JFK's support for De Gaulle versus CIA-OAS

[Paul Rigby]

"As late as April 1961, at the time of the Challe putsch in Algeria, President Kennedy could commit what seems in retrospect the extraordinary blunder of offering the use of the American Sixth Fleet to oppose a rebel attempt to land in France…"

Anthony Hartley, "Has Gaullism A Future ?", Encounter, August 1967, p. 56

"Pamphlet, being distributed in Oran, published by the National Committee of American Friends of the French Secret Army Organisation…"

"U.S. Group Supports Algeria Terrorists," New York Times, 13 April 1962, p. 6

Does anyone know of a good book (better yet, books) which covers the subject of Kennedy's relations with De Gaulle?

[Mark Stapleton]

Don't know of any books specifically devoted to that relationship Paul, but Arthur Schlesinger Jr's 'A Thousand Days' contains several references to their relationship.

JFK was concerned that De Gaulle's late conversion to the cause of Algerian independence had made him unpopular with certain sections of the French military and the OAS. Even though De Gaulle refused the offer of military assistance and the coup fizzled out anyway, I don't agree with the author (Hartley's) categorisation of this as an 'extraordinary blunder'.

[Charles Drago]

Two titles that at least are in your ballpark:

Challenging De Gaulle: The O.A.S. and the Counterrevolution in Algeria, 1954-1962, by Alexander Harrison; Praeger, 1989. Warning: Introduction by William Colby.

Target de Gaulle: The True Story of the 31 Attempts on the Life of the French President, by Pierre Demaret and Christian Plume; The Dial Press, 1973.

In re the latter: For those of us who understand the first "terrible sound" in Dealey Plaza as a means to sow confusion and what I've termed "cognitive dissonance" within the perceptions of witnesses, the following passage is appreciated:

Writing of the November, 1958 attack on de Gaulle in the Rue de Rome by elements of Jeune Nation, the authors note, "The idea was to create panic among the crowd by setting of thunderflashes and powerful smoke-bombs giving off vast quantities of smoke. In the confusion the party would rush the general's open car and assassinate him."

In addition, there is at least one chapter's worth of de Gaulle/Kennedy analysis.

[Paul Rigby]

Don't know of any books specifically devoted to that relationship Paul, but Arthur Schlesinger Jr's 'A Thousand Days' contains several references to their relationship.

Thanks for the reminder about Schlesinger. I'd either forgotten, or never noticed, that he'd had anything to say on the subject.

JFK was concerned that De Gaulle's late conversion to the cause of Algerian independence had made him unpopular with certain sections of the French military and the OAS. Even though De Gaulle refused the offer of military assistance and the coup fizzled out anyway, I don't agree with the author (Hartley's) categorisation of this as an 'extraordinary blunder'.

I wish I could find a really good piece - by which I mean a real nuts and bolts job of who did what when - on the Challe putsch. I strongly suspect there's a fascinating story awaiting the telling, one much to Kennedy's credit.

[Paul Rigby]

Two titles that at least are in your ballpark:

Challenging De Gaulle: The O.A.S. and the Counterrevolution in Algeria, 1954-1962, by Alexander Harrison; Praeger, 1989. Warning: Introduction by William Colby.

Target de Gaulle: The True Story of the 31 Attempts on the Life of the French President, by Pierre Demaret and Christian Plume; The Dial Press, 1973.

I got the first from the library years ago, CD, but I felt the dread hand of Praeger's sponsor at work: Colby practiced some of his legendary limited hang-out skills on the subject in the mid-1970s, with a spate of newspaper articles such as "Former CIA director William Colby confirmed that "foreigners" had sought the Agency's assisstance with such a plot, although he insisted the CIA declined to participate" (The Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1975). And so on and so forth.

The second I own, but due to my sophisticated hi-tech storage and retrieval system, am presently unable to remember which unlabelled box it's in.

In re the latter: For those of us who understand the first "terrible sound" in Dealey Plaza as a means to sow confusion and what I've termed "cognitive dissonance" within the perceptions of witnesses, the following passage is appreciated:

Writing of the November, 1958 attack on de Gaulle in the Rue de Rome by elements of Jeune Nation, the authors note, "The idea was to create panic among the crowd by setting of thunderflashes and powerful smoke-bombs giving off vast quantities of smoke. In the confusion the party would rush the general's open car and assassinate him."

Parapolitical prestidigitation - now this I like.

