...personalized powei powei ...personalized
JACQUES FOCCART FOCCART JACQUES
• •
Parts: Still Dotrig It De Gaulle's Way Way Gaulle's De It Dotrig Still Parts:
through highly partisan ac- ac- partisan highly through
haVe become well-known well-known become haVe
foreign experts on the in- the on experts foreign thi
interviews with French and and French with interviews
French operatives and to to and operatives French
World. War II, according to to according II, War World. telligence community here. here. community telligence
assassination of opponents opponents of assassination published accounts of former former of accounts published
on political dissidents since since dissidents political on
and conducted internal spying spying internal conducted and
operations in foreign coun- foreign in operations tries, been involved in the the in involved been tries,
routinely undertaken covert covert undertaken routinely
telligence services have have services telligence
Many of the French exploits exploits French the of Many
.
PARIS—French in- PARIS—French
otigh leaks to the press and and press the to leaks otigh
Wash,ngton Wash,ngton
Fourth of a Series Series a of Fourth
By Jim Hoagland Hoagland Jim By
4
100;c
Poil Foreign Service Service Foreign Poil
'publicly 'publicly
- There have ,been internal internal ,been have There -
and always with the top top the with always and figures of the regime carefully carefully regime the of figures spectacular French failures, failures, French spectacular
quietly, if at times brutally, brutally, times at if quietly, after some o. the more more the o. some after
honsecleanings at lower levels levels lower at honsecleanings
sins laid at the door of the U.S. U.S. the of door the at laid sins but they have been carried.out carried.out been have they but Central Intelligence Agency. Agency. Intelligence Central
Senate's attempt to delineate delineate to attempt Senate's
responsibility for the kinds of of kinds the for responsibility seller. seller.
comparable here to the U.S. U.S. the to here comparable
with a sensationalized best best sensationalized a with
own names or to turn a profit profit a turn to or names own
agents hoping to clear their their clear to hoping agents
counts written by disgruntled disgruntled by written counts
But there has been nothing nothing been has there But
Other Cloaks, Other Daggers---IV Daggers---IV Other Cloaks, Other
Die Die
the the
2 2
4,1975 4,1975
political political
serious threats of civil war war civil of threats serious
were loyal only to him and not not and him to only loyal were
Faced at different times with with times different at Faced
services that "paralleled" "paralleled" that services
government agencies and and agencies government
to the formal bureaucraty. bureaucraty. formal the to who encouraged security security encouraged who
under Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Gaulle, de Charles Gen. under
operations that have brought brought have that operations criticism in the United States. States. United the in criticism
the CIA and FBI under sharp sharp under FBI and CIA the
France carry out the kinds of of kinds the out carry France
four different groups in in groups different four
multiplicity of French in- French of multiplicity
telligence operations. At least least At operations. telligence
cussions. cussions. insulation consists of the the of consists insulation
insulated from the reper- the from insulated
The proliferation grew up up grew proliferation The
An important layer of the the of layer important An
c t t c
o% o%
slipping across the English English the across slipping
lookout for double agents agents double for lookout
London was constantly on the the on constantly was London
French movement based in in based movement French from both left and right, De De right, and left both from
the legal niceties. The Free Free The niceties. legal the followers got into the habit of of habit the into got followers
not placing too fine a point on on point a fine too placing not
of government. government. of security service. Yet he was was he Yet service. security
details of the daily operation operation daily the of details
not one to pay attention to the the to attention pay to one not
centration of power in any one one any in power of centration
Gaulle did not want a con- a want not did Gaulle
resistance movement. A A movement. resistance
France to join the Gaullist Gaullist the join to France number of bodies of presumed presumed of bodies of number
Channel from Nazi-occupied Nazi-occupied from Channel
In wartime De Gaulle's Gaulle's De wartime In
See SPYING, A9, Col. 1 1 Col. A9, SPYING, See
and diplomatic sources. sources. diplomatic and
in Africa, according to French French to according Africa, in
and sharply deemphasizing deemphasizing sharply and
role in former French colonies colonies French former in role
their once paramount political political paramount once their munications and movements, movements, and munications
espionage and monitoring of of monitoring and espionage Communist country com- country Communist
also putting more of their their of more putting also
commercial and economic economic and commercial
resources into straight straight into resources
closely with the*CIA and other other and the*CIA with closely
Western intelligence agencies agencies intelligence Western and ip cooperating more more cooperating ip and
acronym is SDECE, has has SDECE, is acronym
than under De Gaulle. Gaulle. De under than
become more professionalized professionalized more become
documentation and coun- and documentation
CIA, the service of external external of service the CIA,
f
man French equivalent of the the of equivalent French man
terespionage, whose French French whose terespionage, smuggling, vice and gangland gangland and vice smuggling,
'allied unity, the scandal of of scandal the unity, 'allied
rivalries. rivalries.
