French Nuclear Diplomacy

by Wilfred L. Kohl

Overview

Wilfred Kohl analyzes the development of France's atomic force, focusing on the role of nuclear weapons in de Gaulle's policies and its impact on French relations with NATO, her key alliance partners (the United States, Great Britain, and West Germany), and the U.S.S.R. He emphasizes the discontinuity between de Gaulle's grandiose designs and the more modest programs envisaged by cither the preceding governments of the Fourth Republic or the succeeding Pompidou government.

Originally published in 1972.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691646893
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1422
Pages:	428
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

Read an Excerpt

French Nuclear Diplomacy

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By Wilfrid L. Kohl

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1971 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07540-2

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CHAPTER 1

The Nuclear Program of the Fourth Republic

A few months after his return to power in 1958, General Charles de Gaulle declared in one of his first press conferences: "Everybody knows that we now have the means of providing ourselves with nuclear weapons and the day is approaching when we, in our turn, will carry out tests." He went on to indicate that, while the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain possessed atomic arms, "France will not accept a position of chronic and overwhelming inferiority." The message was clear — that France would soon become an atomic power and would then have "all the greater means at her disposal for making her action felt in fields that are precious and useful to all mankind: those of world security and disarmament."

General de Gaulle could not have uttered these words with any assurance, nor would France have achieved her first atomic explosion a year and some months later, in early 1960, had it not been for the extensive program of atomic research carried out under the Fourth Republic. Indeed, this program provided the foundation for the French nuclear strike force, or force de frappe, developed later under de Gaulle — a politico-military instrument destined to become a symbol of the independent policies of the Fifth Republic and to have considerable impact on France's relations with her allies. In order to put that development in perspective, it will be useful first to review the history of France's atomic program under the Fourth Republic. Later in this chapter the motivations behind the military nuclear program will be considered, as will the extent of thinking about nuclear strategy under the Fourth Republic and the origins of the idea of a force de frappe.

The Fourth Republic's Atomic Policy

France's entrance into the postwar atomic field dates from October 18, 1945, when General de Gaulle as president of the provisional government issued an ordinance establishing an atomic energy agency: the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (hereafter referred to as CEA). This agency was entrusted "with the mission of developing the uses of atomic energy in various fields of science, industry, and national defense." It was given considerable administrative autonomy and placed under the direct authority of the prime minister.

The founding of the CEA was not France's first experience with atomic energy. French scientists such as Henri Becquerel and the Curies had played an important role in early atomic research prior to 1900. Later, in the 1930's, the Frenchman Frédéric Joliot-Curie discovered artificial radioactivity and led research teams which worked on the neutron bombardment of uranium and the concept of a chain reaction. After the outbreak of World War II the French government acquired the entire Norwegian stock of heavy water and, from Belgium, the uranium oxide necessary to fuel an atomic device. But the fall of France cut short further progress in nuclear research. During the war a number of French atomic scientists left the country to participate in the Anglo-Canadian nuclear programs.

After the Liberation the scientist Frédéric Joliot-Curie and Raoul Dautry, who had been minister of armaments in 1940, urged General de Gaulle to reestablish an atomic energy program. At a time when France faced the immense tasks of postwar reconstruction, the economic advantages offered by atomic power as a potential energy source were probably paramount in the decision to undertake a new program. However, the military implications of atomic energy cannot have escaped de Gaulle and must have weighed heavily in his decision to establish the CEA.

The history of the Fourth Republic's atomic program can be viewed in three phases. The first or scientific phase spanned the years 1946-52; it was a formative period concerned with acquiring the necessary atomic raw materials, training needed scientists and technicians, and building an infrastructure of basic laboratories. Initial resources were few: ten tons of uranium oxide hidden in Morocco during the war, some heavy water obtained from Norway on the basis of prewar purchase rights, and the experience of the small number of French physicists and chemists who returned to France after having participated in the Anglo-Canadian wartime atomic project. Most of the British and American research and development work on the atomic bomb during the war had been kept secret and was therefore unavailable to France. Among the activities of the CEA in the early postwar years were the establishment of the Chatillon research center, where the first reactor went critical in 1948, prospecting for uranium, large deposits of which were soon discovered in metropolitan France, and initial work on the establishment of a second nuclear research center at Saclay.

Administratively the CEA was and still is headed by both an administrator-general and a scientist, who holds the post of high commissioner. The dominant figure during the initial period was the high commissioner, Frédéric Joliot-Curie. These years were characterized by scientific control over the management of atomic policy and a high degree of autonomy of the CEA vis-à-vis the government. The orientation of the program, conditioned by both the peacetime circumstances and the low level of available infrastructure, was toward basic research and peaceful uses of atomic energy. This was emphasized in a government declaration delivered by M. Parodi before the United Nations in 1946; it was also the will of most of the scientists who were involved in the CEA.

