THE SECRET WAR IN FRANCE
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The invasion and occupation of France by the German army in the Second World War represented the most traumatic experience of France in the last century. Already on June 14, 1940 Paris had fallen. While right-wing segments of the French military and political elite under General Philippe Petain collaborated with Hitler's occupation army and set up a fascist government in Vichy, French General Charles de Gaulle fled to London and on radio declared to the French population that he represented the legitimate French government. De Gaulle insisted that the war against the occupiers must and will continue. In order to collect intelligence in France, make liaison with the local French resistance and carry out sabotage operations in enemy-held territory General de Gaulle in London created the French secret service BCRA (Bureau Central de Renseignement et d'Action). BCRA agents were dropped by parachute into France and carried out their secret missions at the cost of very high casualties. In its mission, training and equipment, the BCRA, which was closed down before the war had ended, was a forerunner of the French secret army and many secret soldiers of the Cold War had formerly fought as BCRA agents. After the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944 and the liberation of France led by the United States, General de Gaulle triumphantly re-entered Paris and became Prime Minister. General Petain who had collaborated with Hitler was sentenced to death, then pardoned and imprisoned for life. |
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With the end of the Second World War the Fourth French Republic (1945-1958) was born, characterised by a highly unstable political and military situation in 1 Communist Party (PCF), above all due to its leading role of resisting the fascist Vichy collaborators during wartime, was very popular among the population and locked for power in the post-war government. 'The PCF had gained enormous prestige and a sort of moral pre-eminence for having spearheaded the Resistance... 2 the military and powerful groups within the French business society most vehe- mently rejected the idea of seeing France coming under Communist control, no matter whether such a situation would be reached by a Communist coup d'etat, or by a democratic election victory of the PCF. Most importantly the United States as well as Great Britain were strictly opposed to the PCF whom they considered to 84 |
be strongly dependent on Moscow. Therefore, similar in Italy, a secret war continued
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capable of such hatred.' To which Vermeesch responded: 'Yes, I hate. I do when
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I think of the millions of workers you exploit. Yes, I hate the majority of this 4 Assembly!' |
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Conservative members of the French society were greatly worried about the radicalism of the PCF and shocked when the latter in protest of their unfair representation in the executive proposed two bills, one of which limited the powers of the executive while the other cut the military budget by 20 per cent. When the two bills passed the Communist-dominated parliament, De Gaulle resigned dramatically on January 20, 1946. But the struggle for power in France continued as the PCF proposed to divide the ministries of the executive among the Communists and the Socialists, for indeed nothing else would have reflected the will of the French people as expressed at the democratic elections more adequately. Yet the French Socialists objected. They realised clearly that France, much like Italy at the same time, had but limited sovereignty, as the USA would not give a leftist French regime the Marshall plan economic aid France so desperately needed. |
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The position of the White House in Washington increasingly contradicted the democratic will expressed at the polls in France as on November 10, 1946 in the national elections for the French parliament the PCF once again emerged as the leading party, securing almost 29 per cent of the vote, their highest total ever, while both the MRP and the Socialists declined slightly. The fascination and strength of Communism in France remained unbroken. In Western Europe in terms of size and influence the PCF were only equalled by the strong PCI in Italy. In Switzerland the Communist Party had been outlawed, the British Communist Party was only very small and subordinate to the strong British Labour Party, and also in Belgium the comparatively influential Communists only held minor posts in the ministry. Yet the PCF could claim around one million members. Its daily newspaper, L'Humanite, was, together with its evening counterpart, Ce Soir, the most widely read paper in France, and the PCF controlled the nation's largest youth organisations (including the 'Union des Jeunesses Republicaines') as well as the largest and biggest Labour unions (including the large Confederation Generale du Travail, CGT). |
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The US ambassador to France, Jefferson Caffrey, a staunch anti-Communist, week after week sent alarming reports to US President Truman in the White House. Washington and the US secret service were convinced that the PCF had to be attacked and defeated in a secret war. General Hoyt Vandenberg, Director of CIG (predecessor of the CIA), on November 26, 1946 in a memorandum warned Truman that due to their strength the PCF could seize power whenever they wanted: 'In discounting the possibility that a French Government could be formed excluding the Communists, Ambassador Caffrey asserts... that the Com- munists now have sufficient strength to seize power in France whenever they may deem it desirable to do so.' Vandenberg highlighted that US intelligence indi- cated that, however, the PCF did not intend to use its strength to seize power in France by coup d'etat. 'The failure of the Communists to seize power in these circumstances', Vandenberg continued, 'is attributed to (1) their appreciation that |
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it is preferable to a t t a i n it by legal processes, and (2) the fact that to do so would
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5 be contrary to the present policy of the Kremlin'. |
