FRANCES CHARGES 3 FOR LEAKS TO PRESS IN GREENPEACE AFFAIR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630012-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: September 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201630012-0
ARTICLE Alj?EAR D,.- WASHINGTON POST
25 September 1985
France Charges 3
For Leaks to Press
In Greenpatce Affair
if n
So Far
No Perpetrators of Attack Aticused
By Michael Dobbs
WasAingtes Pat Foroige Service
. PARIS,. Sept. 24-The French '
government, -which has conceded
that its agents, acting under orders,
had blown up the Greenpeace pro-
test ship, .today brought its. first
charges jn,the case. In an apparent .;
attempt to put. a. stop to damaging
newspaper;. revelatigns about the
affair, the Defense Ministry,
charged three Army men with leak-
ing secret information about the
episode to the press.
The government of President
Francois Mitterand, which has been
'rocked by the Greenpeace scandal
and apparent cover-up, has thus far
not brought charges against anyone
involved in ordering or carrying out.
the attack that sank the vessel and
killed a photographer.
Justice officials said that the
three military men, who include two
members. of the secret services,,
were placed under house arrest.
They are. accused of jeopardizing
national security by revealing infor-
mation about the sinking of the ves
sel, . the - Rainbow Warrior, by
French agents in New Zealand's'
territorial waters July 10.
The attempt to plug the leaks un- '
derlined the important role played
by the French press in revealing
how the Rainbow Warrior was sab-?
otaged by the French secret ser-
vices which then attempted ,to cover
up ~ the opf ration: After rejecting
allegations of French : involvemen?
for two ' months, the` government
conciWed, Sunday` that'?xthe Green- .
peace ship had been sank by- French
agents acting under. orders:-The ship-:
was preparing to sail to Mururoa
Atoll in the, South Pacific to protest
French nuclear tests there, ,
Practically all the publicly avail-
able information that has emerged
about the scandal-has surfaced first
in the.' columns of French -newspa-
pers and ;magazines and ? only later
has been officially confirmed. By
contrast, right-wing opposition pol-
iticians have been reluctant to take,
any initiative that might be seen as -
tarnishing the. image of the French
Army and secret services.
A A. backhanded.:, compliment was
paid to the media last week by Pres-
ident Francois Mitterrand in a. Let-
ter to Prime. Minister Laurent
Fabius in. which he expressed ex-
asperation about the lack of official,
information.
"Despitw the, investigations you
have ordered, we still have to note
that the press? is. coming up with
new elements," the president
wrote.
In a country in which the press is
traditionally much more respectful
of politicians than in the United
'States, the aggressiveness of
trench newspapers in pursuing the
Greenpeace story seems to have
Surprised even some journalists.
Parallels-have been drawn with the
Watergate scandal.
~ut although there are similar-
ities between the two cases, the
daiftrasts are also striking. Unlike
Watergate, which was initially
pieced together thanks to laborious
detective work by city reporters,
pdpst of .the breaks in the Green-
geace affair seem to have come
from politically motivated leaks by
people in high places.
By paying careful attention to the
different news media, political con-
doisseurs have had ? little difficulty
tracing the progress of a struggle
between different factions of the
French establishment, each eager
Co promote its own version of the
truth. .The high-level feuding has
been particularly evident over the
last few days as a battle rages over
who should blamed for ordering
Ehe sinking o the Rainbow Warrior.
Attempts by Socialist politicians
to pint the blame for the fiasco 5-n
She secret services have been re-
listed by "sources close to the
DGSE," or General Directorate for
gxternal Security, the French
viva en of the CIA.
e Canard Enchaine, an inves-
tigative and satirical weekly DU?.-
IsW on W nesday, quoted Adm.
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2.
Pierre Lacoste, who was dismissed
as head of the DGSE, in its latest is-
sue as saying "that the order to sink
the Rainbow Warrior came from ci-
vilian opals, ` Jose Fitchett of
t Fe international Herald Tribune'
re rted
LTe .
admiral also said that he.
was ordered to en agency oper-
atives to a naval intelligence service
res`ponsi a or security on ururoa
Atoll and ME they were not under
fi command when tile KaJn5Ww
Warrior was sunk.
The "battle o the leaks" took a
particularly vicious turn this week
when a radio journalist close to the
Defense Ministry reported that
Prime Minister Fabius knew all
about the cover-up. This was fol-
lowed by another anonymous report
by the French news agency Agence
France-Presse, quoting "reliable
sources," that vital dossiers about
the Greenpeace affair had been de-
stroyed by the secret service.
Today the Paris newspaper Le
Monde, which played the major role
in breaking the story of the cover-
up last week, reported that an order
to "neutralize" the Rainbow Warrior
was given by the former defense
minister, Charles Hernu. The story,
which was couched in the condition-
al tense, provided no source for its
report.
The suspicion that the media are
being used as an instrument to set-
tle political scores has provided a
useful excuse for those newspapers
that have been unable to come up
with scoops of their own.
"It is remarkable that so much is
being said about the triumph of in-
vestigative journalism .... What
we have really seen is the triumph
of teleguided journalism." said an
editorial in the right-wing Le Quo-
tidien de Paris, which has done little
to advance the Greenpeace story.
After Le Monde broke the news
last week that a "third team" of
French agents /had bombed the
Rainbow Warrior, other newspa-
pers speculated that the informs-
tion had originated with Interior
Minister Pierre Joxe. In addition to
being a rival of Hernu, the minister
responsible for the DGSE, Joxe was
reported to believe that the only
way of resolving the affair was to
admit the French role speedily.
"The hunt for Deep Throat is on,"
noted Le Monde, dismissing the
comments of its competitors uas
sour grapes. For the record, it told
its readers that its "Deep Throat"
was not Pierre Joxe.
As the hunt for La Gorge Pro-
fonde, as Deep Throat is known in
French, continues, justice officials
released the names of three military
men suspected of divulging top-se-
cret information to the press. The
accused include an Army colonel and
a captain and a sergeant-major at the
DGSE's center for combat divers in
Corsica, the unit that conducted the
sabotage operation.
The French government's inves-
tigator into the Greenpeace affair,
Bernard Tricot, has been acknowl-
edging that he was "taken in" by his
informants, who included politicians
as well as military leaders.
Confessing to Agence France-
Presse that he now felt "very ,ad" at
the cover-up, Tricot added: "I saw
many people in connection with this
affair. Clearly, among them there
were some who hid the truth from
me and others who lied to me."
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