France "Criminal, Absurd . . . and Stupid"

By Frederick Painton

In a private session with journalists last week, French President Francois Mitterrand described it as "criminal and absurd . . . and stupid." Indeed, whoever blew up and sank the Rainbow Warrior, flagship of the Greenpeace environmental organization, in New Zealand's Auckland harbor last July did not do France or its President any favor. As the usually pro-Mitterrand Paris daily Le Monde and other papers zeroed in on the culpability of the government in the mysterious act of sabotage, the President could no longer remain aloof from what was rapidly becoming one of France's worst political crises in the four years since the Socialist Party swept to power.

Members of an aroused conservative opposition quickly dubbed the affair "Underwatergate." They accused Mitterrand either of conducting a deceitful cover-up or of ignorance of his own government's secret-service operations. With crucial legislative elections only six months away, the President could not afford to see his moral authority jeopardized in the eyes of an electorate already largely disenchanted with Socialist leadership. As Mitterrand attempted to defuse the Greenpeace scandal, his Defense Minister, + Charles Hernu, resigned, a tacit admission of French wrongdoing in the affair. Paul Quiles, a Mitterrand loyalist who had been Minister of Town Planning, Housing and Transport, was quickly named to replace him. In addition, Vice Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of the French foreign espionage agency, was summarily sacked after he refused to answer pointed questions about secret- service missions to New Zealand.

The crisis was a bruising political setback for Mitterrand. And Hernu was a special loss. The 62-year-old former magistrate is a longtime confidant of the President's. Hernu almost single-handedly persuaded the Socialist Party in 1976 to support the French nuclear force de frappe, which it had officially opposed for six years. The Defense Minister personified the promilitary, antipacifist and Western-oriented thinking of the Mitterrand regime. He was also highly popular with France's armed forces. One opposition leader admitted that Hernu was "the only Socialist minister who should be kept in a new administration."

Warning signals of presidential wrath had been coming from the Elysee Palace for two days. At his weekly Cabinet meeting, Mitterrand asked questions about the Greenpeace affair and furiously turned to Hernu, whose responsibilities included overseeing the secret services. "I want to know," said Mitterrand. "I want to know." Next day the President sent a letter to Premier Laurent Fabius noting that French newspapers and magazines were uncovering "new elements that we cannot evaluate because of the absence of information from the appropriate services." It was a strange plea. Mitterrand was, in effect, asking his own government to supply information the press had already published. He ended the letter with a demand for action. "This situation cannot continue," wrote Mitterrand. "The moment has come to proceed without delay to changes of personnel and, if necessary, of structures responsible for these shortcomings."

For weeks the French press has steadily stripped away the credibility of the government, which had firmly denied any responsibility for the attack on the Rainbow Warrior, in which a Greenpeace photographer lost his life. In its first hasty search for culprits, the government had appointed as special investigator Bernard Tricot, a respected former chief of staff for President Charles de Gaulle. Tricot's report, completed in 17 days, revealed only a murky picture of French spies trying to learn about Greenpeace's plans for a floating protest against France's nuclear tests on the Pacific atoll of Mururoa this autumn. Although Tricot confirmed that there had been a French espionage mission in New Zealand, he absolved the government of responsibility for giving any direct order to sink the Greenpeace ship. Later, however, he admitted that he could have been "duped" by the officials he interrogated.

The possibility of a cover-up at the highest levels of government spurred the press into action. French newspapers and weeklies vied with one another to dig up detailed and colorful accounts of the operation against the Rainbow Warrior. It was inconceivable, Le Monde claimed, that Vice Admiral Lacoste, the foreign espionage chief, would have acted without orders. Among those who might have authorized the attack or allowed it to happen, the paper said, were Lacoste's superiors: General Jean-Michel Saulnier, Mitterrand's personal chief of staff when the surveillance scheme was conceived; General Jeannou Lacaze, then overall armed forces Chief of Staff; and Hernu. By most accounts, Mitterrand was not informed of the spying mission until a week after the Rainbow Warrior had been sunk. By that time the New Zealand police had arrested two French secret-service agents, Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, who had been posing as a honeymooning Swiss couple. Charged with murder, arson and passport offenses, the two face a preliminary hearing in New Zealand in November.

Almost until the moment the scandal exploded last week, Mitterrand's government clung to the findings of the Tricot report. But doubts were already growing within the Cabinet and the Socialist Party. Le Monde, among others, charged that the true saboteurs of the Rainbow Warrior were neither the jailed pair of French agents nor the three-man crew of the spy yacht Ouvea, which allegedly had been sent from the French territory of New Caledonia to back up the operation. The real hitmen, claimed Le Monde, were two unidentified frogmen, probably from France's underwater demolition training base in Corsica, who were supplied with explosives by the support teams. They were said to have attached two mines to the Rainbow Warrior, first a smaller charge to force any occupants off the ship, and then a second one to sink the craft. The two frogmen disappeared without a trace.

Within the government, Hernu alone denied the revelations, expressing "indignation" at what he called "a campaign of calumny against the French military." He insinuated that the campaign was part of a foreign plot against France's nuclear ambitions. Said Hernu: "I know well that in the shadow zones of this affair there is malice." Hernu pledged that if he had been "disobeyed or lied to," then the government would be asked to draw the proper conclusions.

Mitterrand did just that. In dismissing Hernu and ordering a shake-up within the secret services, the President aroused the displeasure of France's top military brass, who feel that their colleagues were sacrificed for political expediency. Yet Mitterrand had little choice, not only for his own government's future but for France's battered image. In New Zealand, Prime Minister David Lange responded sharply to Hernu's resignation. Said he: "France has handled the Rainbow Warrior affair in the most destructive way possible."

The leaders of France's conservative opposition parties, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, former Premier Raymond Barre and former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, carefully refrained from attacking Mitterrand, who has come to symbolize France's commitment to nuclear independence. But their underlings were scathing. Said National Assembly Deputy Philippe Mestre: "Either the President was aware--in which case he has lied and this is Watergate--or he was not aware, in which case he's a fool." For Mitterrand it was a no-win situation. Having tasted political blood, the opposition appeared intent on keeping up the pressure to force the government into making full disclosures about the New Zealand operation. For Le Monde and the other publications, questions remained. What did Hernu know, and who gave the order? Said the paper's executive editor, Daniel Vernet: "I'm not sure we'll ever know, but we'll try . . . to get the answers." Mitterrand's decisive action last week may have averted a governmental crisis, but the taint of political liability remained.

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante and B.J. Phillips/Paris