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On the initiative of the US and the British Special Forces SAS a secret army was set up in France under the cover name 'Plan Bleu' (Blue Plan) whose task was to secretly prevent the powerful PCF from coming to power. The Blue Plan, in other words, aimed to prevent France from turning red. Victor Vergnes, one of the French secret soldiers who were recruited for the Plan Bleu army, recalled that in the imme- diate post-war years the stimulus had come from the British. 'At the time I lived in Sete in the house of commander Benet, a DGER officer formerly active in missions in India. Numerous meetings took place during that time in his house.' The SAS, specialised in secret warfare, contacted the newly created French secret service Direction Generale des Etudes et Recherches (DGER) and agreed with them to set up a secret army in northern France across the Channel in the Bretagne. 'One day', Vergnes recalled, 'after he had been visited by lieutenant Earl Jellicoe of the SAS, 6 he said to me: "We are setting up a secret army, especially in the Bretagne area".' The cells of the secret army soon spread across all of France. Involved were numerous agents and officers of the DGER. It was noteworthy that the DGER under Director Andre Devawrin included also members of the Communist resistance. Conservative agents and above all the United States considered the presence of Communists in the DGER to represent a security risk. This applied above all to top-secret operations targeting the French Communists such as Plan Bleu. Therefore the DGER was closed down in 1946 and replaced by a staunch anti-Communist new military secret service SDECE under Henri Alexis Ribiere. With the replace- ment of the DGER by the SDECE, the Communists lost an important battle in the secret war in France as the SDECE became its most dangerous opponent. Trained anti-Communists from the civil war in Greece were recruited as the SDECE shifted to the right. 'The Anglo-Americans were in close contact with the conspirators, above all with Earl Jellicoe, who had just come back from his 7 anti-Communist operations in Greece.' |
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As France suffered from large Communist strikes which paralysed the entire country, Plan Bleu agents secretly collected money from wealthy industrialists to fund their anti-Communist secret war. 'I met the Peugeot brothers in their offices', agent Vergnes recalled his clandestine contacts to the French automobile industry. 'We discussed what should be done in case of occupation and general strikes in the firms. For two months we have worked on the details of an action plan. We 8 strike at the Renault car manufacturing plant occurred supported by the PCF and the CGT union, the tensions in France increased. Socialist Prime Minister Paul Ramadier ordered a freeze on wages contrary to the workers, demand for more money. It was eyeball to eyeball. The Communists voted against Ramadier's freeze on wages, while the Socialists urged Ramadier not to resign whereupon in an unexpected manoeuvre Prime Minister Ramadier on May 4, 1947 with his powers as Prime Minister ousted the Communist ministers from his cabinet. Very surprised, the latter took the operation stoically and left, believing it to be only |
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temporary. Yet for over 30 years the PCF was not to return to the council cham-
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ber of the French executive. Only later it was discovered that Washington had been |
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secretly involved in the silent coup. 'General Revers, the French Chief of Staff, later reported that the American government had urged Ramadier to remove the PCF Ministers.' Specifically, 'the Socialists discussed the matter beforehand with Ambassador Caffery' who had made it clear to the French Socialists that American economic aid would not be forthcoming as long as the Communists remained in 9 the executive. |
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One month after having ousted the Communists from the government the French Socialists attacked the military right and the CIA and exposed the Plan Bleu secret army. On June 30, 1947 French Socialist Minister of the Interior Edouard Depreux lifted the secret and declared to a baffled population that a secret right-wing army had been erected in France behind the back of the politicians with the task to destabilise the French government. 'Towards the end of 1946 we got to know of the existence of a black resistance network, made up of resistance fighters of the extreme-right, Vichy collaborators and monarchists', Depreux explained. 'They had a secret attack plan called "Plan Bleu", which should have come into 10 action towards the end of July, or on August 6 [1947].' |
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According to the far-reaching allegations of the French Interior Minister the CIA and the MI6 together with French right-wing paramilitaries had planned to stage a coup d'etat in France in summer 1947. In the wake of the revelations several arrests and investigations followed. Among the arrested conspirators was Earl Edme de Vulpian. His castle 'Forest' close to Lamballe in the north of France had served as the headquarters for the final coup preparations. Investigating com- missioner Ange Antonini found 'heavy weapons, battle orders, and operation plans' on the castle. The plans revealed that as an essential component of the secret war the Plan Bleu conspirators had intended to escalate the already tense political climate in France by committing acts of terror, blame them on the left, and thus create suitable conditions for their coup d'etat, a 'strategy of tension' also carried out during the secret anti-Communist wars in Greece, Italy and Turkey. 'It was even planned to assassinate de Gaulle in order to increase the 11 public resentment', French secret service expert Faligot relates. |
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While admitting that a secret war was being waged in France in the post-war years, other sources have categorically rejected the claim that the conspirators would indeed have staged a right-wing coup d'etat in 1947. 'When Minister of the Interior Depreux revealed the Plan Bleu dossier, his intention was to deal out a blow to the right, after having previously dealt a blow to the left', Luc Robet, himself directly involved with the conspiracy, claimed with reference to the ousting of the Communists from the executive in the previous month. 'Furthermore it was a move to weaken the French army, which had a mentality of making its own 12 spiracy was lead by SDECE Director Henri Ribiere himself. He concluded that the CIA and the MI6 were to blame as they had promoted Plan Bleu, although they had allegedly never envisaged a coup d'etat. 'The arms which were found all |
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over the country had been paid in parts by London and Washington. Yet they
had been provided to resist the Communists, and not to stage a coup d'etat', the
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investigators concluded.