In 1950 Joliot-Curie was relieved of his post because of his Communist affiliations and his statements against military uses of atomic research. This led to a reorganization of the CEA in 1951. Pierre Guillaumat was appointed administrator-general, and the balance of control over atomic policies shifted from the scientists to the government administrators.

The second or industrial phase of the nuclear program began in 1952 with the approval by parliament of the first Five Year Plan for atomic development. Under this plan the CEA budget was increased to allow for the construction of two high-power plutonium-producing reactors at Marcoule in the Rhone Valley: G1 — which went into operation in 1956, and G2 — which was completed in 1958. The plutonium from these reactors was intended primarily for use in secondary reactors to produce electrical power for propulsion, but the possibility of conversion to military purposes was clearly recognized.

In this second period French industry was mobilized to move France into the business of applying atomic energy. It was a period in which atomic policy was made by the administrative elites and by scientists of more conservative political leanings. (Many of the scientists in the CEA who were Communists had been removed.) Especially dominant was the leadership of the administrator-general, Pierre Guillaumat, who served in this position for seven years. The scientist who became high commissioner, Francis Perrin, held this post until 1970. With the start of the industrial production phase, the possibility of military atomic applications was opened for France, since the quantities of fissionable material necessary for such applications would soon be at hand.

The third or military phase cannot be dated from a specific governmental decision or political act. Rather, it was the result of a series of incremental decisions — and the postponement of other decisions — beginning in 1954 within the French bureaucracy during a period of frequently changing governments and cabinet ministers. On April 11, 1958, just before the demise of the Fourth Republic, Premier Félix Gaillard signed the official order authorizing the manufacture of an atomic bomb and preparations for the first French atomic tests in the spring of I960. Rut, as Scheinman explains, this order only ratified what was already a de facto policy. The following passage presents the central conclusion of the Scheinman study:

The action of responsible political leadership was the last in a long chain of events — a response to protracted internal pressure combined with the force of the external military and political environment. Guidance and direction for nuclear policy came not from the French Government or the French Parliament, but from a small, dedicated group of administrator-technocrats, politicians and military officers whose activities centered on and emanated from the CEA. This group exhorted successive governments at least to prepare the groundwork for an eventual decision to create an atomic arsenal, and their persuasiveness increased in direct proportion to the decline of French influence and prestige in the international environment.

Convincing confirmation of Scheinman's analysis is found in a speech by a high French government official concerned with atomic matters, Francois de Rose, in November 1958, before the French War College. In discussing the background of the French nuclear program, de Rose stated that "on the political level there had been no doctrine of French nuclear armament." In his words, "the manufacture of an atomic bomb ... wedged itself into our public life as a sort of by-product of an officially peaceful effort, there existing no overview of the problems involved, nor of the means necessary to solve them, nor of the results to be expected." De Rose termed this a "paradoxical situation," since considerable sums of money were spent on the development of nuclear arms before the government really made the decision to produce them and before that decision had been debated and approved in parliament. In his posthumous memoirs, General Charles Ailleret made the same point and, given his position as a strong advocate of French atomic armament, criticized the "oscillating politicians" of the Fourth Republic for having held up the military program by not making up their minds earlier.

There is not space here to trace in detail the history of military atomic policy in the last years of the Fourth Republic, but some of the main steps in this interesting development can be highlighted. The trend probably started with the first Five Year Plan for atomic energy passed in 1952. As Bertrand Goldschmidt, an important figure in the CEA over the whole postwar period, has pointed out, the 1952 plan "mentioned no eventual use of plutoniurn for military purposes, a decision on this subject not having been taken for several years; but it is certain that this aspect of the atomic problem was present, and undoubtedly predominant, in the mind of those who inspired and were responsible for the plan." It was also in 1952 that a small group of army officers under the direction of Colonel Charles Ailleret, then commandant des armes spéciales, began preliminary studies on requirements for the development of an atomic bomb and the time it would take to achieve the first atomic explosion.

The problem of military atomic applications began to be raised seriously in 1954. At the beginning of that year, the councils of National Defense held serious discussions on atomic questions. In May the minister of armed forces officially consulted the heads of the three services about an atomic national defense program. A number of projects were considered, and several military groups were set up to study them.

