Unfit for purpose: reassessing the development and deployment of French nuclear weapons (1956–1974)

ABSTRACT

This article presents the first reassessment of the strategic rationality and credibility of French nuclear weapons policy before 1974. Building on untapped primary material from across the world as well as technical analysis, it shows that early Cold War French nuclear weapon procurement and deployment are incompatible with a precise grand design and the requirements of strategic rationality. The first generation of French nuclear forces also lacked technical credibility, despite reliance on outside help. Several French officials knew about it, as did their allies and adversaries. These findings de-exceptionalise French nuclear history and challenge conventional wisdom about Cold War nuclear history.

KEYWORDS:

• France
• nuclear weapons
• strategy
• credibility
• nuclear deterrence

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Maurice Vaïsse, who allowed us access to Marcel Duval’s private papers, and to Bill Burr, Matthew Jones and Alexander Bolfrass for sharing important archival documents. David Holloway, William Walker and Zia Mian provided important feedback on the manuscript. Earlier versions of this paper received feedback from participants in the 2017 and 2018 Nuclear Knowledges workshops hosted at CERI, Sciences Po. Benoît Pelopidas thanks Marie Denoue and Nari Shelekpayev for research assistance. His research for this paper was supported by the French Agence National de la Recherche under the VULPAN project (grant 17-CE39-0001-01) and by small grants from the Nonproliferation International History Project (NPIHP). Sébastien Philippe acknowledges funding from the Stanton and the MacArthur foundation. The authors are thankful for the feedback of two anonymous referees who helped improve the manuscript.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth Century”, 3 and David Holloway, “Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War,” 376 in Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 1, 3.

² Marc Theleri, Introduction à la force de frappe française (Paris: Stock, 1997), 328; the authors of “Histoire de l’artillerie nucléaire de terre française 1959–1996,” Cahiers d’études et de recherches du musée de l’armée, hors série n°7 (2013) claim 1 May, 250 and Marcel Duval and Yves Le Baut write about August 1974, L’arme nucléaire française pourquoi et comment? (Paris: SPM, 1992), 72. Mid-1974 is an important date too, from the perspective of this article, because it is the only time that a Chef d’Etat Major, General Maurin, used the notion of ‘target’ in a press conference and briefly moved beyond lyrical nuclear discourse. Theleri, Introduction à la force de frappe française, 10.

³ John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War (London: Allen Lane), 139–40; Gino Raymond, Historical Dictionary of France, 2nd ed. (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 97. Some historians have classified France as a ‘nuclear’ power from 1964: Frédéric Bozo, “France, ‘Gaullism’, and the Cold War,” 158–78 and Francis J. Gavin, “Nuclear Proliferation and Non-Proliferation during the Cold War,” 395–416 in Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume II, Crises and Détente (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

⁴ Bozo, “France, ‘Gaullism’, and the Cold War,” 165; Westad, The Cold War, 277; Timothy Sayles, Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Post-War Global Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), 184.

⁵ Alexander Debs and Nuno Monteiro, Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 431, 436; Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), chap. 2.

⁶ For claims of an asymmetric escalation posture, see Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 163–9 and Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain and France and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 200.

⁷ For instance, during the Cold War, US presidential discourse about nuclear weapons, the associated nuclear doctrines, and the targeting policies never coincided except at the time of the Schlesinger doctrine in 1974: Georges Le Guelte, Les armes nucléaires: Mythes et réalités (Arles: Actes Sud, 2009), 164, 79; Francis Gavin, “The Myth of Flexible Response: Unites States Strategy in Europe in the 1960s,” International History Review 23 no. 4: (2001), 847–75 ; David Allan Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy 1945–1960,” International Security 7, no. 4 (1983), 3–71; Lynn Eden, “The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal and Zero: Sizing and Planning for Use – Past, Present, and Future,” in Catherine Kelleher and Judith Reppy, eds., Getting to Zero: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). In the case of the United Kingdom, Matthew Jones and Richard Moore have established similar inconsistencies. See Jones’ The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent (London: Routledge, 2018) and Moore’s Nuclear Illusion, Nuclear Reality: Britain, the United States and Nuclear Weapons 1958–1964 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010). India and Pakistan also started to think about operational planning only after the 1998 tests. Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019), 591–6.