[Phil Dragoo]

[size=12]The next day, the leftist Italian newspaper,

[/SIZE][size=12]Il Paese
[/SIZE]

[size=12], stated that “It is not by chance[/SIZE]

[size=12]that some people in Paris are accusing the
American secret service headed by Allen Dulles
of having participated in the plot of the four
‘ultra’ generals.” Dulles expressed the opinion
that “This particular myth was a Communist

plant, pure and simple.”
[/SIZE]
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/is..._22-23.pdf

[Paul Rigby]

[size=12]The next day, the leftist Italian newspaper,

[/SIZE][size=12]Il Paese
[/SIZE]

[size=12], stated that “It is not by chance[/SIZE]

[size=12]that some people in Paris are accusing the
American secret service headed by Allen Dulles
of having participated in the plot of the four
‘ultra’ generals.” Dulles expressed the opinion
that “This particular myth was a Communist

plant, pure and simple.”
[/SIZE]
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/is..._22-23.pdf

CIA was industrious in spreading the line that it was all a got-up Commie plot. Happily, not everyone was buying:

From our own correspondent (Washington, May 2), "U.S. Support For French Generals' Revolt/Mr.Allen Dulles' Denial," The Times, 3 May 1961, p.10:

Mr. Allen Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, today appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee for Latin America to explain the part his agency played in the Cuban fiasco. He appeared at a time when persistent reports from France that the CIA supported the revolt of the generals in Algeria continue to embarrass the Administration.

The reports, which appear to have been originated in the Soviet press, have been repeated and enlarged by French newspapers, and the White House thought it necessary to make discrete inquiries. The anti-communist fervour of the CIA agents is legendary, and it is a comment on the ways of this city that the Administration was obviously not at all certain whether some secret crusader had decided it was necessary to depose General de Gaulle in order to make North Africa safe for freedom and the capitalist system.

Inquiries among staffs

The State Department made inquiries among the staffs of its embassy and agencies in France and North Africa without uncovering a plot, but it is well known that CIA men rarely bother to inform the ambassador of their activities. The inquiry was extended to the CIA, and Mr. Dulles yesterday issued a solemn denial. ‘Any reports or allegations that the CIA may or any of its personnel had anything to do with the generals’ revolt were completely untrue,’ Mr. Dulles said.

But, alas, according to the New York Times, French opinion, both official and public, appears to believe that Mr. Dulles is only dutifully playing his part in an elaborate plot. Irritation in the Administration is reported because French officials are believed to be fanning suspicion instead of denying the reports.
Presumably the reports are untrue, but the fact of the matter is that no reporter can categorically state that they are. Cuba, Guatemala, and a number of other CIA episodes remind him that nothing can be certain in the jungle of suspicion created by the agency. The dilemma should caution the Administration, busy with its plan for unconventional and subversive war.

Cuba Fiasco

The search for a culprit for the Cuba fiasco continues both in and out of Congress. Apart from the hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee for Latin America, as usual those involved have counter-attacked with discreet but newspaper reports. President Kennedy’s efforts to maintain the unity of his Administration by assuming full responsibility have to that extent failed; the victim of Cuba might well be the bright promise of this Administration.

The Pentagon counter-attacked in the Baltimore Sun today when an unnamed military gentleman claimed that Cuba was military business. The trouble, as he saw it, was that the dominant influence upon Washington thinking, and quite probably American thinking for several years, had been that of intellectuals basically opposed in principle and practice to the concept of military force.

There is no end in sight to this kind if thing, but Mr. Walter Lippmann devoted his column today to a proposal that does not appear to have occurred to many of those involved. Mr. Lippmann proposed that after a disaster of this kind the mistake can be purged and confidence restored only by resignation.

Confidence shaken

Unlike the British system, Mr. Lippman continued, the chief executive does not and cannot resign, but if there is to be accountability the President must hold responsible those whose constitutional or statutory duty it is to advise him. It is a painful business but the confidence of the American people and their friends throughout the world is at stake.

If Mr. Lippmann’s advice has not been taken the upper layer of the Administration has been given a discreet shake, and men such as Mr. Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General and the President’s brother, Mr. Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Ted Sorensen, the President’s chief assistant, are among those who appear to have come out on top. Mr. Allen Dulles, Mr. Richard Bissell, Jnr., his deputy, General Lymnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some of President Kennedy’s advisers from Harvard have been, it would appear, submerged.

[Paul Rigby]

René Etiemble, Parlez-vous franglais? (1973 ed.), p.234:

“…Washington's hate against the only European statesman who, since the 'Liberation,' dares resist the pretensions of the dollar. Since the OAS has not been able to get rid of him, and since they have not been able to buy him, American finance is out to get his hide."

[Paul Rigby]

Best single piece I can find is a chapter (24), "France/Algeria 1960s: L'etat, c'est la CIA," from the 1995 reprint of William Blum's 1986 book, The CIA: A Forgotten History, which appeared under the new title of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press). It is, though, only four and half pages worth; and gives nearly a quarter of that to Colby's limited hang-out press collection of the mid-1970s.

[Helen Reyes]

Two (or three) questions:

1) Didn't Kennedy support Nasser in Egypt and the general cause of Arab nationalism to the extent that he refused a military adventure by Israel, France and the UK to invade? And wasn't this anathema to National Oil of New Jersey?

2) When did de Gaulle pull France out of NATO?

3) When exactly was the failed "generals' coup" in Morocco in the 1960s or 70s?