On the suggestion of US ambassador Caffery, who closely supervised the secret
war against the Communists in France, the CIA, following the coup that had ousted the Communists from the executive in late 1947 targeted the strong Communist labour union CGT, the very backbone of Communist strength in France. US General Vandenberg in his memorandum to President Truman had correctly emphasised that the Communist's 'capabilities of economic pressure through the CGT or of resort to force are, as Ambassador Caffery suggests, significant principally as guarantees
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against their exclusion from the Government'.
The CIA succeeded to create a
schism in the Communist-dominated CGT, splitting away the moderate Force
Ouvriere, which by the early 1950s it supported with more than one million dollars
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per year.
The secret operation greatly diminished the strength of the PCF.
Last but not least the secret war of the CIA in the Fourth Republic targeted also the French police. After in the spring of 1947 the Communist Ministers had been expelled from the French government the whole administration was purged from Communists while the anti-Communists were promoted in the police forces. Prominent among them was commissar Jean Dides who during the Second World War had closely cooperated with the OSS and now was promoted to become the commander of a clandestine French paramilitary anti-Communist police unit operating under Interior Minister Jules Moch. The embassy of the United States was pleased with the progress made and in early 1949 cabled to the US State Department in Washington that in order 'to fight the danger of Communism, France has organised cells of restrained but efficient policemen... Also Italy is erecting
such anti-Communist police squads under the control of Interior Minister Mario
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Scelba, using commanders of the former fascist police.'
Together with other commanders of anti-Communist police forces engaged in
the secret war in Western Europe, Dides regularly took part in the meetings of
'Paix et Liberte', a large CIA front under the leadership of French anti-Communist
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Jean-Paul David. American historian Christopher Simpson estimated that covert
action units such as 'Paix et Liberte' were funded by the CIA during the secret
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war against the Communists with 'well over a billion dollars yearly'. With
branches in several European countries, 'Paix et Liberte' carried out CIA operations in psychological warfare in Western Europe and spread anti-Communist propaganda by printing posters, sponsoring a radio program, publishing printed material in various outlets and organising occasional demonstrations. In Italy the CIA branch of Paix et Liberte directed by Edgardo Sogno was called Pace e Liberta with headquarters in Milan. In 1995 the Italian Senate investigation into Gladio and secret warfare found that Paix et Liberte had operated on the direct orders of NATO. Allegedly French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault had in 1953 suggested in NATO's Atlantic Council that Paix et Liberte should head a reorganisation of
NATO's Intelligence Service and serve as a centre and motor for the coordination
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of international actions against Cominform.
Irwin Wall in his history of the
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iInfluent of the United States on pos«t-war France judged that along with Force
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Ouvriere 'Paix et Liberte accounted for the major part of the CIA's effort to 20 promote mass non-Communist organisations in France during the 1950s.' |
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The secret war against the Communists did not end when Plan Bleu was exposed and closed down in 1947. Much to the contrary, French Socialist Prime Minister Paul Ramadier saw to it that his trusted chiefs within the military secret service were not removed by the scandal. When the storm had passed he ordered Henri Ribiere, Chief of SDECE, and Pierre Fourcaud, deputy Director of the SDECE, in late 1947 to erect a new anti-Communist secret army under the code name 'Rose des Vents' (Rose of the Winds, i.e. Compass Rose), the star-shaped official symbol of the NATO. The code name was well chosen, for when NATO was created in 1949 with headquarters in Paris the SDECE coordinated its anti-Communist 21 secret war closely with the military alliance. The secret soldiers understood that |
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As the secret cooperation with the United States intensified in April 1951 the 22 and NATO planning for anti-Communist secret warfare in Western Europe the Rose des Vents army within the SDECE had the task to locate and fight subversive Communist elements within the French Fourth Republic. Furthermore it had to undertake evacuation preparations and provide for a suitable exile base abroad. The Rose des Vents secret army was trained to undertake sabotage, guerrilla and intelligence-gathering operations under enemy occupation. France was divided into numerous geographical stay-behind zones, to which secret cells were allocated, with each zone being supervised by an SDECE officer. An exile base for the French government was installed in Morocco in northern Africa, and the SDECE 23 sent some of its microfilmed archives to Dakar in Senegal. |
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Maybe the most famous member of the French secret anti-Communist Rose des Vents army was Francois Grossouvre who in 1981 became the adviser of Socialist President Francois Mitterand for secret operations. During the Second World War Grossouvre had enrolled in a fascist Vichy-backed militia that he later claimed to have infiltrated on behalf of the resistance. After the war the mili- tary secret service recruited him for the Rose des Vents secret army. SDECE agent Louis Mouchon who had himself recruited many secret soldiers for the network recalled how Grossouvre had been contacted: 'Our responsible man in Lyon, Gilbert Union, who during the war had carried out missions for the BCRA, was a passionate car driver and at that time had died on the road. To replace him, the SDECE had recruited, in 1950, Francois de Grossouvre.' Mouchin elaborated that Grossouvre was not only chosen for his wartime experience but as well for his contacts: 'His business, the A. Berger et Cie Sugar company, offered 24 ample opportunities to stage fronts. He really had excellent contacts.' |
