Why have scholars rejected claims that Soviet spies caused Albert Camus’s fatal car crash?

Scholars and biographers have rejected the theory that Soviet spies orchestrated the 1960 car crash that killed Albert Camus primarily because the journey itself was highly improvised.1

The conspiracy theory, which emerged in 2011 based on the diary of Czech translator Jan Zábrana, alleged that the KGB sabotaged a tire to retaliate against Camus for his public criticism of Soviet actions in Hungary. However, experts point out that the trip was not a planned event; Camus had originally intended to travel to Paris by train with his family and was only in the vehicle because his friend Michel Gallimard had convinced him to join them at the last minute. The fact that Camus still had his unused train ticket in his pocket at the time of the accident underscores the spontaneous nature of his presence in the car, making a pre-planned assassination plot by Soviet agents appear implausible.1