Documents Show U.S. Spied on France

[tocqueville]

By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Mar 21, 10:01 PM ET

NEW YORK - U.S. intelligence agencies relied on such tactics as spies and spy planes planes to closely monitor France's nuclear weapons capability following World War II, newly declassified documents show.

The documents, produced by the CIA and several other U.S. agencies, were posted on the Internet by the Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior researcher at the National Security Archive, a freedom-of-information activist group.

Richelson said while America's interest in other nations' nuclear ambitions was always known, the new documents disclose some of the specific techniques used to gather intelligence on its allies.

"The United States was simply concerned with any other country that might get into the nuclear weapons field, whether friend or foe," Richelson told The Associated Press. "The intelligence requirement was to know what they were up to."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_eu/us_france_nuclear_espionage

[Cooley Hurd]

1. What a way to treat an ally...

Washington and Lafayette are spinning in their graves...:grr:

[BR_Parkway]

2. Freedom Fries are on the March! Stay the course.

In all reality, we probabaly spy on our allies more than we do our 'enemies'

[neoblues]

3. Not really surprising... nt.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Monitored.... interesting name for what went on at the Pentagon...

and I might add that at least all we did was monitor... and not overthrow, sow civil strife and create chaos in France.

[neoblues]

6. Oops.

For those wondering, my previous remarks to which 4M... responded were something along the lines of "we need to know what's going on elsewhere and that's okay as long as all we do in regard to our allies is to investigate... and that we've probably been "monitored" by our allies as well".

Note that the choice of the word "monitored" comes from the first line of the main post ..."closely monitor France's nuclear weapons".

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Against whom did the CIA think that DeGaulle was going to use

them?