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As special adviser of President Mitterand, Grossouvre influenced French secret warfare in the beginning of the 1980s but was eased out of his main responsibilities 90 |
in 1985 as his cloak-and-dagger style became intolerable to Mitterrand's staider
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colleagues. Yet the personal relations to Mitterand allegedly remained good and when in late 1990 after the pan European Gladio discoveries President Mitterand in the midst of the scandal had to close down the French Gladio network 'he had first 25 |
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death his participation in the secret war was no longer a secret. 'He was recruited into the French espionage service and helped to organise Gladio, an American- backed plan to create an armed resistance movement in Western Europe against a Russian invasion', the British Economist noted in his obituary after Grossouvre, 26 aged 76, had dramatically shot himself in the Elysee Palace on April 7, 1994. |
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Retired CIA officer Edward Barnes during the French Fourth Republic had served as liaison officer to the French stay-behind Rose des Vents and left the country in 1956. After the discovery of the secret armies in 1990 he recalled how not only Washington but also many Frenchmen had been greatly concerned that the strong French Communists should come to dominate the country. 'There were probably a lot of Frenchmen who wanted to be ready if something happened.' Resisting a Soviet occupation according to Barnes was the primary motivation of the French Gladio, while promoting anti-Communist political activity in France 'might have 27 been a secondary consideration'. According to Barnes the French stay-behind |
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The exact number of participants in the secret war against the Communists is very hard to specify. The Paris-based Intelligence Newsletter reported after the discovery of the secret CIA armies that 'a director of French intelligence at the time had offered to place at the disposal of the CIA some 10,000 trained and armed "patriotic" troops, outside the ranks of the French armed forces' trained to intervene in a secret war 'in case a Communist government came to power'. According to Barnes the CIA 'had no record of how many people would come out of the woodwork. There was no way to calculate that. Those I met were farmers, townspeople, trades people.' Many did not need much training as they were war veterans and during the Second World War had served in the BCRA secret 28 operations unit behind enemy lines. |
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In order to guarantee the material independence of the secret soldiers the CIA together with the SDECE set up secret Gladio arms caches across the country. 'All kinds of things were stuck away in remote places, almost anything people would think might be needed', including arms, explosives, gold coins and bicycles, while radio equipment and codes were the top priority. In order to keep the network top-secret the need-to-know principle limiting information to the smallest number of people possible was strictly followed. Barnes stressed that he could only meet with about ten CIA recruits 'for fear of blowing me and blowing them. You couldn't go out and just say "Dig this stuff up, Joe." There were probably all |
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kinds of things that went awry. Some of those guys didn't bury things where they
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29 said they did.' |
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The Italian Defence Ministry knew that the SDECE together with the CIA was running a secret army to oppose the Communists. General Umberto Broccoli in October 1951 wrote to Defence Minister Marras that secret armies existed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and also France has already organised such operations in Germany and Austria, as well as on its own national territory 30 Austria and Germany occupied after their defeat in the Second World War remains unclear, but estimates are that secret operations were limited to the respective sectors controlled by the French troops until the allied forces withdrew from the two countries. Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990 in his report 'The so called "Parallel SID" - The Gladio Case' confirmed that the secret anti-Communist armies had standing links to NATO and elaborated that 'Resistance networks were organised by Great Britain in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and probably also in Denmark and Norway. The French took care of the German and Austrian territories under its control, as well as of its own territory up to the 31 Pyrenees.' |
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A top-secret memorandum of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, dated May 14, 1952 and entitled 'Operation Demagnetise', detailed how 'political, paramilitary and psychological operations' shall be employed according to the directive in order 'to reduce the strength of the Communist Party in Italy' and also 'in order to 32 reduce the strength of the Communist Party in France'. "Demagnetise", for it is clear that the plan can interfere with their respective 33 national sovereignty'. 'The final aim of the |
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Training of the Rose des Vents secret soldiers took place in various parts in France and abroad in close cooperation with French Special Forces. Above all the highly trained French special operations parachute commando regiment '11th Demi-Brigade Parachutiste du Choc' or, in short, 11th du Choc was directly involved. The relationship with the secret army was intimate and in several cases officers of the 11th du Choc served also as members of the secret Rose des Vents army. As the British SAS carried out secret operations and dirty tricks for the MI6, the French 11th du Choc after the Second World War served as the iron fist of the SDECE. According to French Gladio author Brozzu-Gentile 'the instructors of the French |
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stay-behind were all members of the SDECE, or close to the service'.