⁸ This diagnostic was first made by Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 2. Benoît Pelopidas has shown that this assumption of existential deterrence cannot account for French behaviour during the Cuban Missile Crisis. See “The Unbearable Lightness of Luck,” European Journal of International Security 2, no. 2 (2017): 253–60.

⁹ This triumphalist narrative is produced and perpetuated by three sources: (1) policy and expert triumphalist discourse; (2) scholarship that does not assess the performance of the weapons system and focuses on policy intentions only – for a typical example, see Céline Jurgensen and Dominique Mongin, eds., Résistance et Dissuasion: Des origines du programme nucléaire français à nos jours (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2018) – (3) scholarship that is derivative of the previous scholarship (2) and does not engage with French primary sources. We will specify this scholarship in each following section of the paper.

¹⁰ Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 184; Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 2; Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics, 418–36.

¹¹ Garret Martin, “A Gaullist Grand Strategy?” in Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin, eds., Globalising de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policy, 1958–1969 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) and General de Gaulle’s Cold War. Challenging American Hegemony 1963–68 (New York: Berghahn, 2013), 5, 12; Thierry Balzacq, ‘France’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich and Peter Dombrowski, eds., Comparative Grand Strategy: Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

¹² Freedman and Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, xii–iii.

¹³ Thierry d’Arbonneau, speech at the 9 December 2013 conference on the future of French nuclear weapons, Paris; Interview with General Vincent Desportes, Paris, 15 January 2014.

¹⁴ Bruno Tertrais, “Destruction Assurée: The Origins and Development of French Nuclear Strategy 1945–1981,” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice(Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, 2004), 52.

¹⁵ Jean-Damien Pô, Les moyens de la puissance: Les activités militaires du CEA (1945–2000), (Paris: Ellipses, 2001), 104.

¹⁶ Claude Carlier, “La genèse du système d’arme stratégique piloté Mirage IV,” in Maurice Vaïsse, ed., Armement et Vème République (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2002), 208; Marcel Duval Private papers, 551AP/13, vol. IV, interview XXI, 10 October 1988, 10, French National Archives, Pierrefitte sur Seine. The dates of 1956–57 for the Mirage IV bomber with a nuclear mission are also confirmed in Duval Private papers, 551AP/13, vol. III, interview XIII, 12 February 1988, 4, French National Archives.

¹⁷ The technical clauses of the contract were agreed upon in March 1957 and the order for the Mirage IV-01 was placed on 29 April 1957. See Hervé Beaumont, Mirage IV Le bombardier stratégique, Docavia N° 47 (Clichy: Éditions Larivière, 2003), 35. Marcel Duval, “L’arme atomique et ses vecteurs. Pourquoi, comment, quand l’arsenal nucléaire?” in Vaïsse, ed., Armement et Vème République, 294.

¹⁸ Cited in Sylvain Champonnois, “L’armée de l’air et l’innovation technologique (1945–1966),” PhD dissertation in history, Paris Sorbonne, 2012, 554–5.

¹⁹ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. I (Paris: Fayard/de Fallois, 1994), 290; vol. II (Paris: Fayard/de Fallois, 1997), 112–15; Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle, vol. 3 (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 478–82; Georges-Henri Soutou, “La menace stratégique sur la France à l’ère nucléaire: les instructions personnelles et secrètes de 1967 et 1974,” Revue historique des armées, no. 236 (2004).

²⁰ At the same time, as early as 26 November 1959, strategist Raymond Aron wrote publicly that the force de frappe as it was proposed could only be an element of prestige that serves in diplomacy. Raymond Aron, L’armement atomique français et l’alliance atlantique, part I and II, Le Figaro, 26 and 27 November 1959 and Mémoires (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2010 [1983]), 556.

