ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on her research – apparently financed by Henry Ford – into the author of the Protocols, her efforts to propagate the text, and her clandestine support of the defendants at the Bern trial. It focuses on hitherto unknown sides of her biography. The origins ofThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the early story of their dissemination have provided a fertile ground for legends. If one turns ad fontes, as befits a historian, one cannot help but notice that they trickle only sparsely and that most of them are murky. Leslie Fry was very adept at hiding her origins and her life. In writings on the Protocols, she is mentioned only rarely, and those few references to her which can be found are contradictory. Leslie Fry alias Paquita de Shishmareff was born out of wedlock as Louise A. Chandor on 16 February 1882 in Paris.
