I think we in America mostly vaguely remember France’s President de Gaulle as a ‘very French’ president who was a strong advocate for France and sometimes tricky to interact with for us.
I’m not sure how many know the history of how de Gaulle was nearly assassinated, and also nearly overthrown, over an issue that resonates in our politics today — likely with CIA complicity.
The background for the conflict was the issue of the French colony of Algiera. (A classic movie — with mixed amounts of accuracy — about the conflict in Algiers is The Battle of Algiers).
I’m no expert on the issue but suspect it resonates with the immigrant issues today to a point.
We know how much anti-Hispanic immigrant sentiments in the US fuel the Republicans today.
For example, I was just listening to some history on how the #2 Republican in Congress, Eric Cantor, was defeated — his challenger had difficulty getting any support until his campaign found the issue of immigration and that they could attack Cantor for being somewhat human on the issue. Then right-wing media endorsed the challenger and attacked Cantor for being too pro-immigrant — and we had a stunning upset. And of course in today’s news, France just had the presidential runner-up get to the #2 position based on anti-immigrant sentiment.
And the issue of the colony of Algiers was more powerful. I’d think for comparison, we might think that for all the issues with Mexico today politically, imagine that Mexico was our colony, and we’d had it for over a century, and then some liberal came along and said we’re going to give up our colony, with massive opposition from the right, including the military.
Today, the right’s attacks are about being ‘too soft’ on the immigrants coming and living here; then the attacks were about being ‘too soft’ on the colonized, giving up a colony.
And one factor in that emotion was that France had fought a war in Algiers for years against their nationalist forces wanting independence — the military felt that giving them that independence would make all of the French people who had been killed in the war have been killed for no reason, and that it was treason to France to support their independence.
Imagine an American politician during the American war saying, ‘you know, the North Vietnamese were right to want independence, let’s give them what they want’.
It would have been views as a shocking betrayal of our country and the sacrifices we’d made against those forces — as much as we’ve later come to largely hold that view.
When President de Gaulle, who had taken power expected to fight to keep Algiera a colony, called for independence, an opposition movement, led by retired military officials including the former head of France’s occupation force in Algeria, formed, and began tactics including bombings around Paris and eventually led to an attempted coup of de Gaulle, with a large force of paratroopers ready to fly in to Paris and seize power.
At the height of the crisis, things didn’t look good for de Gaulle — but he shut down all air travel around Paris and spoke to the nation ordering them to fight the coup, and prevailed in preventing the invasion — the leaders were arrested when their cause became lost. President Kennedy offered US military assistance which de Gaulle refused.
Then French newspaper L’Express reported at the time:
Both in Paris and in Washington the facts are now known, though they will never be publicly admitted. In private, the highest French personalities make no secret of it. What they say is this: "The CIA played a direct part in the Algiers coup, and certainly weighed heavily on the decision taken by ex-general Challe to start his putsch."
David Talbot has written of the history in his book “The Devil’s Chessboard”, a history of CIA Director Allen Dulles, as well.
He reports that Allen Dulles had widely placed CIA assets in French society, and that when de Gaulle took power he made an effort to purge those CIA assets — making an enemy of Dulles.
He’s written an article on the issue excerpting the book.
Without the knowledge or consent of President John F. Kennedy, Allen Dulles orchestrated the efforts of retired French generals, rightwing French, Nazi sympathizers, and at least one White Russian, to overthrow Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to give Algeria its independence. Dulles et al feared an independent Algeria would go Communist, giving the Soviets a base in Africa.
And there was another reason to hang onto Algeria: its natural resources. According to the US Energy Information Administration, it is “the leading natural gas producer in Africa, the second-largest natural gas supplier to Europe outside of the region, and is among the top three oil producers in Africa.”
News that the coup was being led by the widely admired Maurice Challe, a former air force chief and commander of French forces in Algeria, stunned the government in Paris, from de Gaulle down.
