18. Attack on Greenpeace: France’s Nuclear Bomb (Ep 1)

Summary

The Rest Is Classified: Episode 18 – Attack on Greenpeace: France’s Nuclear Bomb (Ep 1)

Release Date: February 10, 2025
Hosts: David McCloskey & Gordon Corera

---

Introduction

In the eighteenth episode of The Rest Is Classified, hosts David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and spy novelist, and veteran security correspondent Gordon Corera delve into one of the most audacious acts of espionage and sabotage in recent history: the French attack on Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior. This episode meticulously unpacks the motivations, execution, and immediate fallout of the 1985 operation that sought to halt Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear activities in the South Pacific.

---

Background: Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior

David McCloskey begins by setting the stage, describing Greenpeace as a burgeoning environmental movement in the 1970s committed to stopping nuclear tests and protecting marine life. Central to their efforts was the Rainbow Warrior, an iconic vessel repurposed from a derelict fishing boat into a symbol of environmental activism.

[04:10] David McCloskey: "All of a sudden we are told the target and the nature of the mission was to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Anti nuclear activists, pacifists. We were a little surprised."

The Rainbow Warrior, adorned with vibrant colors and embodying the spirit of direct action, had become a significant thorn in the side of nuclear powers, particularly France, which was conducting nuclear tests in the remote Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.

---

French Motivations and the DGSE’s Involvement

France, asserting its status as a nuclear power, viewed Greenpeace’s activities as a direct threat to its national security and sovereignty. Nuclear deterrence was not merely a strategic asset but a core component of French national identity and pride.

Gordon Corera elaborates on France’s perspective:

[05:49] Gordon Corera: "For France, nuclear weapons are a kind of expression of sovereignty and power... particularly for the French, the idea that they have their own nuclear deterrence is very kind of central to French identity."

Faced with persistent activism, the French government tasked the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), France’s external intelligence agency, with neutralizing the Rainbow Warrior to safeguard their nuclear testing operations.

---

Planning the Sabotage Operation

The operation against the Rainbow Warrior was orchestrated with meticulous precision, albeit fraught with inherent risks. David McCloskey introduces Jean Luc Kistair, a dedicated DGSE captain, whose sense of duty and patriotism drove him to accept the mission despite ethical reservations.

[04:10] David McCloskey: "...we always have to ask ourselves, is what I am being asked to do really justified? ... Is I am serving my country?"

Gordon Corera provides a comprehensive overview of the DGSE's preparation:

[13:39] Gordon Corera: "...the DGSE is moving its headquarters in the not so distant future. But it is sort of colloquially known inside CIA as La Piscine because of the proximity to that pool."

The DGSE established multiple covert teams, including logistical support and a dive team led by Kistair, to execute the attack under the cover of environmental activism.

---

Execution of the Attack

On the night of July 10, 1985, the DGSE operatives embarked on their mission to sink the Rainbow Warrior at Auckland, New Zealand. The operation involved planting limpet mines on the ship under the cover of darkness, intending to disable the vessel without causing casualties.

David McCloskey recounts the tense moments leading up to the explosion:

[32:17] David McCloskey: "I will say that, you know, once I realized that we were not talking about the Tom Clancy novel Rainbow Six and this was actually a Greenpeace vessel... it really has an underdog feel."

Despite the plan, unforeseen complications arose. The first bomb created a larger-than-expected breach in the ship’s hull, causing immediate flooding and chaos.

[35:30] David McCloskey: "They didn't test it. Is that right?"

The situation deteriorated rapidly, culminating in a second explosion that completely sank the Rainbow Warrior, resulting in significant loss and international outrage.

---

Immediate Aftermath and Operational Failures

The DGSE’s operation, intended to be a swift and controlled sabotage, spiraled into disaster. The lack of thorough testing and underestimation of the Rainbow Warrior’s resilience led to a more destructive outcome than planned.

Gordon Corera highlights the operational lapses:

[36:07] David McCloskey: "And so some people are still on the boat, but then the second bomb goes off and the whole boat kind of jumps up. At this second point, he shouts, abandoned ship."

The unexpected severity of the explosions resulted in the sinking of the ship within mere seconds, contrasting sharply with the DGSE’s expectations of a contained attack.

---

Notable Quotes with Speaker Attribution

• David McCloskey ([01:34]): "We were summoned to a meeting room and they revealed to me and my two teammates the purpose of the mission... Is I am serving my country?"

• Gordon Corera ([05:49]): "For France, nuclear weapons are a kind of expression of sovereignty and power... central to French identity."

• David McCloskey ([12:57]): "La Piscine... the DGSE is kind of moving its headquarters in the not so distant future."

• Gordon Corera ([13:39]): "The DGSE is moving its headquarters... known inside CIA as La Piscine because of the proximity to that pool."