²¹ Note du haut commissaire à l’énergie atomique sur la politique française d’armement atomique, 27 July 1959 to President Charles de Gaulle, ‘très secret’, annexe to letter from General Administrator Couture to Minister of Foreign Affairs Maurice Couve de Murville, 14 August 1959, in Maurice Vaïsse, ed., Documents diplomatiques français (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2003), 175–6.

²² Champonnois, L’armée de l’air et l’innovation technologique (1945–1966), 554–5.

²³ Confidential letter from Hervé Alphand to Maurice Couve de Murville, 18 May 1962, Maurice Couve de Murville papers, Correspondance CM7 (1958–62), file CM7.1962, Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, Paris.

²⁴ Note from the Presidency of the Republic to the Chef de l’Etat-major particulier, 3 May 1963 about ‘la défense atomique de l’Europe, Maurice Couve de Murville papers, Correspondance CM8 (1963–69), Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, Italics added.

²⁵ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle vol. I, 344–5.

²⁶ Ibid., 49.

²⁷ A November 1959 speech before the French military academy is often perceived as the early formulation of de Gaulle’s view of deterrence tous azimuts. Champonnois, L’armée de l’air et l’innovation technologique, 552.

²⁸ Theleri, Introduction à la force de frappe française, 57, 77; Hervé Beaumont, Les Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 50 ans de dissuasion nucléaire au service de la paix (Paris: Histoire & Collection, 2014), 128.

²⁹ Bill Gunston, Les fusées et missiles d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Elsevier Séquoia, 1979), 45; Jean Carpentier, Un Demi-Siècle d’Aéronautique en France, Les Equipements, vol. 1 (Paris: Comité pour l’Histoire de l’Aéronautique, 2004), 143.

³⁰ See footnotes 58 to 62 for examples of such claims.

³¹ The 20 cities were Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Riga, Kalinin, Tallin, Sebastopol, Tula, Gomal, Minsk, Nikolaiev, Baranovichi, Kaluga, Bobruisk, Kaliningrad, Smolensk, and Valdai (Sylvain Champonnois, “L’armée de l’air française et le nucléaire. L’adaptation au système d’arme stratégique piloté Mirage IV (1956–1966),” Stratégique 1 (2013): 177–80 and Champonnois, L’armée de l’air et l’innovation technologique (1945–1966), 523 adds the 2500 km criterion.

³² Champonnois, “L’armée de l’air française et le nucléaire,” 180.

³³ François Maurin, “La mise en place opérationnelle de la triade stratégique (Mirage IV, SSBS Albion, SNLE) et des chaines de contrôle,” in Institut Charles de Gaulle, ed., L’Aventure de la Bombe: de Gaulle et la dissuasion nucléaire 1958–1969 (Plon: Paris, 1985), 224.

³⁴ In practice, only nine aircraft (one per airfield) were ready to take off at any time. After an alert was given, nine more aircraft could be in the air in the next two hours, another nine after eight more hours, and the final nine after another eight hours. Beaumont, Les Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 75. The other planes were usually undergoing maintenance or being used for training missions. See UK Joint Intelligence Committee (A), “France as a Military Nuclear Power,” Top Secret, 22 May 1969, UK-CAB 186–2. Point 6.

³⁵ Beaumont, Le Mirage IV, 57–69.

³⁶ According to General Gallois, the fact that US technology was needed for the motors of the Mirage IVB was unacceptable for de Gaulle; see Carlier, “La genèse du système d’arme stratégique Mirage IV (1956–1964),” 212. This is surprising since other key pieces of equipment of the Mirage IV were acquired from or even financed by the United States and the United Kingdom. They included the on-board Doppler radar and calculator to measure the aircraft ground speed and drift (Marconi Company, UK), the aircraft HF transmission systems (Collins Radio, US), the aircraft anti-radar chaffs (Chemring, UK), and the aircraft air-to-air Agacette electronic countermeasure system built by Electronique Marcel Dassault under a grant from the United States’ Mutual Weapon Development Program. See Michel Bergounioux, Un demi-siècle d’aéronautique en France, Electronique (Paris: Comité pour l’histoire de l’aéronautique, 2003), 89, 95, and 103, available at https://www.3af.fr/sites/default/files/comaero_01.blanc_introductif_un_demi_sieccle_aeronautique.pdf (accessed October 13, 2020). Even more striking, the aircraft pre-series specifications of 1961 required the capability to deliver the NATO Mark 7 nuclear bomb, which happened to have the exact same diameter as the AN11 nuclear bomb that would eventually equip the Mirage IV in 1964. See Beaumont, Les Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 20.