Challe, a squat, quiet man, was a World War II hero and, so it had seemed, a loyal Gaullist. But the savage passions of the war in Algeria had deeply affected Challe and left him vulnerable to the persuasions of more zealous French officers. He had promised Algeria’s French settlers and pro-French Muslims that they would not be abandoned, and he felt a soldierly responsibility to stand by his oath, as well as by the memory of the French servicemen who had lost their lives in the war. In his radio broadcast to the people of France, the coup leader explained that he was taking his stand against de Gaulle’s “government of capitulation … so that our dead shall not have died for nothing.”
Stories about the CIA’s French intrigues soon began spreading to the American press. A Paris correspondent for The Washington Post reported that Challe had launched his revolt “because he was convinced he had unqualified American support” — assurances, Challe was led to believe, “emanating from President Kennedy himself.” Who gave these assurances, the Post reporter asked his French sources? The Pentagon, the CIA? “It’s the same thing,” he was told.
The attempted coup happened two days after Dulles had attempted to manipulate President Kennedy to invade Cuba, in the Bay of Pigs, which Robert Kennedy called “virtually treason”.
Allen Dulles was once again making his own policy, this time in France. There was a long history of acrimony between Dulles and de Gaulle, dating back to World War II and the complex internal politics of the French Resistance.
As OSS chief in Switzerland, Dulles favored a far right faction of the Resistance that was opposed to de Gaulle. In his war memoirs, de Gaulle accused Dulles of being part of “a scheme” that was determined to “silence or set aside” the French general. Pierre de Bénouville, a right-wing Resistance leader on Dulles’s OSS payroll, was later accused of betraying Jean Moulin, de Gaulle’s dashing representative in the French underground, to the Gestapo.
After he was captured, Moulin was subjected to brutal torture before being beaten to death — by the notorious war criminal Klaus Barbie, according to some accounts.
After de Gaulle was elected president in 1958, he sought to purge the French government of its CIA-connected elements. Dulles had made heavy inroads into France’s political, cultural, and intelligence circles in the postwar years. According to some French reports, during his visits to Paris the spymaster would set himself up at a suite in the Ritz Hotel, where he would dispense bags full of cash to friendly politicians, journalists, and other influential figures. Some were wined and dined and enticed with beautiful Parisian call girls.
De Gaulle was particularly determined to shut down the secret “stay-behind army” that Dulles had organized in France — a network of anti-Communist militants with access to buried arms caches who were originally recruited to resist a potential Soviet invasion but were now aligned with the rebellious generals and other groups plotting to overthrow French democracy.
The opposition was not limited to the attempted coup and terrorism — they had also attempted to assassinate de Gaulle repeatedly. Courtesy of history.com:
In August 1962, a group called the OAS (Secret Army Organization in English) plotted an assassination attempt on President De Gaulle, who they believed had betrayed France by giving up Algeria (in northern Africa) to Algerian nationalists. Near dusk on August 22, 1962, De Gaulle and his wife were riding from the Elysee Palace to Orly Airport. As his black Citroen DS sped along the Avenue de la Liberation in Paris at 70 miles per hour, 12 OAS gunmen opened fire on the car. A hail of 140 bullets, most of them coming from behind, killed two of the president’s motorcycle bodyguards, shattered the car’s rear window and punctured all four of its tires. Though the Citroen went into a front-wheel skid, De Gaulle’s chauffeur was able to accelerate out of the skid and drive to safety, all thanks to the car’s superior suspension system. De Gaulle and his wife kept their heads down and came out unharmed.
As concerned as we are with the rise of the far right in the French election, it’s interesting to note how similar interests had resulted in such a greater crisis — with CIA complicity — earlier.
It’s a good reminder how fighting these forces in the election is so important lest it end up in worse crisis, fighting in the streets, subversion in the military.
It’s ominous to see the history of how these disgruntled forces could organize terrorist operations and attempt to seize power.
It’s unfortunate the history of how these forces have been such threats is so much forgotten.
Today we take for granted the end of centuries-long European colonization of the third world.
But in my opinion, Kennedy was something of a historic civil rights leader in terms of his support for ending that colonization, and it’s largely forgotten.
But it’s not hard to imaging the powerful forces who had wanted to exploit those countries for wealth and power. What a great victory for that to have been ended as explicit colonization.