• David McCloskey ([32:17]): "It's like sort of the environmentalist Love Boat, ... It really has an underdog feel."

---

Insights and Conclusions

The attack on the Rainbow Warrior underscores the lengths to which state actors may go to protect national interests, often at the expense of ethical considerations and international law. The episode highlights the dangers inherent in covert operations, where operational failures can lead to unintended consequences and international scandals.

David McCloskey and Gordon Corera emphasize the moral complexities faced by operatives like Jean Luc Kistair, who must balance duty to their nation with the broader implications of their actions. The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the shadowy intersections between environmental activism and espionage during the Cold War era.

---

Looking Forward

As the episode concludes, McCloskey and Corera hint at exploring the ensuing manhunt for the perpetrators and the broader ramifications for French intelligence services in future episodes. Listeners are left contemplating the delicate balance between national security and ethical responsibility in the clandestine world of espionage.

---

Stay Tuned: In the next episode of The Rest Is Classified, delve deeper into the aftermath of the Rainbow Warrior attack, the international fallout, and the pursuit to bring those responsible to justice.

---

Note: Advertisements and non-content segments have been omitted to focus on the substantive discussions of the episode.

Transcript

[Alexandra Daddario]

Exclusively on AMC and amc.

[David McCloskey]

There's a black cloud that hangs over our family.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches return. Slash is out there hunting Mayfair women. You're gonna have a battle on your hands. Starring Alexandra Daddario.

[Gordon Carrera]

I'm gonna take care of it.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Of him. Surrender to the darkness.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's not a sin to kill the devil.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches Sundays Exclusively on AMC and AMC plus this episode is brought to you by Paramount. The new season of the Paramount original series, School Spirits is here. But the mystery has only just begun. Maddie is still trapped in the afterlife. Now she must work together with her friends in the spirit and living worlds to find a way back before it's too late. Stream the new season of School spirits now on Paramount+ head to paramountplus.com to get started. Oh, sheet. Honey, chill. It's just laundry. Not that I'm talking about these. Arm and hammer power sheets. All the power of arm and hammer, laundry detergent and a convenient tossable sheet. Oh, sheet.

[David McCloskey]

That's what I'm saying.

[Alexandra Daddario]

And arm and hammer power sheets deliver an effective clean at a great price. Think of all the laundry we'll do and all the money we'll save.

[David McCloskey]

Oh, sheet.

[Alexandra Daddario]

Arm and hammer. More power to you.

[David McCloskey]

We were summoned to a meeting room and they revealed to me and my two teammates the purpose of the mission. All of a sudden we are told the target and the nature of the mission was to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Anti nuclear activists, pacifists. We were a little surprised. There's always with secret agents this fear of being manipulated. We always have to ask ourselves, is what I am being asked to do really justified? We asked, but why Greenpeace targeting a pacifist movement and in such a violent way? Am I really serving my country? Am I serving the interests of France? And then we were told Greenpeace, well, they're infiltrated by the kgb and behind Greenpeace was the Soviet Union. So we accepted the mission. Welcome to the rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey and that, Gordon, is is testimony from Jean Luc Kistair of the French secret Service. The direction General de la security exterior. The French double major finally paying off here talking about one of the most controversial sabotage operations conducted by, I think, a western secret service over the last half century.

[Gordon Carrera]

Thanks, David, for that lovely bit of French. Very impressive. Better than mine, I think, actually. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And today we're telling the story of the Rainbow Warrior, a ship docked in Auckland, New Zealand, which meets a pretty terrible fate in A episode of sabotage, which I think it's fair to say goes desperately wrong. We're hearing a lot of sabotage in the news today, aren't we, David? We're hearing about kind of Russian sabotage in Europe. We're hearing about incendiary devices being put on planes, perhaps cargo planes, and arson fires in factories and things like that. And I guess this is an interesting example about how those kind of sabotage operations can go wrong and escalate and take even the intelligence services, which is trying to do something covert, into a kind of dramatically different direction and end perhaps in disaster.

[David McCloskey]

Well, right. And it's also, Gordon, as we'll get into a story about the relationship between sort of the political masters and an intelligence service, and what happens when an intelligence service who has conducted an operation that really goes quite wrong, you know, who ends up holding the bag in the end? Is it the political masters who ordered the operation or is it the intelligence service that carried it out and in this case, as we'll see, really botched it.

