Soviet Espionage in France during the Cold War: An Overview

Abstract

During the Cold War, France remained a soft touch for Soviet intelligence. Among the large communist population—war veterans and about 25% of the postwar electorate—Soviets found fertile ground for recruiting agents and collaborators who would betray their country, although it is fair to say most philosophical and political communists did not engage in espionage. Spy rings led by the State Committee for Security (KGB) and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) controllers in the Russian embassy’s rezidence overwhelmed French security precautions. In addition, the Soviet espionage apparatus maintained an extensive infrastructure in the Moscow Center that supported quantitative intelligence collected in France on a massive scale. The addition of agents from satellite countries stretched French counterintelligence beyond its limits. All this is not to say that French security was completely ineffective. Security agencies unmasked spies and arrested hundreds for espionage; so too, hundreds of Soviets with diplomatic immunity were expelled. French security also benefited from consequential defections of Soviet agents and the crowning but fortuitous achievement of a mole inside the KGB itself. But poor French security exacerbated deteriorating relations with the United States and compromised North Atlantic Treaty Organization secrets. Regardless of the détente between East and West, Soviet espionage continued unabated.