Bruce Conde Bruce Conde ( aka " Bruce Alsono Bourbon de Conde " , aka " Alfonso Yorba " ) ( 5 December 1913 – 19 July 1992 ) was a US Army officer , stamp collector , royal pretender , and a general for Royalist forces during the North Yemen Civil War . Early years . Born Bruce Chalmers in San Juan Capistrano , California , Chalmers was orphaned and put up for adoption . As a young boy , he was an avid stamp collector , and wrote to the Imam ( King ) of Yemen , asking for local postage stamps for his collection . His reply came from the Imam ' s young son , Muhammad al - Badr , which started a lifelong friendship between the two . Military service . After studying Spanish at UCLA , he joined the US Army , serving in the 82nd Airborne in North Africa during the Second World War . He was later posted to Japan where he studied Japanese , but his true passion remained the Arab world . Following his discharge from the army , he moved to Beirut to study Arabic with the assistance of the G . I . Bill . He changed his name to Conde , his grandmother ' s family name , and claimed to be descended from the French royal family , even though the House of Bourbon - Condé became extinct in 1830 . Yemen . As his correspondence with al - Badr continued , he received an invitation to visit the country . After relocating to Sana ' a , Yemen , Conde renounced his American citizenship and converted to Islam in 1958 . He was granted Yemeni citizenship and a passport . Conde convinced the Imam that Yemen could make money selling postage stamps to collectors and was placed in charge of the country ' s philatelic office , which eventually caused some friction between Conde and the Minister of Communications . Conde was accused of espionage and expelled from the country and his passport revoked . Without travel documents , he spent three weeks in the Cairo Airport before moving to Beirut , Lebanon where he became a correspondent for " Linn ' s Stamp News " . Sharjah . Conde eventually found himself invited to the tiny emirate of Sharjah , where he established a post office and again taught the country how to generate revenue from the sale of postage stamps to collectors . In gratitude , the government of Sharjah issued him a passport . North Yemen Civil War . Following the overthrow of the Imam of Yemen in 1962 , Conde returned to Yemen and enlisted with Royalist forces in the North Yemen Civil War . He eventually rose to the rank of General , while in the meantime overseeing the production of Royalist Yemen postage stamps , which helped to raise funds for the cause . He now called himself H . S . H . Abdurrahman B . A . de Bourbon , Prince of Conde claiming that his royal lineage had been recognized and " reinstated " by the Yemeni Royal Family . Despite serving bravely in the war , the Imam ' s forces collapsed in 1970 , and Conde moved to Spain , and then to Morocco in 1980 . Post - war years . During the 1980s , he ceased writing for " Linn ' s Stamp News " , and wrote instead for " Stamp Collector " newspaper , owned by Capital Cities / ABC , Inc . In 1984 Conde married Beatrice Dolgorouky , who claimed to have been descended from the Russian / Ukrainian royal families . Conde adopted her son Alexis Brimeyer who spent a lifetime attempting to prove his alleged connection to European royalty . Having given up his US citizenship many years before , Conde eventually found himself once again stateless , without a passport , and unable to leave Morocco . He died there on July 20 , 1992 .