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Published: June 19th 2018
There were two things I most wanted to explore in Tangier – writers and spies. And since a lot of them hung out together, their stories were intertwined. And the more I looked into things, the more tangled the stories got.
I started with a tour guide. Badr was the night manager at the guest house I stayed in, and did guide work during the day. He was a good guy, and I knew he wouldn’t trot me around to shops when I really wanted some history. I told him I was interested in history and writers, and I particularly wanted to see Dean’s Bar and Caid’s Bar, both of which had been known for the writers, shady figures, and people rumored to be spies and agents of foreign governments during the 1930s and ‘40s. The two bars are also supposed to be the inspirations for Rick’s Café in the movie Casablanca.
Church of Saint Andrew He took me first to Saint Andrew’s, also known as the English Church, which has a couple of unique features. It’s an Anglican church in a Muslim country, and behind the altar the Lord’s Prayer is carved in Arabic.
Grand Socco2
The arch in the wall leads into the kasbah and the Petit SoccoThe other noteworthy feature is the graves in the churchyard. The caretaker showed us around, pointing out headstones of Allied pilots who were shot down during WWII, and Hooker Doolittle, American Consul in Rabat and Tangier during the war, along with a number of English dignitaries.
And then he said “There is also the grave of a double agent who spied for both the English and Germans during WWII. He bought a bar around here, and when he died the brass plaque outside the bar disappeared.” I looked at Badr, “That must be Dean’s Bar! I want to go there.”
The caretaker asked me if I wanted to see the grave, and he brought me over to an unkempt corner of the churchyard. The caretaker brushed some twigs off a small, cracked grave marker with just the name “Dean”, and the carved inscription “Died February 1963. Missed by all and sundry.”
Café Central From Saint Andrew’s it was a short walk to the Petit Socco or “little square” to distinguish it from the Grand Socco, or “big square” up the street. Petit Socco is home to little cafés and small hotels. One of these
Cafe Central
In Petit Socco cafés is Café Central, and another, Café Fuentes, faces it across the street.
Tennessee Williams wrote his play “Camino Real” sitting in these two cafes. It wasn’t a particularly good play, and it didn’t last long on Broadway. Writers like Jack Kerouac, Paul Bowles, and William Burroughs, along with hustlers and dealers in illicit substances hung out here. It became known as the place to go to hear gossip and pass along information – for a price. Tennessee Williams met one of Morocco’s most famous writers, Mohamed Choukri here, a meeting Choukri set down inn a memoir “Tennessee Williams in Tangier.”
Caid’s Bar Caid’s Bar is in the Hotel El Minzah, the hotel favored by Ian Fleming of 007 fame. Fleming had been part of Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during WWII. He found intelligence work interesting, and after the war he was determined to write a spy novel. In 1952 he wrote his first James Bond novel “Casino Royale” using his wartime experience in intelligence operations as a background for Bond.
Ian Fleming spent a month every year at the El Minzah writing James Bond novels, and in 1957 Fleming met with a man
who called himself John Blaize in Caid’s Bar. John Blaize was actually John Collard, a former British Military Intelligence agent. After the war Collard became an agent for the International Diamond Security Organization, charged with stopping the smuggling of diamonds. Fleming’s chats with Blaize eventually turned into “The Diamond Smugglers” one of only two non-fiction books that Fleming wrote.
But the El Minrah was closed for remodeling, so visiting Caid’s Bar was not going to happen.
Dean’s Bar Even though Joseph Dean, the man whose grave marker I had just seen and the owner of the now closed Dean’s Bar, had died 55 years earlier, I still wanted to see the place. I realized later that as a faithful Muslim, Badr had no idea where that bar – or any other bar -might have been. But after asking around, we found the granite covered doorway that looked the location in the old pictures.
Dean’s Bar had been frequented by writers such as Jack Kerouac, Paul Bowles and William Burroughs, though Dean was openly contemptuous of Burroughs, a known drug addict.
Dean As I was looking into some background on Joseph
Dean, I found that he a connection to all these places, and he wasn’t who everyone thought he was.
First of all, his name wasn’t Joseph Dean, it was Don Kimfull. Kimfull was a British member of society, and was a drug dealer, procurer, and fence of fluid sexuality. His drug dealing took a turn for the tragic when one of his buyers, an actress named Billie Carleton, died of an overdose. Kimfull and several other people were implicated in her death. However, when he was summoned to testify in court, he pretended to be sick, and promptly disappeared.
He surfaced in Tangier about ten years later as the urbane, unflappable barman at Caid’s Bar in the Hotel El Minzah. Later he opened his own bar, Dean’s Bar, not far away. He continued to deal discreetly in drugs and in secrets, and was known to intelligence agents of several countries. He died in Tangier in 1963 of a drug overdose.
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nancic123
Nanci and David Curry
Writers...
We loved following the writers around Tangier. We did get a chance to see Caid's. A classically perfect place to enjoy a Gin and Tonic. We saw Dean's Bar also(the neighborhood was a little scary!). The best place to follow the writers was at the cafes. Café Hafa for Paul Bowles and the view. Grand Café de Paris for the Beat writers and Truman Capote. And the two cafes in the Petite Socco for just about anybody famous who ever visited Tangiers and the people watching. All great memories and I'm glad you reminded us!