³⁷ Le Mirage IV, 109, 113.

³⁸ Beaumont, Le Mirage IV, 113.

³⁹ UK Defence Intelligence Staff, French Defence Policy: Brief to the Secretary of State’s meeting with Mr Messmer, D/DISSEC/20/2/1. Top Secret, 28 March 1968, TNA; Carlier, “La genèse du système d’arme stratégique Mirage IV (1956–1964),” 213.

⁴⁰ Jean Forestier, “Le Mirage IV raconté par son ingénieur de marque,” in Jacques Bonnet, ed., Un demi-siècle d’aéronautique en France: Les avions militaires, vol. I (Paris: Comité pour l’histoire de l’aéronautique, Centre des hautes études de l’armement, Division Histoire de l’armement, 2007), 145. At the time, Guillaumat was well aware of the development and testing timetable of the first French nuclear device. Relying on the United States was not a problem for him, however, as he continuously sought US help for the development of a missile based on the solid-fuelled Polaris at least until January 1960, when he declared: ‘It is time we become conscious that there will be no American help’. See Emile Arnaud, Un demi-siècle d’aéronautique en France, Les Missiles Balistiques de 1955 à 1995 (Paris: Comité pour l’histoire de l’aéronautique, 2004), 74.

⁴¹ The number appears in UK intelligence assessments, see: Joint Intelligence Committee, “France as a Military Nuclear Power,” 25 September 1972 (JIC(A) (72)31), 9, para. 6, CAB186/12, and UK JIC, CAB186/2, 9, para. 6, UK National Archives, Kew as well as in Dassault’s Mirage IV mission planning diagrams, reproduced in Beaumont, Le Mirage IV, 65.

⁴² The map titled “Examples of the Mirage IV Operational Possibilities,” shows multiple routes. Only the northern route is deemed capable of reaching Moscow: a one-way mission. A direct flightpath over Eastern Europe was never an option given the multiple layers of air defence in place. The map (carte SHD/DAA, 4E4153 EMAA, 4 May 1961, Bureau des Plans généraux, Service Historique de la Défense, Vincennes) is reproduced in Champonnois, L’armée de l’air et l’innovation technologique, 848. The map also confirms a ~ 300-mile range extension obtained with in-flight refuelling.

⁴³ This was estimated from flight and aircraft parameters provided by Beaumont, Le Mirage IV, in particular, data from the world speed records of the Mirage IV-01. The difference in flight performance and maximum fuel loading between prototypes and series do not modify this assessment. Overall, we estimate the average fuel consumption to vary from 12 to 24 litres of fuel per travelled mile for high altitude subsonic and supersonic flight respectively.

⁴⁴ Beaumont (Le Mirage IV, 135) provides a Dassault diagram giving a 1275-km (~800 mile) range for a 50% supersonic flight, and a 1445-km (~900 mile) range for a 25% supersonic flight. The UK intelligence assessment estimates a maximum range of 1200 miles at high altitude subsonic speed and 600 miles at low altitude subsonic speed. The dramatic reductions in range at either low altitude or supersonic speed are consistent with increased drag at higher air density or higher speed.

⁴⁵ Tertrais, Destruction assurée, 51; Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 100; Jean Doise and Maurice Vaïsse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, La politique étrangère de la France 1871–2015 (Paris: Hachette, 2015), 612–13.

⁴⁶ Interview by Admiral Marcel Duval, 2 November 1988, Marcel Duval Private papers 551AP/13, vol. IV, interview XXIII, 11, French National Archives.