[Gordon Carrera]

We heard at the start your beautiful reading of Jean Lucchesterre and your great pronunciation of his name and the service he works for. And so we'll look at him because he is one of those people who is directly involved in this operation and to some extent carries the can. And it's pretty angry, actually, about what happens. And it is a kind of morally complex story, I think, including about those agents involved. But let's start with Rainbow Warrior itself and the time. So we're in 1985 and it's the mid-80s. France is a nuclear power and it's carrying out nuclear tests and it carries these out in a place in the South Pacific called Muraroa. It's a beautiful. I looked at some of the pictures of it. It's a kind of idyllic looking atoll, not the kind of place you'd expect to be testing nuclear weapons and blowing up. But that's exactly what the French are doing there in this place, which is to say it's in the middle of nowhere is wrong because there are people and islands nearby, and that's part of the story. But the atoll itself is uninhabited and it's, you know, it's 8,000 kilometers away from Australia, kind of halfway between, I guess, Australia and South America. But it's vital for the French.

[David McCloskey]

Prior to, I think, 1962, the French had actually tested their nuclear weapons in Algeria, which had been a colony. But since Algeria had gained its independence, the French had moved this testing infrastructure, I guess, into the South Pacific. And despite the fact that these places look like wonderful vacation destinations. It's very, very remote. Right. And so they've, they've decided to. To conduct all of their nuclear tests out here in the lovely South Pacific.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And it's worth saying that for France, nuclear weapons are a kind of expression of sovereignty and power. I mean, they are for all nuclear weapon states. But I think, particularly for the French, the idea that they have their own nuclear deterrence is very kind of central to French identity. So they take the weapons seriously and they take the need to test them seriously. But set against them is this rather ragtag group of activists who are out to stop them. The protagonists of our story, which is Greenpeace, set up in the 1970s, slightly kind of anarchic, lots of Save the Whale T shirts, you know, and they're busy out there campaigning for, amongst other things, a nuclear free Pacific and an end to these tests. And, you know, they're building up their campaign, they're getting lots of publicity. There's already some bad blood between them and the French because back in 1973, another vessel was rammed by a French minesweeper in international waters near Muraroa. And so Greenpeace are out to stop the tests and to get to Morrow, and they want to lead a flotilla to basically kind of go where the test is going to happen and stop it happening.

[David McCloskey]

I am really frustrated with you, Gordon, that you're making us tell a story in which Greenpeace has become the protagonist against a spy service.

[Gordon Carrera]

So, you know, we know which side you're on.

[David McCloskey]

Well, I'm not on. I'm not on the side of French intelligence in the story, as we'll see. I mean, in it, I think it is also worth mentioning just how much havoc the French tests have wreaked in the South Pacific. You know, the French conduct, over the span of what will end up being like 30 years, almost 200 nuclear tests in the South Pacific. I mean, they've blasted radioactive fallout over Samoa and Fiji. They've actually had islands and atoll so contaminated that they've had to be abandoned for five, six years at a time. And in one case, Gordon, they actually were trying to conduct an underground test. The bomb got stuck halfway down, they detonated it anyway, and it created an underwater landslide and a tsunami that killed a handful of people. So I think to some degree, I mean, it's understandable why you have. Greenpeace, which I think had just been formed 10, 15 years prior, has really focused on the French and are really trying to stop and disrupt the French from conducting any more tests.

[Gordon Carrera]

And at the heart of this is this ship, the Rainbow Warrior. Worth saying a little bit about the ship because it's got a character of its own. I think it was called the Sir William Hardy. So it was once a 49 metre old North Sea fisheries vessel built in the 50s for the British government. And Greenpeace had found it as a kind of rusting wreck in a basin in the East India Docks in London. And they bought it for £40,000 in 1977 and then started working on it to turn it into what is their flagship, you know, painting rainbow colors on it, even adding a mast and sails. And it is an old ship, it's built like a tank. It's pretty smelly, those on board say, but they kind of love it. And for them it has its own symbolic importance because it's the boat that they're going to take around, not just the Pacific, but all kinds of places. Some of their missions are to try and stop Icelandic whaling off the Shetland Islands. I mean, they're taking it kind of round the world to carry out direct action, which is the Greenpeace way of doing things to kind of get in the way of people doing whaling or sealing or nuclear tests. And so here we are in 1985 and the ship is heading for a big mission in the Pacific. On board are about a dozen or so people, a mix of nationalities, American, Swiss, German. Idealistic, I think would be the way you might describe them. I think, you know, the captain himself calls them a bunch of crazy hippies. So I think that's the type, you know, people out to change the world. Basically.

[David McCloskey]

It's like sort of the environmentalist Love Boat, something like that. And it also, I will say, just, you know, once I realized that we were not talking about the Tom Clancy novel Rainbow Six and this was actually a Greenpeace vessel. When I first saw photos of it, my thought was that the boat looked a little bit like a crafting project that my 7 year old might do. Right, because you've got the sort of Jerry rigged sails. Yeah, the kind of rather shoddily painted rainbow. The Greenpeace dove on there. This set against sort of as, as we'll see, set against the might of France. It really has an underdog feel. Even before we start talking about anything they're doing just based off the way the ship looks.