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At the
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time of the 1990 Gladio scandal the French press revealed that the French Gladiators |
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As the leading military unit in secret warfare and dirty tricks the 11th du Choc operated above all in Indochine and Africa as France after the Second World War struggled in vain to hold on to its colonies Vietnam and Algeria. The unit to carry out the dirty tricks, the iron spear of the secret war in Algeria from 1954 to 1962, was clearly the 11th battalion Parachutiste du Choc', French secret service 36 author Roger Faligot observed. bars admired Guerain Serac as a fascinating personality and unmatched strategist 37 of terror. By 1954, 300 men of this special force had |
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As the secret war against the Communists in France and the secret war against the Algerian Liberation Front FLN in northern Africa intensified, the dangers of secret warfare became apparent when the politicians in Paris lost control over their secret soldiers and the entire country was dragged into a major crisis that culminated with the end of the Fourth Republic. In May 1958 the independence fight of the French colony Algeria started in earnest. The weakened government of the French Fourth Republic was unsure how to react while the French secret service and military were firmly committed to keeping Algeria a French colony. Many of the politicised men within the ranks of the military and the SDECE viewed the politicians of the Fourth Republic as 'weak, potentially or actively corrupt, a pusillanimous category of humanity whose predisposition was to cut and run in 38 Algeria'. When the first French prisoners were killed by the FLN in Algeria, |
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Within this process the 11th du Choc played a central role on both sides of the battle. On May 24, 1958, elements of the 11th du Choc based in Calvi on the northern shores of Corsica started the coup by leading the occupation of the entire island by paratroops. Soon the news spread that the secret soldiers intended to overthrow the elected government and bring retired General Charles de Gaulle back into power. As other members of the 11th du Choc disagreed with such an |
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undemocratic secret war against Paris, they left their Cercottes training base near
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Orleans on the same day and gathered in order to protect targets designated by |
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39 of the Gaullist plotters was the chief of the SDECE himself, General Paul Grossing. When the latter caught wind of the plan, he immediately surrounded the SDECE headquarters on Paris' boulevard Mortier with members of the 11th du Choc loyal to him. |
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France in that May 1958 sank into chaos. The chief of the powerful French domestic secret service DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire), Roger Wybot, was about to activate a secret anti-Communist plan called 'Operation Ressurection'. The plan that parachutists foresaw including members of the 11th du Choc falling from the sky would within very few hours take over control of the vital centres of Paris: The Interior Ministry, the police headquarters, com- munication centres including television and radio stations, electricity production plants and other strategically vital areas of the capital. 'The plan also foresaw the arrestation of a certain number of politicians, among which Francois Mitterand, Pierre Mendes France, Edgar Faure, Jules Moch, as well as the entire direction of 40 the French Communists.' |
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But on May 27, 'just hours before Operation Resurrection was to break upon the French capital', de Gaulle announced that he had 'begun the regular process 41 succession of rapid and far-reaching actions ended the Fourth Republic. On May 28, Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin resigned. On the morning of May 29 the President of the Republic, Rene Coty, made public the fact that he had invited Charles de Gaulle to form a government. Only 24 hours later the General appeared before the National Assembly and demanded full powers to rule by decree for six months, and enforced four months of 'holiday' for the deputies, and authority to submit himself a new constitution. De Gaulle's requests were voted 329 to 224. 'The Fourth Republic had chosen suicide over assassination by... the army and 42 its security services.' |
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Many within the military and the secret services who had supported the coup of de Gaulle expected that the General would firmly support a policy of 'Algerie Francaise', i.e. that he would do everything to keep Algeria under French colonial rule. To their surprise, however, de Gaulle with the backing of many politicians of the Fourth Republic embarked on a policy of Algerie Algerienne, which led to the independence of Algeria in 1962. The secret soldiers were furious. 'Increasingly, Presidents of the Fifth Republic, led by de Gaulle, came to distrust 43 soldiers were in disagreement on whether they should follow the orders of de Gaulle and withdraw from Algeria or whether they should fight against the government of France. The final split of the 11th du Choc came in 1961 when most of its members chose Algeria Francaise and in order to promote their politics together with French officers fighting in Algeria founded the clandestine and illegal Organisation Armee Secrete, in short OAS. The two declared aims of the |
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OAS were to first of all keep French control over colonial Algeria - and thus continue
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to fight the FLN liberation movement by all means no matter what Paris directed - and secondly, to overthrow the Fifth Republic of President De Gaulle and replace it with a militantly anti-Cmmunist authoritarian French state. The OAS coup came on April 22, 1961 when four French Generals under the leadership of General Challe seized power in Algeria in an attempt to maintain the country's union with France. Allegedly, secret soldiers of the CIA-supported NATO stay-behind army who had joined the OAS were directly involved. The secret soldiers 'supported a group of generals who were resisting, sometimes violently, de Gaulle's attempts to negotiate Algerian independence and end the war', US author 44 Jonathan Kwitny related in his article on the secret armies in Western Europe. Obviously more research is needed on the involvement of the French stay-behind in the 1961 coup d'etat as it figures amongst the most sensitive dimensions of the history of the secret war in France. As of now the evidence suggests that the stay-behind armies were involved in successful coup d'etats in Greece in 1967 and in Turkey in 1980, and in the coup against the French government in 1961 which failed. |