⁴⁷ The date of the deployment of American Honest John rockets with French troops is still debated. Dates vary from 1957 to 1961, but all of them predate the moment when the concept was clarified. Louis-Marie Baille, “L’épisode nucléaire tactique français: 1957–1996,” in Nicolas Haupais, ed., La France et l’arme nucléaire (Paris: éditions du CNRS, 2018, 68); Duval and Le Baut, L’arme nucléaire française pourquoi et comment?, 69; “Histoire de l’artillerie nucléaire de terre française 1959–1996,” Cahiers d’études et de recherches du musée de l’armée, hors série n°7 (2013), 29, 249.

⁴⁸ Martin, General de Gaulle’s Cold War, 2; Lacouture, De Gaulle vol. 3, 470 and 472 on his absence of desire to articulate a proper doctrine.

⁴⁹ Aron, The Great Debate, 120–1. See also Sten Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine: Presidents and Military Power in Fifth Republic France 1958–2000 (London: Praeger, 2002), 26.

⁵⁰ Over the years, Alain Peyrefitte repeatedly raised the criticisms identified in this paper before a de Gaulle extremely confident that some Mirage bombers would go through to Soviet targets and cause unacceptable damage. See Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. I, 340, 344–5, 359–60; vol. II, 116. Compare de Gaulle’s defence of the Mirage IV as sufficient deterrent in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle vol. I, 361 and his claims that the French force will only be credible in 1970: Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. III (Paris: Fayard/de Fallois, 2000, 149). Dassault also misinformed Prime Minister Michel Debré about the performance of the Mirage, claiming that it could indeed go to Moscow: Marcel Duval Private papers 551AP/13, vol. III, interview XVIII, 6, French National Archives. In April 1959, de Gaulle had requested documents on the Mirage IVB and its operational capabilities to keep in his office. It is not clear whether the general was aware of the shortcomings of the Mirage IVA before the plane and its capabilities were finally demonstrated to him in 1961. This presentation happened shortly before the order for the 12 U.S. KC 135 was placed. Champonnois, “L’armée de l’air française et le nucléaire,” 182; Jean Forestier, Le Mirage IV raconté par son ingénieur de marque, 149–50; On the question of fissile materials procurement, De Gaulle was told that it was necessary to produce uranium for French weapons and discovered that it was not the case autumn of 1966. The first French experimentation towards the development of thermonuclear weapons (the TURQUOISE test on November 28, 1964) used only plutonium and lithium deuteride, and no highly enriched uranium, which would only be available three years later. Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français 1960–1996, Vol. I: La genèse de l’organisation et les expérimentations au Sahara (CSEM et CEMO), 192. On 6 July 1966, de Gaulle even told Peyrefitte he was lied to on this matter. C’était de Gaulle, vol. III, 125.

⁵¹ Amiral Philippon, La Royale et le roi (Paris: Éditions France Empire, 1982), 154. The incident apparently took place during a performance evaluation drill to assess the on-alert aircraft crew’s level of readiness. After the crew was sent to their aircraft, and buckled up, an error in the mission display panel confirmed the mission and the crew took off, armed with their nuclear bomb. Following the procedure, the crew refused to come back, despite repeated attempts to cancel the mission. When the aircraft arrived at the refuelling rendez-vous, there was no tanker, and it eventually turned back. The Mirage IV landed with its bomb, something extremely risky that would later be forbidden. Robert Galan, Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, Missions au Coeur du Secret défense (Toulouse: Privat, 2014), 67–9.

⁵² Pierrelatte’s overall cost was three times higher than the original budget and the building of the Albion IRBM site cost almost twice the original budget, see Doise and Vaïsse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, 621.

⁵³ Alain Peyrefitte, Le mal français (Paris: Plon, 1976), 288–9.

⁵⁴ Pierre Gallois, Le sablier du siècle, 372; Lacouture, De Gaulle vol. 3, 455.

⁵⁵ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 1, 360, 415.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 289, 348; vol. II, 65.

⁵⁷ See footnotes 58 to 63.

