BURYING THE GREENPEACE AFFAIR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605060008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: November 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605060008-0
ARTICLE APPEARED 19 November 1985
ON PAG
Burying the Greenpeace affair
PARIS-Whep the two French spies held in New
Zealand pleaded guilty to reduced charges of man-
slaughter Nov. 4, the French government reasonably
hoped the Greenpeace affair was about to be buried
for good. Paris expects the two to be expelled after
sentencing, to return to France.
Formal interment of the scandal, however,. cannot
undo the damage done to the socialist government.
It is the Socialists who live under suspended sen-
tence--suspended until elections next year.
The full story of what happened reveals not only
the Socialists' maladroit handling of the affair but
the obligation they now are under to the army,
which has saved the government, at a price. .
The idea of sinking Greenpeace vessels, which for
years have been protesting France's nuclear tests in
the Pacific, turns out to be an old one, put forward
by the French intelligence service as early as 1968-
69. It was proposed again in 1973. 1#oth times the
conservative governments in power turned it down.
This year the operation was again proposed, and
authorized. Who .authorized it remains, of course, at
the center, of controversy. It is admitted that an
interministerial group met at the presidential palace
early this year to consider the Rainbow Warrior
operation, and that the chief of President Francois
Mitterrand's personal military staff, Gen. Jean Saul-
nier, now chief of the combined French general
staff, authorized an allocation of funds to pay for it.
The official position is that Gen. Saulnier believed
this a mere matter of expanded intelligence-gather-
ing, not of sabotage. The official story is that
Minister of Defense Charles Hernu ordered the
Rainbow Warrior sunk,, or at least gave an order
ambiguous enough to have been so interpreted. The
official story is that neither president nor prime
minister knew a thing about it.
Such is the version of events put out in a series of
leaked stories to Le Monde, the leading Paris daily,
which in the guise of providing new information on
the mechanics of the operation carefully exculpated
the president and prime minister, and laid the
re sponsibility on Hernu. Laurent Fabius, the prime
minister, then went on television to reiterate his
innocence, to fire the head of the intelligence service
and to demand Hernu's resignation. Hernu promptly
gave it with a sardonic smile.
Fabius then announ.;ed the affair close. It was all
William Pfaff
over, nothing to see, move along. Interestingly
enough, it was all over [in Paris, that is; the
unfortunate pair of spies remained in New Zealand
jails]. The Paris newspapers mostly fell silent. Only
Le Figaro, of the leading papers, implacable enemy
of the Socialists, went on insisting that of course the
president had to have known, the prime minister
had known, or was guilty of dereliction if he had
not-and that Hernu had been flung from the sleigh
to save the others.
No one reacted. Why? The explanation would
seem to be patriotism. Government, most of the
press and the public seem to have reached the
conclusion that this affair had gone on too long and
was damaging France in the eyes of the world.
Nobody wanted it to become .a French Watergate.
The reason for that would seem to have been a
sense of national vulnerability. The United States
could go to the bitter end in the Watergate affair
because Americans believe that the United States is
invulnerable. No one considers the costs of pursuing
an abstract justice to whatever end. This is a luxury
which, it seems, the French collectively concluded
they cannot afford.
It does not mean, however, that the French have,
forgiven or forgotten. Hernu, exiled from Paris, has
soared in popularity,. and murmurs about the possi-
bility of running for president, if Mitterrand retires
in 1988. Fabius, who followed his Greenpeace inter-
vention with an arrogant and graceless television
debate with Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, double
damaging his reputation, now sees his hitherto
brilliant career abruptly checked. Such hopes as the
Socialists had of escaping defeat in next year's
elections have vanished.
Lastly, ironically, the Socialists find themselves
with an unwelcome debt to the army, which is now
saying to the government: We have sacrificed a
cabinet minister, for whom we had high regard, and
the chief of the intelligence service, in order to save
you. Two of our officers remain in prison in Auck-
land. Now it is your turn to do a few things for us.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605060008-0