[Gordon Carrera]

And on board there's a lot of partying and there's dancing. They're sleeping on deck under the stars, playing the saxophone, it seems from, from the accounts, the main thing they argued about was whether to bring plastic buckets along, whether plastic thing to bring along, and the kind of battles they had between the meat eaters and the vegans over what would get served. That was the kind of source of main tension. It's this summer of 1985. It's going to go around the Pacific islands. It's first of all going to do a mission taking people away from islands which are actually contaminated by US nuclear tests, because both the US and UK also carried out nuclear tests back in the 50s. Then they're going to spend some time resupplying in New Zealand for a couple of weeks before then heading out to Morrow to try and stop the test. And amongst those on board, rich collection of people, one of them, a kind of easygoing, mustachioed Portuguese photographer called Fernando Pereira, who's the one who's kind of taking pictures, because the idea is to publicize what they're doing to get the information out to the outside world. But what they don't know is that the French have had enough turn their.

[David McCloskey]

Sights on this floating love boat.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I think there's a really interesting sense of it from one French account of French intelligence from this period, because they're getting intelligence reports in and the really kind of alarmist ones are coming actually from the French military. And this is how they're described. Greenpeace constituted, in their eyes, a kind of abominable synthesis of the forces of evil bearded environmentalists, often springing from leftist organizations and therefore part of the international subversion movement. They could only be wittingly or unwittingly KGB agents, while those of the movement's leaders who were of Anglo Saxon origin, clearly worked for US or British imperialism, with which the complicity of the Australian and New Zealand pacifist movement was seeking to sabotage the French nuclear defence effort. That's a kind of paranoid sense which the kgb, the Brits, the Americans, everyone is kind of ganging up on the French and trying to push to undermine their nuclear terror, maybe to also spur the kind of independence movements in some of the French islands in this area. And that's the kind of mindset which has taken over in the French establishment.

[David McCloskey]

Why did it matter that they were bearded? That's the, that's the. The description I'm stuck on is being environmentalist. Bearded. Yeah, they're bearded, they're of Anglo Saxon origin. And we know to the French that's a slur. You know, you've got Australia, New Zealand, the kgb. I mean, there's a Whole host of different boogeymen there. But the. The facial hair seems out of left field.

[Gordon Carrera]

But yeah, maybe that's the cultural difference, you know, between kind of the French military, I think in the 80s was probably not one for beards, whereas where's Greenpeace were?

[David McCloskey]

I think the captain of the ship, if I'm recalling from the videos I've watched, was bearded. He had sort of a, you know, grizzly sea dog look to him, a.

[Gordon Carrera]

Lot of moustaches as well.

[David McCloskey]

And the big hair mustaches, big hair.

[Gordon Carrera]

Vegan meals, which is not the French military look, I think.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Gordon Carrera]

So this idea has taken hold in the French Defence Ministry, particularly Charles Arnoux. The Defence Minister is angry and he basically wants Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior stopped. He wants to throw a punch, as someone puts it. So he turns to the dgse, la.

[David McCloskey]

Direction General de la Security Exterior.

[Gordon Carrera]

You're going to say that as many times as you.

[David McCloskey]

We're not going to abbreviate the French spy service, we're just going to say.

[Gordon Carrera]

It because it's also known as La Boite or the Firm, or La Piscine. Piscine, which is the swimming pool, which is.

[David McCloskey]

You've shown your hand, Gordon, My schoolboy friends. That's. That's. Well, that's low schoolboy level.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yes, thank you. Getting lectured by an American on my French is really a joy.

[David McCloskey]

I have hidden up to this point in all of our discussions about this podcast and actually doing it. I've hidden the fact that I am actually a Francophile, because. Yes. And it is now coming out as we talk about the Rainbow Warrior. La Piscine. Yes. So the French, the dejs has its headquarters out in the. I think in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, Gordon, which is basically out in the sticks in the northeast. And it is by a pool, a swimming pool that's owned by the French Swimming Federation, I believe. And so it has had. I think the DGSE is actually moving its headquarters in the not so distant future. But it is sort of colloquially known inside CIA as La Piscine because of the proximity to that pool.

[Gordon Carrera]

And we should talk a little bit about what makes it interesting and different. I mean, one of the things is that it's a little bit more militaristic in background, isn't it? I mean, it reports through the Defense Ministry, so not like MI6, which, you know, reports through the Foreign Office. You know, it's part of the Defence Ministry. And, you know, reading some of the histories about it, you get this Sense it grew out of, I think, the culture of the French Resistance in the Second World War of kind of direct action, of using force, of, you know, of COVID work. I don't know how much you've had ever to do with them in the past.