⁵⁸ Joseph Alsop, “The French Mystery,” New York Herald Tribune, 18 January 1963; Raymond Aron,The Great Debate: Theories of Nuclear Strategy (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 136 (originally published in French in 1963). For an assessment of the debate making the points earlier, see also Raoul Girardet, “Autour du grand débat,” Revue française de science politique 14, no. 2 (1964): 343; Esprit, “La force de frappe, dossier technique et militaire,” December 1963 and Paul Stehlin, La force d’illusion (Paris: Robert Laffont), 1973.

⁵⁹ Jean Cabrière, “Le Programme Mirage IV,” in Colloque d’information sur l’arme nucleéaire et ses vecteurs: strateégies, armes et parades: Paris, 24 et 25 janvier 1989, Grand amphitheéaítre de la Sorbonne (Paris: Atelier d’impression de l’armée de terre nº1, 1990), 135.

⁶⁰ Christian Malis, Pierre Marie Gallois. Géopolitique, histoire, stratégie (Lausanne: L’âge d’homme, 2009), 411.

⁶¹ Doise and Vaïsse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, 620.

⁶² See McGeorge Bundy, “Action on Nuclear Assistance to France,” 7 May 1962, cited in Matthew Jones, “Prelude to the Skybolt Crisis: The Kennedy Administration’s Approach to British and French Strategic Nuclear Policies in 1962,” Journal of Cold War Studies 21, no. 2 (2019): 80 for the 1962 assessment; McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 472 for the 1988 observation.

⁶³ See also Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 204, 210; Dominique Mongin, “L’arme nucléaire et la France, perspectives historiques,” in Nicolas Haupais, ed., La France et l’arme nucléaire (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2018), 54.

⁶⁴ Cited in Serge Gadal, Forces aériennes stratégiques: histoire des deux premières composantes de la dissuasion nucléaire française (Paris: Institut de stratégie comparée, 2009), 20.

⁶⁵ We are leaving aside the issue of safety of the bases of the Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, which the president’s chief of staff regarded as unsatisfactory as late as 4 March 1967 in a note to de Gaulle. See point 5 in the note. GR1595, File 1, Service Historique de la Défense, Vincennes.

⁶⁶ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 1, 290. On 26 May 1962, de Gaulle addressed Ambassador James Gavin’s offer of US protection by articulating that he was not only concerned about the limits of the US security guarantee, but also that the United States may well become a colonising presence in Europe. Archives de la Présidence de la République AG/5(1)/720, French National Archives. This is a change from de Gaulle’s attempt at getting US aid between 1958 and 1962. See Georges-Henri Soutou, La guerre froide de la France, 1941–1990 (Paris: Tallandier, 2018), 354–7.

⁶⁷ Jean Forestier, “Le Mirage IV raconté; par son ingénieur de marque,” in Jacques Bonnet, ed., Un demi-siècle d’aéronautique en France: Les avions militaires, 148.

⁶⁸ The nuclear bomb was precocious because its nuclear explosive package was not the one originally intended. The intended concept was first tested during the Gerboise verte experiment (4/25/1961). The test was rushed; it took place during a tentative coup in Algiers, but failed for technical reasons. In this design, the plutonium core was not in direct contact with the tamper material. This allowed it to be kept outside of the high explosive ‘chamber’ until the bomb is armed a few minutes before being dropped, greatly minimising the risk of an accidental nuclear detonation. Once this concept was finally validated, it was used in the AN21, which replaced the ‘precocious’ AN11 in the 1965–67 period. Pierre Billaud, ed., La grande aventure du nucléaire militaire français: des acteurs témoignent. (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017), 107–8; Beaumont, Les Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 44; Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français 1960–1996, vol. I: La genèse de l’organisation et les expérimentations au Sahara (CSEM et CEMO), 107; On the fact that it may have not been fully operational, see Jacques Bonnet, ed., Un demi-siècle d’aéronautique en France, Les avions militaires, vol. I, 148.

⁶⁹ Once assembled, the weapon had to continuously be cooled with liquid ammonia, to prevent the high explosives from cracking. Beaumont, Les Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 42–4.