intelligence with drug drug with intelligence
fringe operatives who mixed mixed who operatives fringe
the freewheeling activities of of activities freewheeling the Giscard has sharply curtailed curtailed sharply has Giscard
fitiii
intelligence functions: functions: intelligence
moved to centralize important important centralize to moved
France's current president, president, current France's
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, d'Estaing, Giscard Valery late Georges Pompidou and and Pompidou Georges late
disabuse them of that notion. notion. that of them disabuse
some of the Gaullist Gaullist the of some
maintained the attitude that that attitude the maintained
Gen. de Gaulle did little to to little did Gaulle de Gen.
they were ouside the law, and and law, the ouside were they
operatives seemed to have have to seemed operatives
having been meted out on on out meted been having British soil was hushed up. up. hushed was soil British
unofficial French justice justice French unofficial
1,a 1,a .ree French. In the interest of of interest the In French. .ree
The French services are are services French The
Under Giscard, the 2,000- the Giscard, Under
ne point from the cellar of a a of cellar the from point ne
ng
De Gaulle's successors, the the successors, Gaulle's De
Even after the war, at least least at war, the after Even
tli;lon building used by the the by used building tli;lon
fle agents were dug up at at up dug were agents fle
SPYING, From Al Al From SPYING,
make. make.
covering of bets that in- that bets of covering
telligence services often often services telligence operations represent more more represent operations
than than Gaulle and Pompidou. Pompidou. and Gaulle
operative on Africa and the the and Africa on operative
reputed boss of France's dirty dirty France's of boss reputed tricks sector under both De De both under sector tricks
once De Gaulle's chief chief Gaulle's De once
'President Mobutu Sese Seko Seko Sese Mobutu 'President
widely believed here to be be to here believed widely
directed by Jacques Foccart, Foccart, Jacques by directed
support, said to consist of of consist to said support,
money, arms and the promise promise the and arms money,
to recruit mercenaries, is is mercenaries, recruit to
to the much smaller . . smaller much the to
FLEC, based in Gabon. The The Gabon. in based FLEC,
Cabinda enclave, known as as known enclave, Cabinda liberation front for the the for front liberation
primatur is also is primatur
official government im- government official and diplomatic sources. sources. diplomatic and
cording to French, African African French, to cording
Liberation of Angola, ac- Angola, of Liberation
money to Holden Roberto's Roberto's Holden to money
National Front for the the for Front National with the CIA and Zaire's Zaire's and CIA the with
by channeling arms and and arms channeling by
evident approval, is now now is approval, evident cooperating, for example, example, for cooperating,
covert operations. operations. covert
important elements of French French of elements important
partmentalization are still still are partmentalization over." over."
says one foreign expert. "The "The expert. foreign one says
Africa for sentiment or the the or sentiment for Africa glory of France seem to be be to seem France of glory days of intervening directly in in directly intervening of days
French interests abroad are," are," abroad interests French
and a much more hardheaded hardheaded more much a and
economic approach to what what to approach economic
to what a small service can do, do, can service small a what to
much more realistic approach approach realistic more much
The two largely independent independent largely two The
French support without any any without support French
SDECE, with Giscard's Giscard's with SDECE,
But Africa and com- and Africa But
"Under Giscard, there is a a is there Giscard, "Under
the the
kind of routine routine of kind
; going directly directly going SDECE's interests in Angola seem to be largely strategic, although there is a healthy dose of economic self-interest involved. The French share American concern, about the spread of Communism and Soviet in- fluence in Africa, and are interested in building their influence in Zaire 'and maintaining it in South Africa, which ,iS,also helping the National' ''ront and its ally ' Foccart's operation is believeri, however, to have major 4R dommercial im- plicatitoni.. It is said to be largelylinance0 by the sizable private treasury Foccart can put together from French companies with interests in
Gabon, with an 'eye on Cabinda's oil reserves, or with outstanding political or other debts for Foccart's help during the De Gaulle and Pompidou days. It is a graphic demonstration of the per- sonalization of power by the Gaullists outside the channeli of government. Jacques Foccart, center, long linked to Foccart, 64, was elbowed President Hamani Diori of Niger and French intelligence operations in Africa, President Charles de Gaulle at Elysee out of his job As presidential looks on during a 1968 meeting between adviser shortly after Giscard Palace. was elected in 1974 and now runs a large export-import company here„ His network of informants and operatives is still largely intact, although diplomats report that the The 4cervice's 2,000-man apparatus no longer receives force h4ran official budget of any substantial amount of abobt 45 million a year, but onvernment money. experts say that it can draw on The post-World' War II $50 million hidden elsewhere history of France's in- in the budget in any given telligence services has been year. Agents' expense ac- stained by repeated scandal, counts are reportedly severely internal intrigue and scrutinized by finance cooperation with criminal ministry officials delegated to elements that makes the the swimming pool. known CIA links to the Mafia Most of ifs agents abroad look small. But no political body here has had the in- dependence or strength- to run a full-scale inquiry similar to . the Senate intelligence committee's report on the CIA. Such a body would also have extreme difficulty in coming up with docuMents or wit- nesses. Foceart carted off several truckloads of documents after the deaths of De Gaulle and Pompidou)and some of the key figures in scandals brought to public light have died violent deaths. The four major French intelligence services are: 1.