Le Figaro and other media were evidently intended to prejudice the outcome of a trial about to begin in Marseille. His remarks created a flurry of speculation, and the French Minister of Justice ordered an investigation. A few days later, she announced the results: The documents had indeed been destroyed in error by the prosecutor’s office in Marseille.