Newly declassified documents from the US State Department reveal that the Americans spied on the French nuclear weapons programme from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.
What was unexpected was the scale of the operations, the deployment of satellites, U2 spy planes and war ships, particularly after Charles de Gaulle, unlike Harold Macmillan, refused US assistance in order to remain genuinely independent. The time and date of nuclear tests were known before they took place, confirming that old-fashioned human spies were also used.
A 1946 document notes: “It is well known that at the French Atomic Energy Commission they are all Communists or Communist sympathisers.” Even before the decision was taken to build a nuclear weapon, the CIA was closely watching senior staff working on nuclear programme.
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What was unexpected was the scale of the operations, the deployment of satellites, U2 spy planes and war ships, particularly after Charles de Gaulle, unlike Harold Macmillan, refused US assistance in order to remain genuinely independent. The time and date of nuclear tests were known before they took place, confirming that old-fashioned human spies were also used.
A 1946 document notes: “It is well known that at the French Atomic Energy Commission they are all Communists or Communist sympathisers.” Even before the decision was taken to build a nuclear weapon, the CIA was closely watching senior staff working on nuclear programme.
203/8