—SDECE founded after World War II with help from DE MARENCHES American intelligence, the ...picked up the pieces service is known as .the "swimming pool" by the French because of the proximity of its headquarters to the Tourelles swimming appear to operate under pool on the outskirts of Paris. diplomatic cover as military The service is formally part attaches in embassies. In the of the ministry of defense but past, much of their work hap has a direct line of com- been confined to traditional munication to the presidency intelligence-gathering, while through o ne of Giscard's covert operations were left to advisers and coordinates Foccart's network. closely with Giscard's interior minister, Michel Poniatowski. Like De Gaulle's interior Copyright Alfred Eisenstaeat, Time in, ministers, Poniatowski is probably the key man in PHILIPPE DE VOSJOIA security and intelligence —CIA connection policy decisions. The service maintains that to French and foreign sources. it only operates abroad. But a CIA Deputy Director Vernon Indications have emerged secret SDECE repo4t obtained Walters reportedly praised recently• that the source of by The Washington Post SDECE in Paris for its those documents wasU former shows SDECE surveillance of cooperation during the journalist named Dominique French dissidents and foreign Vietnam peace talks here. Calzi, who says he was a leftists in France and what The portly De Marenches member of Foccart's. appears. to be routine has also intensified com- "parallel" police and was able distribution of such reports to mercial spying. A French to- make off with copies of the ministry of the interior, source who usually offers no many of its documents. the national police and the compliments to the service Calzi, who was jailed on interior ministry's domestic says that the. French were longstanding charges shortly , counterespionage agency. kept fully informed of secret after the leaks about the DST The May 1972 report con- American negotiating lists appeared, published his cerns meetings in Toulouse proposals during this year's own account last month of that between French intellectuals "deal of the century," when incident and of more than a and leftists from Cuba, Brazil American and French dozen other major scandals, and Uruguay identified by the manufacturers competed to accusing Foccart's men of the service as Communist agents. sell jet fighters to four Ben Barka kidnaping, gold Reflecting a deep-rooted smaller European nations. and drug smuggling; the French distrust of secret De Marenches is con- kidnaping in West Germany of services, governments here centrating .on recruiting Col. Antoine Argoud, a top have avoided naming graduates of France's most leader of the military men professional spies to head prestigious universitiesto fill who rebelled against De SDECE. High-ranking lower level vacancies an)ii has Gaulle over Algeria, and of military men, whose disputes brought military men into the murdering African exile with their career cloak and top ranks of the service's leader Felix Moumie in dagger deputies have operational branches to exert Geneva in 1960. produced much of the in- more control. 3.—The Civil Action Service formation that has leaked out 2.—The Directorate of is the formal name of Foc- about the • service, have Territorial Surveillance cart's network, known by its usually held the post. comes under Poniatowski's French initials, SAC, or more Pompidou appointed the direct control and handles popularly as.aesBarbouzes" aristocratic Col. Alexandre de counterespionage inside (the false beards). Marenches, 55, in 1970 to clean France. There is • strong According to Calzi and other up and revitalize the service, evidence that the DST taps the French sources, Foccart built shaken by discovery of serious phones of, the embassies not his network sit of the.sti.ong- Communist infiltration, the only of all Communist nations, arm "order" section of 'De linking of some of its agents to but also of Israel, key former Gaulle's postWar political drug smuggling and the purge French colonies and, probably movement, the authoritarian- De Gaulle ordered after the United States-and Britain., _ inclined Rally of the -French SDECE's role in helping "We 'know our phones ar People. Originally conceived arrange the 1965 kidnaping in tapped," said a diplomat in an by De Gaulle and Foccart as a Paris that led to the presumed embassy where electronic means to infiltrate the state murder of Mofoccan dissident testshave been run. — services and prepare the way Mehdi Ben Barka became The DST was also im- for taking power, the unof- public knowledge That plicated in an attempt to, tap ficial service grew rapidly operation was apparently a the offices of France's leading during the Algerian war and Foccart's men were placed return favor to the Moroccan satirical newspaper, Le became the chief instrument in key positions on develop- secret services in return for Canard Enchaine, which has of dirty tricks during De ment boards