[David McCloskey]

I think the sort of military bent to the service, I mean, I think a large portion of the DGSE is, is active duty military. You're almost conducting like a rotation through the dgse. And it's kind of seen, I think, in the French national security establishment as a way, particularly if you're in the army or the military, to sort of advance more quickly is to do a run through the dgse. I had a former colleague refer to the DGSE and it's sort of more kind of militaristic side being the good guys. Gru, a reference to Russian military intelligence, the great people who brought you the poisonings, you know, in Salisbury and London, of Russian distance. Is it Salisbury or Salisbury?

[Gordon Carrera]

If you're going to pick me up accents, I'm going to pick you up accent, so you get away with that.

[David McCloskey]

So the militaristic point I think is spot on. I do think when we're talking in particular about the 1980s, this is the DGSE Pre Le Bureau, the wonderful spy thriller featuring the French dgse. And there is a piece of slang for French spies calling them barboos, which is basically, I can't believe we're going to have another facial hair link. It directly translates as bearded ones. But I think the closest equivalent in English would be like spook. But it has this kind of derogatory connotation to it, that it's somebody who is deceitful, disguised, but not particularly clever. And I think it speaks a bit to. And we'll see some elements of this in the story. The fact that in the 80s, the DGSE, which by the way is pretty new at that point, it's been constituted out of a couple other security organizations in the early 80s. It's kind of a redheaded stepchild in the French establishment. It's not particularly trusted by the political elite and it's not seen as the place you want to go if you've graduated from one of the. In Paris, you know, you don't want to be a DGSE officer. And so I think the service has at that point a different vibe than CIA or MI6, where I think you've got some cachet. I think the French have more of a natural suspicion of kind of spies and secrecy at Least at that point. But it's a service. I mean, at least today, you know what you'll hear from agency folks or from MI6 officers is. It is. And I think it was then too. It's a highly capable service. I mean, you know, this is not traveling to Paris or anything like that. I mean, they're the kind of folks who are going to be in your hotel room. And it's a competent and well regarded spy service.

[Gordon Carrera]

And so maybe this is a good point to introduce Jean Luc Kistair, who we heard from at the start and who you read about. And he, at this time, I guess he's emblematic of that. He'd joined as a military cadet, age 17. So he is from that military background. His grandfather had fought in World War I and had told him about the Battle of Verdun and how he'd been gassed and then his father had been forcibly drafted into the German army and taken prisoner at the Russian front. So kind of the military culture is part of his family really and his background. And he's joined the dgse. He's a kind of young, sandy haired, proud, patriotic young man. He's kind of motivated by a deep sense of patriotism by fighting the Cold War and about the sense of defending France. And he's ended up as a captain at this point in the combat dive team of the DGSE. And he's brought in at this point in 1985 and, and told, as we heard at the start, that his mission is to deal with the Rainbow Warrior. And, and it's interesting because he seems to be cautious about it, at least from his recollections, but he's told, well, it's because it's been infiltrated by the kgb. And that seems to be the kind of way of convincing him, which I guess, you know, it's like, you know, I think we'll see that time and time again. Things are put through the lens of the Cold War often to justify them.

[David McCloskey]

Is there some truth to it?

[Gordon Carrera]

So I think what there's some truth to is that there were people in the French state who were convinced that Greenpeace had been infiltrated by the KGB and were being kind of backed by the kgb and it was all part of a plan to stop France having its nuclear deterrent by pushing independence in the Pacific. But I don't think there's any truth in the sense that there was, you know, a KGB role. You know, there wasn't a KGB agent running the Rainbow Warrior and running that campaign. That's not true, but the perception, I think, you know, the feeling that there could be was something that might have been there in some parts of the French state. And certainly they seem to be using it with Jean Lucister to try and persuade him basically because clearly he's a bit unsure about it, it seems, when it comes to dealing with this boat, because it is, after all, just a bunch of environmentalists.

[David McCloskey]

I agree with you on the specifics of the Rainbow Warrior point. It's not like it was that boat or the people on it were specifically a front for the kgb. But it is true that there is kind of a broader, I guess at this point in time, anti nuclear movement that has real legs in Europe. I think even in the mid, early to mid-80s in London there were gigantic assemblies and protests of, you know, Londoners against nuclear weapons use or testing in, you know, the British establishment. So like you kind of have this, I think, bigger movement that the KGB is doubtless trying to influence and kind of shape. Right. Even if it's not specifically running the Rainbow Warrior. I mean, it is true, I think, and it's again, this is not to say that what happens next is justified or somehow targeted against actual Russian assets or anything like that, but it's got to be the case that, you know, that's right out of the KGB playbook to use an anti nuclear movement that has legs in the west, try to feed it, nurture it, shape it. It's just sort of a classic KGB playbook of disinformation and misinformation and sort of influence operations. Right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. But then also those who are opposed to these anti nuclear movements, it's a classic thing to go, well, this is kind of, it's all KGB and the whole thing is backed by the Soviets. And to try and use that, to have a justification to often spy on these movements and act against it. So I think it's a mix of reasons with the French and I think, you know, the kind of KGB stuff is really only part of it. I think there is actually a deeper animosity towards Greenpeace within the French state. It's really interesting because when they're looking at what to do, they don't want to just kind of contaminate the fuel and stop it sailing, you know, or kind of mess with the propellers. The plan that they come up with and what they call on Jean Lucister to do is to, you know, to coin a phrase, stop the boat is to sink it. They want it dealt with firmly. And that's the idea.