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The CIA and its Director Allen Dulles together with militant secret soldiers of NATO and the Pentagon in Washington had allegedly supported the coup against de Gaulle. Immediately after the coup 'minor officials at the Elysee Palace itself had given 'to understand that the generals' plot was backed by strongly anti-Communist elements in the United States Government and military services', as the Washington Star reported. 'Both in Paris and Washington the facts are now known, though they will never be publicly admitted', an article of Claude Krief revealed already in May 1961 in the widely read French weekly L'Express. 'In private, the highest French personalities make no secret of it. What they say is this: The CIA played a direct part in the Algiers coup, and certainly weighted heavily on the decision taken by ex-general Challe to start the putsch.' Shortly before the coup General Challe had held the position of NATO Commander in Chief Allied Forces Central Europe, cultivating close contacts not only with the Pentagon and US officers but also with the NATO secret stay-behind army, maintaining daily contact with US military officers. General Challe, as Krief concluded, had acted directly on CIA orders: 'All the people who know 45 him well, are deeply convinced that he had been encouraged by the CIA to go ahead.' |
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When Krief wrote his article on the CIA-supported coup against de Gaulle, the existence of the secret stay-behind armies of NATO in all countries of Western Europe had not yet been revealed. But with a focus on the international secret war, Krief relates that ten days before the coup, on April 12, 1961, a clandestine meeting had taken place in Madrid, with the presence of 'various foreign agents, including members of the CIA and the Algiers conspirators, who disclosed their plans to the CIA men'. During that meeting the Americans allegedly angrily complained that de Gaulle's policy was 'paralysing NATO and rendering the defence of Europe impossible', assuring the putsch generals including Challe, that if they and their followers succeeded, Washington would recognise the new 46 Algerian Government within 48 hours. De Gaulle, who through a number of |
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dependent on the United States and NATO, was furious about the recklessness of
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the CIA. Whether US President Kennedy - who exactly at the same time was overseeing the secret coup against Cuban President Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion which started on April 15, 1961 - had been informed about the coup in Algeria remains unclear. But it is known that Kennedy was furious when the CIA coup in Cuba failed, and that also the recognition of Washington of the Generals in Algeria was not forthcoming. In Algeria the coup d'etat by the secret soldiers held out for four days only and then collapsed. The French leading daily Le Monde critically summarised that 'the behaviour of the United States during the recent crisis was not particularly skilful. It seems established that American agents more or less encouraged Challe', while 'Kennedy, of course, 47 knew nothing of all this.' |
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After the failed coup, the secret soldiers were completely out of control. OAS outrages soon escalated to assassinations of prominent government officials in 48 Algiers, random murders of Muslims, and bank raids. By November 1961 the |
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Next to France the secret soldiers of the OAS from their bases in Algeria carried their secret war to other European countries including Spain, Switzerland and Germany where special squads of the 11th du Choc engaged in assassination operations of FLN leaders as well as their financial contributors and arms 49 suppliers. were never caught. 'The police seemed unable to catch the members of the hit 50 In Germany the secret soldiers allegedly cooperated with the German and run teams', Eenboom relates. |
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The secret war dragged France into a nightmare of violence with brutality escalating on all sides. At the height of the tensions in Paris, police chief Maurice Papon imposed a curfew in the capital aflat the murder of 11 of his officers. The FLN, which had orchestrated the attacks, responded by organising a protest |
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march, and up to 40,000 Algerians answered the call to demonstrate in Paris on
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October 17, 1961. Papon, a notorious racist who during the Second World War had been involved in the deportation of more than 1,500 Jews to Nazi death camps, ordered his officers to brutally smash the demonstration whereupon a massacre 51 probably closer to 300 people - were slaughtered by police officers who were 52 eager to avenge the deaths of their colleagues. the inherent danger of secret armies when he declared that 'any group with radios 53 and training would be very dangerous for the security of France'. Melnik had been the security |
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'I saw people collapse in pools of blood. Some were beaten to death. The bodies were thrown onto lorries and tossed into the Seine from the Pont de la Concorde' Saad Ouazene, a 29-year-old foundry worker and FLN sympathiser later remembered the massacre in Paris. 'If I hadn't been strong I'd never have got out alive', Ouazene who escaped with a fractured scull testified. 'As Algerians got out of the buses at the Porte de Versailles, they were clubbed over the head', French policeman Joseph Gommenginger, on duty that night, recalled the 1961 massacre. 'Those carry- ing out the attacks even threatened me. They had all removed their numbers from their uniforms. I was revolted. I never thought police could do such things.' In the days following the massacre, dozens of bodies were taken from the 54 Seine as fardown river as Rouen. In the absence of an official investigation the magazine of distinguished French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre Temps Modernes 55 called the episode a pogrom. |
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The secret war of the OAS, which had involved secret soldiers of the NATO stay-behind, in the end failed to both overthrow de Gaulle and prevent Algeria from becoming independent. The agreement for peace in Algeria and the independence of the country was signed between the FLN and the government of de Gaulle in Evian in March 1962, whereupon also the OAS collapsed about a year after its creation declaring truce on June 17, 1962. Only a fraction of OAS diehards led by Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thirty were unwilling to give up and carried out another ambush on President de Gaulle near Paris on August 22, 1962. De Gaulle, who survived after having displayed as always little concern for his own safety, was outraged that the OAS assassins had attacked him while in the company of his wife and made the operation a personal affair. In September the OAS men involved in the assassination operation were captured in Paris, all were sentenced 56 Choc, many of whom had joined the OAS, saw their career at an end. The remaining units of the 11th du Choc were put under close Gaullist control. |
