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This Friday, October 14, marks the 60th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. Two intense weeks in which the Caribbean and the world went to the brink of nuclear war. RFI takes you on a journey through the French diplomatic archives to learn about the important role France played in this intense episode.
“One believes that diplomats are spies. No, their job is to tell what they see. In this case, it is true that, since August 1962, the French embassy in Cuba realized that things were happening”, explains Jean Mendelson, former French ambassador to Cuba, a position he held 20 years after those tense weeks in October 1962, when the world was on the verge of catastrophe and all eyes were on the island and the Soviet missiles that Americans discovered there.
Today, Mendelson is responsible for the archives of French diplomacy. He is one of the guardians of the millions of telegrams that France has received throughout its history, such as the one sent from Havana on August 18, 1962. It reads: “Important groups of young people between 20 and 30 years of age have disembarked from Russian ships in Mariel and Bahía-Honda. It is secretly estimated that there are at least 4,000 people of Slavic or North European origin”.
“A French non-commissioned officer, returning from Pinar del Río to Havana, after a weekend, saw blond young men, with white skin, carrying bags, military equipment, so he reported.” After carrying out some verifications, the ambassador notified Paris and the information traveled to Washington, where President John F. Kennedy, an ally of the French government in the cold war, had suspicions that the Soviets were up to something in Cuba. What the non-commissioned officer saw was undoubtedly part of the now famous Anadir operation. “France confirmed the serious suspicions that the Americans had and of course from this moment on the alliance was fundamental,” stresses Jean Mendelson.
“The missile crisis was actually a thousand times more dramatic than believed. The Americans estimated some 10,000 Soviet soldiers in Cuba. Actually, there were 30,000. They realized that there were tactical nuclear weapons on the island: Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles inside the submarines that were supposed to assist the missile-laden container ships,” details Vincent Touze, historian and specialist on the Cuban missile crisis.
french support
Kennedy decided to avoid a frontal attack with Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union and opted for a naval air blockade of the island. The announcement was made on October 22, 1962 in a speech to the nation. “Hours earlier he had warned his allies. He sent a former foreign minister, Dean Acheson, to brief General Charles De Gaulle. His reaction ended up marking the history of the alliance between France and the United States. The White House feared that De Gaulle would disapprove, because he claimed a certain independence from Washington. But immediately, even before Dean Acheson showed him images of the presence of missiles in Cuba, de Gaulle offered France’s backing to the United States, he gave his full support,” says Touze.
In late October, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missiles. As a result of the crisis, they also decide to create the famous red telephone, which continues to date connecting Washington and Moscow.
Diplomatic files preserved by France indicate that General Charles de Gaulle was dissatisfied with the way Kennedy handled the situation. “As a country with a nuclear weapon, it is delicate to unilaterally involve allies,” says the former ambassador to Cuba. “There is a letter from de Gaulle, addressed to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the time. It said: ‘Neither you nor we have been consulted by the United States. A good ally would have had to not only inform but also consult.'”
The spy who emerged from France
Another aspect that undoubtedly left the French with a bad taste was the direction he took from one of his informants, a man named Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, who frequently traveled to Cuba. “He was the official representative of the French secret services (SDECE) in Washington, with the title of vice-consul and appointed with the agreement of the CIA,” Mendelson details. “That character did not report to the French, but to the Americans. He was a French spy, a double agent for the Americans, that is, a traitor.”
Summoned by Paris in 1963, Vosjoli decides never to return and remains a refugee in the United States. As he wrote years later, returning to France would have been certain death. He passed away in Washington in 2000.
Did Cuba lead Paris and Washington to divorce?
The story of the French CIA spy in Cuba gave a lot to talk about, but it was a minor incident. It was not what really weakened the relationship between the French and American governments. “The consequence of this crisis is paradoxical. De Gaulle himself realizes that the world was on the brink of a nuclear war, that Europe almost became the victim of a nuclear conflict on its soil, not on US or Soviet soil,” he stresses. historian Vincent Touze. “That’s why, in 1963, he makes an anti-American speech in which he opts for an independent French nuclear defense. He ends up withdrawing France from NATO a few years later.”
Did Cuba lead Paris and Washington to divorce? In any case, this episode of high tension inaugurated a new chapter in the French defense. In March 1966, Charles De Gaulle notified Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon Johnson, of his intention to leave NATO’s Integral Command. France will not rejoin until 2007.