⁷⁰ These tests were called ‘Essais POLLEN’ and ran from 1964 to 1966: Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français 1960–1996, vol. I, 198–204.

⁷¹ Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français 1960–1996, vol. I, 84.

⁷² These data are based on the full yield test of the AN11 conducted in Algeria (BERYL experiment, 1 May 1962, 30 kT yield), and the expected yield of the Tamoure nuclear test, which involved a live nuclear bomb test dropped from a Mirage IV on July 1966. See Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français 1960–1996, vol. I, 152–65; and Capitaine de Vaisseau Grenier, “Ministère des Armées, Décision des Centres d’Expérimentations Nucléaires, Groupement Opérationel des Expérimentations Nucléaires,” Compte-Rendu de la Première Demi-Campagne 19 August 1966, 1966, 6. (http://www.moruroa.org/medias/pdf/Compte-rendu%201%C3%A8re%20demi-campagne%201966.pdf)

⁷³ These estimates were obtained from Alex Wellerstein’s Nukemap online platform (https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/), detonating a 50-kiloton weapon at 1000 metres (optimised for an 8 PSI air blast) above the city centre. The casualties obtained were corrected to account for the demographics of these cities in 1965. For Moscow see World Population Review http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/moscow-population/ accessed 20 September 2019. For Leningrad (St Petersburg), see Centre for Demography and Human Ecology, Institute of Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Sciences, “The Population of the Northern Capital,” Population and Society, nos 163–4 (1–15 August 2004): 1–3; For Ukrainian cities, see Anatole Romaniuk and Oleksandr Gladun, “Demographic Trends in Ukraine: Past, Present, and Future,” Population and Development Review 41, no. 2 (2015): 315–37.

⁷⁴ Theleri, Introduction à la force de frappe française, 11.

⁷⁵ On Gallois’ involvement on the specifications of the Mirage IV plane, see Malis, Pierre Marie Gallois, 410; CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, “France May Reassess Nuclear Force,” Secret, 12 April 1963. Available online at the George Washington University National Security Archive, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB184/index.htm (accessed October 16, 20). Claude Carlier identifies Gallois as the CIA source, see Claude Carlier, “La surveillance par les États-Unis des programmes nucléaires français armes et vecteurs (1960–1966),” Stratégique 1 (2013): 162. De Gaulle believed Gallois formally denied such claims, however. Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle vol. 1, 422.

⁷⁶ Général Martin in L’aventure de la bombe, 204.

⁷⁷ Ibid., 204. Italics in original.

⁷⁸ Gaston Palewski’s papers within Alain Peyrefitte’s, where one finds Joseph Alsop’s articles 20110333/13: file RECH 36 French National Archives, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle vol. I, 344–5, 359–60; vol. II, 123–4.

⁷⁹ Beaumont, Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, 138–9 145; CAB186/12, Joint Intelligence Committee, “France as a military nuclear power”, 25 September 1972 (JIC(A) (72)31), 9, para. 6.

⁸⁰ W.E. Colby, French Request for Data on the Locations of Soviet Missile Sites, Memorandum from the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defence, 6 August 1974. This help does matter as the French had seriously underestimated Soviet capabilities. For example, Sebastopol was assumed not to be defended by surface to air missiles, while a 1964 CIA map of Soviet air defence assets shows clearly otherwise; see Office of Scientific Intelligence, French Development of Nuclear Weapons Delivery Systems, 14 July 1964, Figure 2, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC.

⁸¹ Général Gallois in L’aventure de la bombe, 205.

⁸² Thomas W. Wolfe, “Soviet Commentary on the French force de frappe” (Washington DC: RAND Corporation 1965), 7-10

⁸³ Pompidou did not appreciate the joke. Robert Galan, Forces Aériennes Stratégiques, Missions au Coeur du Secret défense (Toulouse: Privat, 2014), 177.

⁸⁴ USSR Embassy in France, Report on Soviet-French Relations and the Position of France on Key International Issues (March 1964), 187.

