GALLIC GOTHIC: BUREAUCRAT'S NOTE BECOMES 'GREENPEACE AFFAIR'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630018-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: September 2, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sl Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630018-4
ARTICLE
ON PMGE
WASHINGTON POST
2 September 1985
Gallic Gothic: Bureaucrat's Note Becomes
By Michael Dobbs
W*?Ithwon Part rorcign Serace
PARIS-Like many ood espionage mys-
teries, France's 'Greenpeace affair" began with a
sim reaucratic note.
The note was' written six months ago-on
March 1-by the head of the French nuclear
testing center at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pa-
cific, Adm. Henri Fages.
France, the admiral ur ed, should step u its
intelligence-gathering efforts to anticipate a
planned protest campaign by the
reenpeace
environmental organization against French nu.
clear tests. -
siggnificance of the verb anticiper, under.
lined twice- in the memo, lies at the heart of the
most embarrassing political scandal yet faced by
President Francois Mitterrand's Socialist gov-
ernment.
Was the choice of the word, which carries a
vague connotation in French of "acting to fore.
stall," insignificant, as Fages now maintains? Or
was it a deliberately ambiguous instruction that
set in motion a disastrous chain of events culmi-
nating in the sinking of a Greenpeace ship and
the death of a Portuguese-born Dutch photo-
grapher on the other side of the world?
. , The answer to these questions must be sought
in a series of tantalizing clues that have turned
up after the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior in
the New Zealand port of Auckland July 10.
Alternative solutions have been offered to the
mystery.
`Greenpeace Affair'
Could the "swimming pool" really
have bungled so badly?
Adm. Fages had every reason to
be angry about . the Greenpeace
plans, which reportedly included
the idea of escorting boatloads of
French Polynesian separatists to-
ward Mururoa.
The French military long had
regarded the environmental organ-
ization with suspicion, even loath-
ing, believing it to be infiltrated by
Communists and Soviet spies op-
posed to France's independent nu-
clear. deterrent, known as the Jbxt
ds frapp+. It was partly in response
to a previous Greenpeace campaign
that French nuclear tests were
moved.' underground in 1975, a
much more expensive and cumber.
some procedure than holding them
any question of authorizing direct
action against the Rainbow Warrior.
He does not explain in his report,
however, why four of the six
French agents later sent to New
Zealand belonged not to the direc.
torate's "research" division, but to
its "action division," the "fames
Bond" wing of !a pixie
The government has refused to
reveal bow -much the Greenpeace
operation cost,,tut it has been un-.
officially calculated' at around 3 mil-
lion francs, or $400,000. This was
more than the directorate's budget
could bear. financial approval for
the operation, according to Tricot,
had to be obtained from Gen. Jejn
Saulnier, President Mitterrand's
Z chief military aide.
The official French investigator, ?Lt.m lYChriisttinee Caabbon, atmembberofof
Bernard Tricot, has conceded -that the directorate's research staff.
news of the resumption of Green- Before leaving France, she had
peace protests provoked consider- joined the ecological organization,
able "irritation" in Paris. But he has the Friends of the Earth. Posing as
cited government documents indi- Frederique Bonlieu, a geologist op.
cating that plans for dealing with posed to French nuclear tests in the
the organization this time were ex- Pacific, she infiltrated the Auckland
actly the same as in previous years, branch of Greenpeace.
namely deploying the Navy to pre- Cabon left Auckland on May, 24,
vent the protesters from entering her mission apparently ac ;om-
French territorial waters -- -
is
One is the le al case laborious) bein
" ` ce
8 Y g put to- idea of sabotaging a Greenpeace
gether by New Zealand police, who have ar- ship had been considered by some
rested two officers of the French secret service French military officers in the past.
and charged them with murder, arson and con- According to Bernard Stasi, a for-
spiracy. The other is an official re- mer minister for France's overseas
tigator acknowledging that agents
of the General Directorate for Ex-
ternal Security (DGSE) were in
New Zealand to spy on Greenpeace
but clearing them of the crime
against the Rainbow Warrior.
Ironically, one of the principal
arguments in favor of the innocence
of the men from Ia piscine (the
swimming pool), as the General Di-
rectorate is known here, is the
Wealth of incriminating evidence
against them. So Gallic is the trail,
observed a directorate source sar-
castically, that the only missing
clues are a baguette bread loaf, a
black beret and a bottle of Beau-
jolais.
ceeded in getting such a plan ap-
proved in 1973 but was overruled
by the politicians.
The Fages memorandum was
followed by a meeting between De-
fense Minister Charles Hernu and
the head of the secret service,
Adm. Pierre Lacoste. Hernu now
says he merely instructed the ser-
vice to "observe" and "infiltrate"
Greenpeace. As Lacoste remem-
bers the conversation, the defense
minister also agreed to let the
agents."reflect on ways and means
to counteract" Greenpeace initia.
tives.
Tricot, on the basis of the testi-
mony of senior secret service offi-
cials, insisted that there was never
Nwcu. vxiut mnormauon coat she
supplied to the directorate included
a map of Auckland harbor later
found in possession of one of the
agents. She was last heard of at an
archeological dig in Israel in mid.
July, from which she sent a postcard
to her old "friends" at Greenpeace
deploring the sinking of the Rain.
bow Warrior.
Back in France, meanwhile, two
more teams of agents were prepar-
ing to be sent to New Zealand. Each
was headed by a trained. combat
frogman and member of the direc-
torate's action division: Maj. Alain
Mafart and Master Sgt. Roland
Verge.
Senior directorate officers inter
viewed by Tricot insisted that the
two teams had entirely different
missions in New Zealand and were
unaware of each other's existence.
O"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630018-4