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The secret CIA army designed by NATO as an anti-Communist stay-behind had thus during the Algerian crisis on the ensuing chaos and violence allegedly been involved in domestic operations in the total absence of any Soviet invasion. The danger of secret warfare consisted then, as now, in the lack of control that the democratic institutions including parliament and at times also the government had |
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overthesecretsoldiers. Admiral Pierre Lacoste who directed the French military
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secret from 1982 to 1985 under President Mitterand confirmed after the discov- ery of the secret Gladio networks in 1990 that some 'terrorist actions' against de Gaulle and his Algerian peace plan were carried out by groups that included 'a limited number of people' from the French stay- b e h i n d network. However, Lacoste insisted that the Algerian anti de Gaulle operations had been the only case when the French Gladio had become operational inside France and stressed that he believed that Soviet contingency plans for invasion nevertheless justified the stay-behind program also during his time in office as chief of the military 57 secret service. |
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Like few others Charles de Gaulle had been at the centre of secret warfare in France for most of his lifetime until in April 1969 when he was replaced peacefully by Georges Pompidou and died a year later at the age of 80 in his home, allegedly watching a sentimental television serial. De Gaulle had led the resistance of France against Hitler in the Second World War, had employed secret warfare to reach power as the Fourth Republic ended and during the Fifth Republic became the target of coup d'etats and assassination operations. Long before the public exposure of the secret stay-behind armies of NATO, de Gaulle was envious of the United States, when he considered to have too stray a position in Western Europe, and suspicious of the CIA, whom he suspected to engage in manipulation and secret warfare. Upon coming to power de Gaulle had made it plain that he intended to carry out his foreign policy with his diplomats, not his 'irresponsible secret services', who were ordered to sever all relations with the CIA, upon whom 58 was under assault by secret forces. Who was to blame? The CIA certainly, 59 believed de Gaulle.' |
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When NATO was founded in 1949, its headquarters, including the SHAPE, were built in France. France was therefore particularly vulnerable to NATO and CIA secret warfare as de Gaulle lamented - for together with NATO also the secret Gladio command centre CPC was located in Paris as the Italian document 'The special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio' of June 1959 revealed: 'On the level of NATO the following activities must be mentioned: 1. The activity of the 60 more also the secret Gladio command centre ACC repeatedly met in Paris. It came as a massive shock to the White House in Washington when de Gaulle in February 1966 - due to a number of strategic and personnel motives that historians still struggle to explain - decided to challenge the United States head-on, and ordered NATO and the United States either to place their military bases in France under French control, or to dismantle them. The United States and NATO did not react to the ultimatum whereupon in a spectacular decision de Gaulle took France out of NATO's military command on March 7, 1966 and expelled the entire NATO organisation together with its covert action agents from French territory. To the anger of Washington and the Pentagon the European headquarters of NATO had to move to Belgium. In Brussels, Mons and Casteau, new European |
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NATO headquarters were being erected where they have remained until today.
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The Belgium parliamentary investigation into Gladio and secret warfare later |
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61 furthermore revealed that the ACC secret warfare centre held a meeting with 62 international participation in Brussels as late as October 23 and 24, 1990. |
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Belgium Gladio author Jan Willems drew attention to the sensitive fact that when de Gaulle withdrew the French army from the military-integrated command of NATO, some of the secret agreements between France and the United States were cancelled. 'On this occasion it was revealed that secret protocols existed concerning the fight against Communist subversion, signed bilaterally by the 63 infringement of national sovereignty. Similar secret clauses were also revealed in other NATO states. In Italy Giuseppe de Lutiis revealed that when becoming a NATO member Italy in 1949 had signed not only the Atlantic Pact, but also secret protocols that provided for the creation of an unofficial organisation 'charged with guaranteeing Italy's internal alignment with the Western Block by 64 any means, even if the electorate were to show a different inclination'. must have already established a national security authority to fight Communism 65 through clandestine citizen cadres'. And also |
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It might come as a surprise that after the thoroughly disturbing experiences during the Algerian crisis the secret stay-behind armies were not closed down for good in France but were merely reformed. In 1998 secret service expert Jacques Baud correctly observed that 'although proofs are missing, certain experts have suggested that the activities of the French stay-behind network have been carried 66 out under the cover of the Service d'Action Civique'. 67 support the action of General de Gaulle. Furthermore SAC units protected Gaullist politicians or groups putting up Gaullist 68 political posters. Allegedly, after the OAS Founded in the immediate post-war |
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Neither de Gaulle's RPF party nor its iron fist SAC were successful during the Fourth Republic and the RPF was dissolved in 1954. But the faithfuls of the SAC allegedly stayed in touch and supported the coup that in 1958 ended the Fourth |
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Republic and brought de Gaulle back into power. Jacques Foccart, the Director and
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spiritual father of the SAC, as a secret warrior and supporter of de Gaulle, allegedly played an active coordinating role through military, secret service and old Resistance contacts in the very beginning of the coup when on May 24, 1958 the secret 69 Foccart, secret services expert Porch concluded, helped 'to play midwife to de 70 Gaulle's return to power in 1958'. |