⁸⁵ Robbin F. Laird, France, the Soviet Union and the Nuclear Weapons Issue (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985), 93, citing Col. A. Slobodenko, “Franko-amerikanskie spory o strategii ,” MZ, 1965 n° 1: 72.

⁸⁶ Hanson W. Baldwin, “Taking Stock of Europe’s Nuclear Defences,” The Reporter 25 (April 1963).

⁸⁷ CIA Special report: “The French Nuclear Strike Program,” 31 May 1963, 3. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000572657.pdf

⁸⁸ McGeorge Bundy, “Action on Nuclear Assistance to France,” 7 May 1962 cited in Jones, “Prelude to Skybolt,” 80.

⁸⁹ Joseph Alsop, “The French Mystery” and “The Mirage of the Mirage,” New York Herald Tribune, 18 January 1963 and 18 February 1963; Albert Wohlstetter, “Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N + 1 Country,” Foreign Affairs, April 1961, 363. NB: Wohlstetter papers show that he followed closely the controversy over the Mirage IV and was very critical of inconsistencies in French pronouncements as well as the technical credibility of the plane. Albert Wohlstetter papers, box 165, folder 5, Hoover Institution, Stanford.

⁹⁰ Alsop, “The French Mystery” and “The Mirage of the Mirage.”

⁹¹ Robert Lieber, “The French Nuclear Force: A Strategic and Political Evaluation,” International Affairs 42, no. 3 (July 1966): 426, but see also 424, 29.

⁹² Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State. Subject-Numeric Files, 1967–69, folder DEF 1 FR, 7, U.S. National Archives , Courtesy of William Burr.

⁹³ Joint Intelligence Committee, “France as a Military Nuclear Power,” 25 September 1972 (JIC(A) (72)31), bullet points 7, 10 and 12a, 3–4, 6, CAB186/12 . See also point 15, 14–15. Courtesy of Matthew Jones.

⁹⁴ Ibid.

⁹⁵ Ibid.

⁹⁶ Ibid.

⁹⁷ Lieber, “The French nuclear force. A strategic and political evaluation”, 422, 429.

⁹⁸ Terrence Peterson, “The French Archives and the Coming Fight for Declassification,” War on the Rocks, 6 March 2020.

⁹⁹ This confirms Aron’s diagnostic in Mémoires, 557.

¹⁰⁰ Beatrice Heuser, Nuclear Mentalities (London: Palgrave, 1997), 142.

¹⁰¹ Itty Abraham, “The Ambivalence of Nuclear Histories,” Osiris 21, no. 1 (2006): 56.

¹⁰² In an interview, Admiral Duval was told France had 1.9 submarines available on average at all time during the July 1974 to August 1976 period. Only after would two submarines be available at all times - the necessary threshold to guarantee one of them is always on patrol during periods of transit. Marcel Duval Private papers, 551AP/13, vol. V, interview XXXV, 6 March 1990, 28.

¹⁰³ See Pelopidas, “The Unbearable Lightness of Luck”, 251-3 and Thibaud Boncourt, Marielle Debos, Mathias Delori, Benoît Pelopidas and Christophe Wasinski, “Que faire des interventions militaires dans le champ académique,” 20&21. Revue d’histoire 145, no. 1 (2020): 145-49.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benoît Pelopidas

Dr. Benoît Pelopidas is the founding director of the “Nuclear Knowledges” program at Sciences Po (CERI) (formerly chair of excellence in security studies (2016-2019)), an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University and a frequent visitor to the Program on Science and Global Security and the Global Systemic Risk research cluster at Princeton University. He focuses on the construction, legitimation and contestation of knowledge claims about nuclear weapons, their conceptual, imaginal and memorial underpinnings.

Sébastien Philippe

Dr. Sébastien Philippe is a scientist and associate research scholar with the Princeton University Program on Science and Global Security, part of the School of Public and International Affairs. He is also an associate fellow with the Nuclear Knowledges Program at CERI, Sciences Po. His research interests include issues of nuclear arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament and international peace and security. He is an associate editor of the journal Science and Global Security, and a former strategic nuclear weapon safety engineer. He holds a PhD (2018) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.