192 Derrida 1963–1983
started to organize in 1967, asking for contributions from Kostas
Axelos, Michel Deguy, René Char, Maurice Blanchot, Roger
Laporte, and several others. Derrida did not immediately say yes: ‘I
initially hesitated because, basically, I did not feel particularly close
to Beaufret, with whom I had a good personal relationship; but I
did not feel Beaufretian, or Heideggerean in the Beaufret way.’^14
Fédier turned on the charm for Derrida, and was so insistent that
the latter agreed to give a paper he had already written, the result of
a seminar: ‘Ouisa and Grammè: Note on a note of Being and Time’.
A few weeks later, over a lunch at Fresnes, Roger Laporte related
a few anti-Semitic remarks made by Beaufret, one of them con-
cerning Levinas. Derrida was thunderstruck, probably more than
Laporte might have imagined. The next day, he wrote to Fédier to
tell him about this grave and awkward problem:
I have just been informed – and this is for me absolutely surpris-
ing and shocking – of some remarks made on several occasions
by Jean Beaufret, remarks that are in a word massively, clearly,
and vulgarly anti-Semitic. It is absolutely impossible for me, in
spite of my stupefaction, to cast any doubt on the authenti-
city of what I have heard. [.. .] I am drawing this conclusion,
at the least, and you must of course be the fi rst to know: I am
obliged to withdraw my text from this collection of homages;
my decision is irreversible but I will keep it secret and, if you
agree, we can fi nd some external pretext to explain it. [.. .] The
text which I had given you was the sign that not only am I not
part of any ‘plot’ against Beaufret, but that I was even willing
to contribute to breaking a certain circle or cycle that I felt was
intolerable [.. .] as far as the whole problem [.. .] of Beaufret
was concerned.^15In spite of Derrida’s discretion, Fédier soon found out that the
‘informer’ was Laporte. He warned Beaufret, who immediately pro-
tested against ‘the circuit [.. .] of whispered defamation’, asking for
a face-to-face explanation. The confrontation took place a few days
later in Derrida’s offi ce. Pale with emotion, Beaufret vigorously
denied the remarks attributed to him, while Laporte felt that he was
now the one on trial. He came out of the meeting in such a state that
his wife Jacqueline took the initiative and alerted Blanchot, who was
so ‘tormented’ by the matter that he emerged from the hermit-like
existence in which he had lived for many years. At the beginning of
February 1968, Derrida and Blanchot met for the fi rst time so that
they could mull over the right attitude to adopt.^16
Blanchot did not immediately realize that the person attacked
by Beaufret was none other than Levinas. On 10 March, without
withdrawing his text from the Beaufret tribute, he asked Fédier to