and agencies past favors rendered. published exposes on the Gaulle's rule. channeling government funds SDECE itself routinely French police, intelligence, At its height in recent years, to Black Africa, giving them carried out assassinations of arms dealings and other SAC had 120 full-time staff life-and-death powers over the gun runners and Algerian sensitive subjects. "directors" and could call on weakest regimes and, it is rebels during the Algerian The DST turned over to 23,000 "correspondents" often said,' the chance to revolt, according to former Foccart's network lists of ranging from dedicated gather large kickbacks from SDECE agents. suspected dissidents in Gaullist war veterans to the cooperative regimes for SAC's In a scenario distinctly Marseilles, Grenoble and most violent thugs in the. treasury and that of the reminiscent of CIA Lyons during the upheavals of Marseilles underground, Gaullist Party generally. discussions on how to kill May 1968 as part of a plan to aronrding to Calzi. SAC frequently intervened Lumumba and Castro, one round up and intern potential to pluck criminals from prison agent has described how the troublemakers in soccer for important missions like service considered stadiums or camps, according the Argoud kidnaping and a eliminating a gun runner to unrefuted documents number of murders Calzi pins named Marcel Leopold by published by the French press on SAC operatives. He poisoning the milk bottles on last year. charges that drug operations, his doorstep or sending him a holdups and blackmail were bomb in a boot (both rejected routine ways for SAC to build because they might harm the up its treasury and to reward target's family) before doing criminals for political him in with a poison dart from operations. a blowgun fashioned out of a 4.—The General Infor- bicycle pump. mation (RG) section of the The service's foriner top national police has frequently liaison man with the CIA in worked closely with all three Washington, Philippe of the other services. Its Thyraud de Vosjoli, claims in primary mission is internal a book published in Canada political espionage. It appears last month that a committee to bs the least trusted of the headed by Pompidou, then De intelligence services, partly Gaulle's prime minister, because it is highly politicized approved plans to have without' having declared SDECE assassinate foreign exclusive allegiance to De leaders, including Sekou Gaulle and his successors. Toure/of Guinea and Habib Following the established Bourguiba of Tunisia during SEKOU TOURE tradition of the pre-De the 1960s. Both men are still in HABIB BOURGUIBA ■ ...still in power despite being targeted Gaulle era, agents appear not power. to be above trying to curry Vosjoli was forced to leave favor with opposition groups the service after becoming too. of today that might be' in close to the CIA for De power tomorrow. Gaulle's liking. "Sure, we knew the RG was De Marenches has been able spying on us during the to reestablish fairly good campaign," says a Socialist working relations with the American agency, according from the RG, too, so the regime could not be too confident of its information on us,,, But a more expert and detached observer of that campaign recalled: "Yes, the Socialists were getting a little information, but they couldn't have been getting Much because an RG agent infiltrated their top planning staff and they didn't know it until it came out in the papers." A ministry of interior of- ficial described the section's functions "as a kind of public opinion poll, that's all. They ANTOINE ARGOUD MEHDI BEN BARKA are just there to let the ...Foccart's operatives got their men w - government know what the people are thinking politically, Party official of the 1974 in his office and the -blinds so we can have a good idea of presidential elections. Can- drawn when we discussed what we should do." didate Franco% "Mitterrand campaign plans. Anyway, we always had the radio playing were getting information NEXT: How The Chinese Spy
Fruitless Search For M.DeMarenches Washington Pos Foreign Service PARIS—The following are the reporter to call back in two excerpts froni two telephone, days.) conversations in search of S D R: Fine. What number E C E, France's Service de should I call, or what is the Documentation Exterieure et name of your office? de Contre Espionage (Service S: No, just call the switch- of External Documentation board again, and you will find and Counter Espionage), the us. French CIA; headed by Col. Two days later, the reporter Alexandre de Marenches. contacts a Capt. Dulin, aide to Operator: Hello, Minister of De Marenches. Defense, Operator 46. Dulin: You know, Col: De Reporter: Could I have the Marenches has never seen a office of Mr. De Marenches? journalist and-will not now. In Washington, you seem to cid 0: .11mm. How do you spell things 'differently, but in that? I don't have any name France, I assure you, we don't like that on my list. I'll give do things that„way. Besides, you information. Hold on. we could tell you nothing, Second Operator: Hold on. nothing at all. Third Operator: Hold on. R: Could you just teltme R: Excuse me, could you what Taws authorize -the tell me the number I should existence of SDECE? call or the name of the of fief? Dalin: Well, I have 'never - 0: No, I'm not authorized to heard of any and I dqiibt that tell you the name. Hold on. they exist. In any event, if Secretary: Hello. they do, I, don't know them. (The conversation produces One other thirig—pleasetell us a promise of a reply to the when you propose to 'imblish reporter's request for an in- this article. We• will read it terview. • The secretary tells closely." _jinaipagiand