In the public forum the issue of military atomic applications was broached for the first time in the 1954 debate on the European Defense Community (EDC), since the proposed EDC treaty contained provisions regulating the whole question of atomic weapons. This issue was not the central focus of public attention, however, which was directed more to the broader questions of German rearmament and the prospective relinquishment of French sovereignty that the project would entail. France's defeat in the Indochina war also reinforced some military pressures for atomic weapons. During the course of the year Colonel Charles Ailleret and other military advocates began arguing the virtues of atomic armament in a series of articles, many of which appeared in the pages of the Revue de défense nationale. In the 1954 parliamentary debate on the military budget, the question why the budget did not include provisions even for the study of atomic weapons was seriously raised for the first time. The minister of defense, René Pleven, expressed government interest in further study of the question, recognizing the potential role of atomic weapons for France. But the most important step was the high-level consideration of the issue by the premier at the end of the year.

On December 26,1954, the question of the military applications of atomic energy was addressed in a lengthy meeting of a cabinet-level interministerial committee convened by Premier Mendès-France. Previously, Mendès-France had put two questions to a group of atomic experts, through his secretary of state for scientific research, Henri Long-chambon. The questions were: Given the existing state of French atomic development, how long would it take before France could manufacture an atomic bomb and a nuclear-powered submarine? How soon must the government make a definite decision for a military program in order to achieve the objectives stated? The answers: that it would be five years before France could possess a nuclear bomb, and that the last two years of this program "would have to be devoted exclusively to the manufacture of the bomb itself, without any benefit to research or industry." With these facts in hand, the interministerial committee, which included Guillaumat and Perrin of the CEA and military officers as well as cabinet members, discussed the problem. The results were not conclusive. The prime minister decided only to reserve final decision on a military atomic program for a later time, and that any studies to be undertaken would be under the direction of the CEA.

With the apparent acquiescence of Mendès-France, but without an official order, the CEA proceeded anyway to lay the groundwork for a military atomic program. This was due in no small part to the special interest in military applications of the CEA administrator-general, Guillaumat; he was supported by a small group in the military services. Thus, after the Mendès-France interministerial meeting in December 1954, France began to move toward the development of an atomic bomb without official sanction, and the timetable predicted by the premier's advisers was to be accurately met.

In December 1954 also, General Albert Buchalet agreed to head a secret atomic weapons unit within the CEA, the Bureau d'études générales (BEG). Established in May 1955, this unit was to play an important role in the military program. It later became the Direction des applications militaires (DAM) in 1958.

By the spring of 1955 Edgar Faure had become premier; both he and Guy MoUet, his successor, fluctuated on the military atomic issue. In March Faure first declared that France should consider making a nuclear weapon. A short time later, however, he had shifted and expressed his intent to eliminate research related to the construction of an atomic or hydrogen bomb. Yet on May 20, 1955, a secret protocol was signed which recorded agreement between the CEA and National Defense on a joint program for the 1955-57 period to be carried out by the CEA, to extend basic nuclear infrastructure and conduct technical research. Under the terms of the accord the Ministère des armées provided financial support for the CEA program, including construction of a third plutonium reactor; in return, the CEA agreed to produce fissionable material for later joint use and to pass on information from its study program relating to the development of a prototype weapon.

This important accord suggests either that Faure was not in complete control of the situation, or that he was acquiescing to the continuation of a study program and had postponed final decision on military uses until a later date. During the Faure regime the BEG began its operations, and the French Navy transferred substantial funds to the CEA for the construction of an atomic submarine. Indeed, according to the French White Paper, "The Armed Forces budget for 1955-56 included for the first time considerable appropriations specifically assigned to the national defense atomic program." Thus, a coordinated military atomic program was being launched at the same time that the government declared itself officially opposed to such a development.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from French Nuclear Diplomacy by Wilfrid L. Kohl. Copyright © 1971 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Preface, pg. vii
• Contents, pg. xi
• Introduction, pg. 1
• 1. The Nuclear Program of the Fourth Republic, pg. 15
• 2. From the Fourth to the Fifth Republic, pg. 48
• 3. The Genesis of the Gaullist Force de frappe and France's Entry into the Nuclear Club, pg. 82
• 4. Nuclear Weapons and Gaullist Foreign Policy, pg. 123
• 5. The Technology and Economics of the French Nuclear Force, pg. 178
• 6. The French Nuclear Force, NATO, and Franco-American Refotions, pg. 207
• 7. The French Nuclear Force and Franco-German Relations, pg. 267
• 8. Nuclear Issues in Franco-British Rehtions, pg. 318
• 9. Conclusion and Prospects, pg. 355
• Bibliography, pg. 385
• Index, pg. 403