The service of external documentation and counterintelligence ( fr.Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage , SDECE) - external intelligence of France from 1946 to 1982.
Due to the fact that the intelligence service, the Directorate General for Research and Analysis , inherited from the “ Fighting France ”, had many Soviet intelligence agents in its ranks, the government of the Fourth Republic carried out a reform in 1946, forming a new intelligence service - the External Documentation and Counter-espionage Service ( fr. Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage , SDECE), which was directly subordinate to the Prime Minister [1] .
In 1962, President de Gaulle reassigned SDECE to the Minister of Defense, limiting the scope of tasks of the special services to military issues only. The activities of SDECE in the 1960s and 1970s were criticized by the left-wing forces of France, in particular, the General Program, presented by the socialists and communists in 1972, included a demand by the communists to dissolve SDECE. However, during the first presidency of F. Mitterrand, the socialists tried to reform the SDECE. On June 17, 1981, Pierre Marion, the former director of the Paris airport, was appointed Director of SDECE, and on April 4, 1982, SDECE was renamed the Directorate General for External Security ( French Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure , DGSE).
Content
Known Operations
- Intelligence operations in the Indochina war ;
- Operation Condor under the command of Colonel Jean Sassi in Dienbienfu , April 30, 1954;
- Operations to suppress the supply of arms to the Algerian National Liberation Front during the Algerian war ;
- Abduction of a member of the national liberation movement of Morocco, Mahdi Ben-Barca ;
- An attempt to establish control over Nigerian oil by organizing an uprising of separatists in the Biafra region of Nigeria (May 1967) [2] .
- Notice of the Doomsday War beginning in October 1973 (SDECE was the first Western intelligence to receive this information);
- Notification of the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979;
- Operation Barracuda : supporting a coup against the emperor J.-B. Bocassa in the Central African Republic in 1979 and bringing the pro-French government to power;
- Attempted assassination attempts on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1977 and 1980;
- Support for separatist movements in Quebec , Operation Ascot;
- The assassination of Cameroon independence leader F. Mumiye in Geneva in 1960;
- According to Alfred McCoy in the book Heroin Politics in Southeast Asia (1972), SDECE received funds for its covert operations during the Indochina War from drug trafficking control in Indochina (see also The French Connection ) [3] .
Directors
- Andre Devavren (Colonel Passy) (DGER / SDECE), from April 19, 1945 to April 1946
- Henri-Alexis Ribier, from April 1946 to January 1951
- Pierre Bursico, from January 1951 to September 1957
- General Paul Grossen, from 1957 to 1962
- Paul Jacques, from 1962 to 1966
- Eugene Guibot, from 1966 to 1970
- Alexander de Maransch , from November 6, 1970 to June 12, 1981
- Pierre Marion (SDECE / DGSE), from June 17, 1981 to November 10, 1982.
In popular culture
- Professional
- Spy, get up
- Agent 117: Cairo - Spy Nest
- Agent 117: Mission to Rio
Notes
- ↑ Agentura.ru - DGSE - main Archived on September 17, 2013.
- ↑ Agentura.ru - Nigeria (unavailable link) . Date of treatment July 29, 2013. Archived July 17, 2013.
- ↑ Alfred Mc Coy, November 9, 1991 interview , by Paul DeRienzo
Literature
- Philippe Bernert. SDECE Service 7: l'histoire extraordinaire du colonel Le Roy-Finville et de ses clandestins. - Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1980 .-- ISBN 2-258-00786-0 .
- Roger Faligot, Pascal Krop. La Piscine: les services secrets français (1944-1984). - Paris: le Seuil, 1985 .-- 426 p. - ISBN 2-02-008743-X .
- Claude Faure. Aux services de la République: du BCRA à la DGSE. - Paris: Fayard, 2004 .-- 792 p. - ISBN 2-213-61593-4 .
- Christine Ockrent, Alexandre de Marenches. Dans le secret des princes. - Paris: Stock, 1986. - ISBN 2-234-01879-X .