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Foccart has remained a shadowy and ill-defined player in the French secret war. 'The extent of Foccart's powers are almost as mysterious as the question of how 71 colony Guadeloupe, Foccart had been mobilised at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 but had managed to evade capture during the Fall of France. He cooperated with the German army but towards the end of the war once again changed sides and joined the French as an activist in the Normandy resistance 72 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the US Army. 73 for SAC members in the 1950s'. discoveries the secret warfare centre was revealed as one of the places where the 74 French Gladiators had received their training. SAC in the post-war years had a membership After the war |
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Due to the absence of an official investigation into the history of the French secret army it remains difficult for researchers to outline in detail the differences between the French stay-behind army Rose des Vents, and the French stay-behind army SAC, and clearly more research is needed. Allegedly also the French stay- behind SAC in the absence of a Soviet invasion had engaged in numerous secret anti-Communist operations. But only the coming to power of the Socialists under President Francois Mitterand in 1981 finally shifted the balance of power and allowed for a parliamentarian investigation. When a former chief of SAC in Marseilles, police inspector Jacques Massif, was murdered with his entire family in July 1981, Communist deputies in the French National Assembly demanded for an investigation of SAC. After listening to six months of testimony, the parliamentary committee concluded in December 1981 in a voluminous report that the actions of the SDECE, SAC and the OAS networks in Africa were 'intimately linked'. The parliamentarians found that SAC had financed itself in mysterious 75 ways, including through SDECE funds and drug trafficing. |
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'A typical case in which a "Gladio" network should have intervened was during the student riots in France in 1968', Intelligence Newsletter reported after the 76 gate SAC had discovered that indeed SAC had hit its membership peak during the May 1968 troubles, when it might have counted as many as 30,000 members. It might have intervened during the student riots in 1968. In 1981, SAC claimed |
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10,000 adherents. 'An esimated 10 to 15 percent were in the police. Opportunists,
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77 gangsters, and men with extreme-right-wing views were also well represented.' 'The committee denounced SAC as a dangerous secret army, which had served as |
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a parallel police, had infiltrated the public organisation in order to influence decisions, and had carried out acts of violence. In what remained the most detailed parliamentarian investigation into any of the French secret armies so far, the parliamentarian committee deemed the continued existence of SAC 'incompatible with the laws of the Republic', whereupon the government of 78 Francois Mitterand ordered the SAC to be disbanded in July 1982. |
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The Mitterand government, increasingly unsure about the role of secret services in modern democracies, targeted the French military secret service, which for decades had been at the heart of France's secret warfare. A 1982 parliamentarian investigation into secret service activity led by Socialist party deputy Jean-Michel Bellorgey concluded that intelligence agents driven by Cold War phobias and obsessed with the 'enemy within' had broken the law repeatedly while the secret 79 service had accumulated a record of 'failures, scandals, and doubtful operations'. After this shattering conclusion Mitterrand supported the demand of the Commun- ists, which for a long time already together with a group of Socialists had asked quite simply for the dissolution of the military secret service SDECE. |
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In the end this far-reaching step was not taken and the SDECE was not closed down but merely reformed. Its name changed to Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) and Admiral Pierre Lacoste became its new Director. Lacoste continued to run the secret Gladio army of the DGSE in close cooperation with NATO and after the discovery of the network in retrospect insisted that Soviet contingency plans for invasion had justified the stay-behind program also during 80 DGSE, which on July 10, 1985 with a bomb sank the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior that had protested peacefully against French atomic testing in the Pacific, ended the career of Admiral Lacoste. He was forced to resign after the crime had been traced back to the DGSE, Defence Minister Charles Hernu and President Francois Mitterand himself. |
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In March 1986 the political right won the parliamentary elections in France and as a result Socialist President Mitterrand had to govern together with Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. When the secret Gladio armies were discovered across Europe in 1990, Chirac was less than eager to see the history of the French secret army investigated. For such an investigation could have ruined the very successful political career of Chirac who later moved on to become President of France. As still in 1975 Chirac had directed the SAC secret army as president. |
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France therefore had extreme difficulties in facing the history of its secret anti-Communist war. There was no official parliamentarian investigation. And officials of the government attempted to minimise the damage with lies and half-truths. Defence Minister Jean Pierre Chevenement on November 12, 1990 reluctantly confirmed to the press that 'it is correct, that a structure has existed, erected in the beginning of the 1950s, to enable liaison with a government forced |
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to flee abroad in the hypothesis of an occupation'., whereupon the defense Minister
wrongly claimed that 'this structure was dissolved on the order of the President of the Republic. As far as I am aware it never had more than a sleeper's role and
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a role of liaison.'
curious press in Paris. 'When I arrived', Mitterand wrongly claimed, 'I didn't
have much left to dissolve. There only remained a few remnants, of which I learned
82 the existence with some surprise because everyone had forgotten about them.'
Prime Minister Chirac did not take a stand. But Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti was not amused to see how the French government denied and played down their role in the Gladio affair and contradicted his claim that Gladio had existed in most countries of Western Europe. Thus Andreotti let the press know that far from having been closed down long ago, representatives of the French secret army also had taken part in the ACC meeting in Brussels as recently as October 24, 1990, which caused considerable embarrassment in France.
A day later President Mitterand had to face the extremely
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8
THE SECRET WAR IN SPAIN
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