At the age of eighteen, he left France to study at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He then travelled across the United States. On his return to Europe, he became a reporter. From 1960 to 1962, during the Algerian war, Labro was a member of the military. He then returned to his journalistic activities. While covering the assassination of John F. Kennedy for French newspaper "France-Soir", he met Jack Ruby in Dallas days before he shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald; he was thus subsequently officially auditioned by the Warren Commission.