[David McCloskey]

I do think it's worth mentioning here before we get into the havoc of what the French are about to do and to contemplate that in the mid-80s, and this is just to set the French mindset in the mid-80s, the French establishment understood that they did not have a working nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union. They're not blowing up lovely vacation destinations in the South Pacific for fun. You know, they're doing this in order to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that they have the capability to defend themselves and to learn from these tests to improve that capability. And so I do think it is critical to see that even though, you know, we're talking about this group of mustachioed, saxophone playing environmentalists, that in the minds, I think of a lot of these French guys who were going to make this decision, Greenpeace is the enemy. And Greenpeace is standing in the way of the safety and security, potentially in an existential fashion, of the state of France.

[Gordon Carrera]

Okay? So with the decision made to do something about the Rainbow Warrior, I think that's a great place to take a break and see how the French go about it.

[David McCloskey]

This episode is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Now, Gordon, what do you find most useful about Nord?

[Gordon Carrera]

David One incredibly useful feature I find is the ad blocking software that stops you being targeted. We all know about that by intrusive ads whenever you're browsing the Internet. Along with the fact NORD blocks unwanted parties tracking me, it makes me feel much safer and confident that my privacy or my privacy is protected online.

[David McCloskey]

And you know how much I care about your privacy, Gordon, and you know that one feature from NORD that I really appreciate is that it also has offline protection, which works even when it is not connected, meaning you can be consistently secure.

[Gordon Carrera]

So to stay secure online, you should take advantage of our exclusive NORDVPN discount. All you need to do is go to nordvpn.com restisclassified when you sign up, you can receive a bonus 4 months on top of your plan. And there's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link's also in the episode description box.

[Alexandra Daddario]

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shoppay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling Today.

[David McCloskey]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states. Well, welcome back to the Rest is classified. We are in Auckland, New Zealand and the French Secret Service. Gordon. The DGSE has set its sights on the Rainbow Warrior which is at a wharf docked, moored and the DGSE is going to try to figure out exactly where the ship is going and who's on it. Is that right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Right. And it's been quite an operation because they've worked out they need to know what the itinerary is of the Rainbow Warrior. So months before they actually put a spy inside Greenpeace. So in New Zealand in their office there and it's a 33 year old French woman turns up who goes by the name Frederic Bonlieux. Pronunciation okay, I give it a B. Thanks. Thanks. So she arrives at the offices in Auckland and she's got a letter of introduction from the London office of Greenpeace and she said she's a scientist but of course she's not. She's really Christine Cabon, an undercover DGSR officer. How's that?

[David McCloskey]

It's pretty good. You're getting better as we're going along. I'm having a real influence.

[Gordon Carrera]

I like that.

[David McCloskey]

Thank you.

[Gordon Carrera]

By one account she'd been invalided out of a commando unit after a parachuting accident, joined the Secret Service and was a kind of specialist in deep undercover work and had infiltrated the plo, the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon and then had plastic surgery. Now I think some of those we.

[David McCloskey]

Need to do an episode on her. That's, that's an exciting resume.

[Gordon Carrera]

Those were the kind of exciting reports at the time about what she got up to. I'm not sure all of that may be true though, but that was the kind of the sense of mystery that surrounded this woman when actually when you look at pictures of her she just looks like a kind of 33 year old scientist who's, who's turned up at the offices and her job there is to kind of work her way into, to Greenpeace. And she, she does that pretty effectively and she, you know, she has some, occasionally some views which I think some of the other Greenpeace people think are a little bit more, you know, conservative than maybe the traditional kind of bearded environmentalist. Activists who are around her, you know, so she's kind of not entirely against nuclear weapons, which, you know, in Greenpeace, you think is a bit of a giveaway.

[David McCloskey]

This comes up in conversation with Greenpeace.

[Gordon Carrera]

Someone remembers that afterwards, you know, and you think maybe she didn't quite hide her views as well as she should have done.

