FRENCH ADMISSION SPARKS QUESTIONS IN GREENPEACE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706230001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST"T
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706230001-6
-' " ' U?ED CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
French admission sparks
questions in Greenpeace case
cal position of the goy- that French agents had
ernment of President been ordered to carry out
Francois Mitterrand has :. ; what amounts to a com-
continued to weaken. mando raid on foreign
The main question is: territory is also sure to
Who gave the order to hurt France's image
sink the Greenpeace ship abroad, analysts said.
Rainbow Warrior? Fabkis's admission Mr. Fabius told New
The departures of De- hasn't calmed fury Zealand Prime David
fens Minister Charles Lange that he was sorry
How and the intelligence chief, that the affair had damaged rela-
Adm. Pierre Lacoste, on Friday did tions between their two countries.
As a result, the politi- lied. The confirmation
By Christopher Smart Laurent Fabius's admission Sun-
Special to The Christlan Science Monitor day that French h agents bombed ~ the
pa* Shipp has done ' to calm the fury
Questions about the Greenpeace of a eculation either
affair have intensified rather than While Prime -Minister Fabius
diminished in the wake of the conceded that the investigator he
French government's admission appointed last month to examine the
that its own agents blew affair, Bernard Tricot,
up the protest ship July had been lied to, Mr. Fa-
10. bius never said who had
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706230001-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706230001-6
On the maim hip after the prime mimic
tern surprise anaouncement observers fo-
aused an three main hypotheses to e:-
pla? the sabotage mission
? The order could have come from Ad-
miral Lacoste, MR W the overseas inteui-
geooe service, acting entirely on his own.
was ay after he refused
to answer questions in writing about the
affair submitted by Mr. Herne.
? The influential daily Le Monde has
reported that Herar himself either or-
dered the mission or at least knew it was
in the works. After weeks of denying any
French connection to the sinking of the
Rainbow Warrior, Hernu resigned, saying
that his subordinates had lied to him.
? Or perhaps the order came from. a
source even higher up and therefore closer
to the President, analysts suggest. The
Tricot report, while limiting France's re-
sponsibility to that of having ordered sur-
vedlanioe of the Greenpeace organization,
said the money for the operation had been
approved by Gen. Jean Saulnier, Presi-
dent Mitterrand's top military aide at the
time. Hernu is also a very close friend of
the President's.
What none of the analysts seem able to.
answer is why the government would
want the Rainbow Warrior scuttled. The
ship was about to lead a protest flotilla to
France's nuclear test site in the South Pa
cific, but the French Navy has headed off
similar campaigns in the past. The explo-
sinus that sank the ship in Auckland,
New Zealand, killed one Greenpeace crew
member:
Some have suggested that an order
may have been misinterpreted or deliber-
ately vague. locus has been brought back
to the report by Mr. Tricot, whose find-
ings have now been discredited, but who
revealed a number of curious details.
His re rt disclosed a note to Hernuu
from Adm. Henri es director of the
French enter for Nuclear Tests,
on French iII pre aownts to " orecast
and anticipate the actions of
Greenpeace." Tricot said that "antici-
pate" had been underlined twice su??est-
ing the slightly sinister connotation of
-forestall.
Tricot concluded in the end that the
meaning was innocent and that nothing
more than a surveillance mission had
been ordered.
But the prime minister's admission
that a sabotage order was indeed given
raises new questions about the note.
There are scores of questions and
hypotheses circulating about the admitted
cover-up of the affair and about who saw
ally lied to Tricot.
Monday morning, a European radio
station reported that Fabius himself had
been informed of the involvement of
French agents in the sabotage mission
just days after it occurred. Furthermore,
according to the report, Mr. Fabius had
refused to negotiate about the affair- with
New Zealand authorities.
The prime minister's office issued a
rapid and vigorous denial, calling the re-
port a "fabric of lies."
Still, after weeks of investigative re-
porting of the affair bubbling away in the
headlines, analysts have questioned
whether top government officials really
learned of the involvement of French
agents only over the weekend.
Mr. Fabius said Sunday night that his
announcement was based on the initial
findings of Paul Quiles, the former minis-
ter of urban affairs, housing,. and trans-
port, who replaced Herne. But there has
been widespread skepticism.
"It is difficult to imagine that a minis-
ter of urban affairs and housing could, in
24 hours, learn what Charles Herar didn't
know after 2V2 months," wrote Serge
July, editor of the daily Liberation.
The President and prime minister now
appear particularly vulnerable in this new
round of speculation, especially now that
Herne and Lacoste are gone.
Opposition party members have al-
ready renewed their cries for Fabius and
Mitterrand to accept responsibility for the
mission.
Jean-Claude Gaudin,
leader of the center right Union for
French Democracy, said that the depar-
tures of the defense minister and the intel-
ligence chief "do not settle the problem of
the real responsibility."
"It is unthinkable," he said, "that the
highest authorities of the state were not
aware [of the mission]."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706230001-6