[David McCloskey]

Greenpeace counterintelligence has really dropped the ball in the story.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, their security department was not on it. And she manages to avoid being photographed, which is, you know, another telltale sign, you know, watch out for that. And says very little about her kind of personal life and where she's from. And she hangs around in the offices a lot and kind of has the chance to kind of rifle through the, you know, the drawers and the files and is obviously collecting information there. And she also goes on some sightseeing trips up the coast of New Zealand. And what it looks like she's doing then is she's looking for. For spots where the undercover teams could later, you know, kind of land and kind of carry out some of their covert action. She's asking about kind of diving shops, hiring boats and vans. So there's an element where, in hindsight, and it's always in hindsight, you know, you can see some of this activity is really suspicious. But she seems to be pretty effective. She gets the details, and then she leaves in May. So she's gone by the time, you know, the boat arrives in July. She says she's going to a conference about coral reefs in Tahiti. Very nice. And never returns to Greenpeace. But it means the DGSE know when the boat's coming. They know the plan for it. July, it arrives, and it's supposed to be there for two weeks. And at this point, we also get the rest of the DGSE teams turn up, and it's worth, I think, you know, understanding a little bit about who they are and what they do. So there's one team who are posing as a. As a Swiss honeymooning couple, and they're there to kind of do the support, I guess. You know, they're hiring the vans. They're going to kind of move things around, pick people up before and after the operation. And then a second team is the logistical team. Now, this is the team who are actually bringing in the explosives and bringing in the devices that are going to be used against Rainbow Warrior. And they have chartered a yacht. And it is a group of young French male DGSE officers who are going undercover on a yacht in the South Pacific. And it's fair to say that is not the worst operation you can imagine. And I think they also seem to enjoy it quite a lot.

[David McCloskey]

But they just party, don't they, for several weeks while they're conducting recon. And I guess, you know, I mean, for first tour, CIA case officers might, when scolded by a superior for doing something similar, would say that you're just living your cover. Looking back on this now, with everything having been leaked, it looks absurd, but to, you know, put on my sort of deja apologist hat here for a second, which I will then remove in a few minutes. There is a world where you look at this and say it actually makes operational sense for them to be out there at clubs, kind of living it up a little bit, because that's what they are. They're. They're tourists visiting New Zealand.

[Gordon Carrera]

But hang on, these photos of them, you know, some of them with their shirts off, these kind of strappy young men, and they're going around the bars and the bedrooms, it turns out, including at one point the partner of a New Zealand policeman, I think.

[David McCloskey]

Not a good look.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, which is not a good look. And, you know, getting their picture taken and I mean, you know, that is going to get you noticed and get you remembered, but they're living it up while kind of bringing in the actual explosives. And then you have the third team, and the third team is really the dive team, and that is led by Jean Luc Kistair, who we, who we met earlier, our military cadet from the dgse. He's arriving, I think, three days before the dive is going to be taking place, and there's going to be two divers and then another person who's going to kind of pilot a Zodiac inflatable dinghy to carry out the actual attack. So by the evening of July 10, everything is in place. Rainbow Warrior is there. Jean Lucister and his colleagues have the explosives having been delivered them from the party yacht, and they head out that evening for the dive. It's worth saying at this time, you know, it's July, but of course that's winter in the southern hemisphere. So it's dark already in the evening as they go out, it's cold. They are linked together as they kind of go off the dinghy by a strap about one and a half meters long, the two divers, so that they can find each other, because they're going to be operating in total darkness and they can't use torches or anything else. And with them they're carrying these limpet mines, which seem to have been specially made, I think, for the job.

[David McCloskey]

That was surprising to me because a limpet mine, of course, is not. I mean, they've been around, I think, at least since the Second World War, and pretty much every modern navy produces them. So I would have thought that the French would have just gotten a mine from British naval stocks or something like that. So it's deniable, it's. There's no French sort of fingerprints on it. Right. I mean, it's basically a mine, an explosive that has a magnet on it and allows you to stick it to the bottom of a ship. It feels like if you're specially fabricating something, it's going to set off more sort of alarm bells if there's an investigation afterward.

[Gordon Carrera]

But they go down there and Jean Lucista kind of feels the hull is covered with small growths, seaweed, seashells on it. One of them holds one of the bombs, the other fixes some kind of straps to kind of clamp and attach it to the Rainbow Warrior underwater. And once they've done that, they give the other one the thumbs up and set off the timer. It's currently about 8:50pm and they program it for a three hour delay on the timer and then they go and place the second bomb. Now, they plan to plant the first bomb port side, but then Quister has seen that there's another ship docked just next to the Rainbow Warrior, so he decides to put it on the starboard side. And they've decided to put two bombs on. And the idea seems to be that they thought the first bomb would go off. Anyone who was on board would evacuate and then the second one would sink the boat with a kind of after a short delay if there was anyone on board. And so they put these two bombs onto the boat and swim away at that point. Now, it's interesting because on board there'd actually been a birthday party on the Rainbow Warrior that evening for one of the team. And I mean, at one point, one of the Greenpeace team, you know, recollect seeing something strange bobbing in the water that evening. They go and take a look and it's a floating bag of Brussels sprouts rather than a French Navy diver.

[David McCloskey]

Was that a plastic bag, do you think, or was it made out of something?

[Gordon Carrera]

I think in those days it'd be plastic. So, you know, there's been a party on the boat, but some of the Greenpeace, and there's about a dozen or so people normally on the boat, some of them go off into town for partying, others Go to bed. The divers have left. And so then three hours later, just before midnight. So at about 11:48, 11:49, the captain is woken by this enormous bang. And his initial instinct is that they've hit something. You know, he thinks they're at sea or, you know, something's happened and they've collided. And he looks out of the porthole and he sees that they're actually still at the dock, and kind of goes, well, what's going on? Goes out into the corridor and. And 10 meters down the hall from him is the engine room. And he can already see water pouring into the engine room, and it's filling up and it's actually hissing because the water that's coming into the engine room is hitting the kind of hot engine, and it's like the sound of an angry steam bath. Someone says, and what's happened is a hole about 2 meters by 3 meters has been blown on the starboard side of the engine room. And I think what's notable is it's a bigger hole than had been expected by that bomb.

[David McCloskey]

They didn't test it. Is that right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, if they did test it, something different happened when they used it on the Rainbow Warrior. Now, because there's some reports claiming they'd run some tests of the dive, but perhaps they hadn't tested this exact bomb or against the kind of hull of the Rainbow Warrior. But whatever it is, it was a more dramatic explosion they expected. And shrapnel rips through the upper decks, and already things are kind of not going quite as they expected. And no one had been in the engine room or the upper decks when it went off. But still, already this is kind of going south from the French plan. And then just a minute or two later, you get the second explosion.

[David McCloskey]

And the idea here was basically that this was going to be the equivalent of like, coming up behind someone who's riding a bicycle very slowly. And you know, you're behind them in your car and you kind of honk to give them a scare, right? And then they're going to, like, get out of the way. Two thoughts on this. One is that in these kind of operations, it seems like something always probably goes not according to plan, and you sort of have to plan for that. So you would think, and I would think, without getting into any specifics, just based off of some knowledge of how Western security services fabricate explosives today, I would have expected there to be a lot of testing if they're really serious about not killing anybody. And it doesn't seem like they did.

[Gordon Carrera]

That, no, I mean, Kiesler suggests that they hadn't really tested the bombs in that kind of environment. And that is one of the problems. And they don't seem to have accounted for the fact they hadn't left long between the two bombs. By some accounts, it's just a minute for people who had been on board to get off. I mean, that seems, in the chaos of what was happening, a pretty implausible amount of time for someone to wake up, work out what's going on and get off. I mean, maybe, but not guaranteed. And so some people are still on the boat, but then the second bomb goes off and the whole boat kind of jumps up. At this second point, he shouts, abandoned ship. But it's dark and the people who are still on there are kind of throwing on their clothes. No one's kind of really knows what's going on. And the boat is already starting to list and starting to kind of move onto its side. And it's sinking much faster than expected. Part of the idea of sinking it in the dock had been that it wouldn't completely sink. It's not like sinking it out in the ocean where people won't be able to get off. The French have thought about this a bit because they've thought, you know, we'll do it in the dock so we can sink the boat, but it'll kind of go halfway down and people should be able to get off. But it's sinking faster than, than expected. So those who are still on board scramble onto the wharf, watch, you know, the Rainbow Warrior basically go down in 40 seconds or something like that. You know, a matter of seconds it's going down and at that point they realize that someone's missing and it's Fernando Pereira, the photographer on board the Rainbow Warrior.

[David McCloskey]

Well, maybe they're Gordon with the Rainbow Warrior at the bottom of Auckland harbor we should call it. And next time we will get into the manhunt for the perpetrators of this bombing and really describe how it all unravels for the French intelligence service. The DGSE on the rest is classified.

[Gordon Carrera]

See you then.

[David McCloskey]

There's a double agent, a mole working for Moscow inside the upper reaches of CIA. Hi, I'm David McCloskey, co host of the Rest Is Classified. And in my latest novel, the 7 10th Floor, An Operation Gone Wrong has CIA officer Artemus Proctor convinced there is a mole working for the Russians. But who is it? To find the answer, she will have to dredge up her checkered past in service of CIA investigating a short list of her dearest friends and most cherished enemies. This is a story of modern day espionage tradecraft, a peek at the actual spy war between Washington and Moscow, and most of all, it's a story about what friendship means in a faithless business. The book is available now in hard copy and all good bookshops and also online and ebook and audio formats.