The Rest Is Classified - 19. Attack on Greenpeace: Death in the Pacific (Ep 2)

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Did the French secret service commit an act of state terrorism by sinking a Greenpeace ship? Why did the tragedy of the Rainbow Warrior become known as BlunderWatergate? How many millions of dollars did France have to pay Greenpeace in compensation? The French have bombed the Rainbow Warrior, forcing its environmentalist crew to flee for their lives, but one member of the team is stuck on board. As the story of the attack starts to spread around the world, what ensues is a frantic man-hunt to unmask the perpetrators and bring them to justice. In this episode, Gordon and David trawl through the murky aftermath of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, debating how this disastrous operation informs sabotage missions to this day. ------------------- Pre-order a signed edition of David's latest book, The Seventh Floor, via this link. ------------------- Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.nordvpn.com/restisclassified It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Email: [e-mail] Twitter: @triclassified Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Callum Hill Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And... done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. We were not cold-blooded killers. We have done, we did what we were ordered to do. Our first intention was to neutralize the boat without hurting any people or killing anybody. And it was considered a failed operation. Nobody wanted to kill anybody. That is the testimony of Jean-Luc Kistère, a member of France's external security service, La Direction Générale de la Securité Exterieure, the DGSE. And he is the frog man, the member of the dive team who has planted an explosive, two explosives actually, on the underside of the Hall of the Rainbow Warrior, over nuclear testing and Greenpeace's efforts

to disrupt those. And French intelligence decided last time that they were actually going to take batters into their own hands and send Greenpeace a message and put a hole in the side of the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace's sort of flagship boat, I guess you could say, in Auckland harbour. And when we left them last time, it was just after midnight. And the Rainbow Warriors on its side sort of half submerged in the dock in Auckland, thanks to these limpet mines, these explosives that Jean-Luc Kistère and the DGSE have planted. That's right. And the crew of the Rainbow Warrior have realized that one of their team is missing, the photographer

Fernando Pereira, and they realize he might have been on the boat. They try and shine a light down to the engine room, but this thick black water, because the fuel has been leaking everywhere. They can't see anything. They can't see him. Police divers get there pretty quickly and they arrive, but it's too difficult for them to go into this water. It's so kind of thick with oil.

I mean, the terrible irony of a kind of green piece boat polluting that harbor thanks to French intelligence. So, they have to wait for a Navy team to come and that takes hours. But by about 4 a.m., that Navy team arrive and they go down into the Rainbow Warrior and there they find Pereira's body. It seems he drowned in his cabin with the straps to his camera bag tangled around his legs and it looks like he went down to get his camera after the first bomb went off and then is trapped by the second bomb.

And obviously, kind of deep shock, you know, the kind of tragedy for the Greenpeace movement and for New Zealand, I think, you know, to have something like this happen there. And, you know, one of the policemen says, we'll get them. We don't like this sort of thing happening here. So immediately you have a manhunt going on. It's clear that it's not mechanical failure or the fuel in the ship combusting. There's two massive holes punched in the side of the boat.

It's clear that this is sabotage. I mean, in some ways, it's pretty obvious that they were about to head off to protest against French nuclear tests. The finger is pointing in some senses at France, but of course, that's different from being able to prove it. The French follow the first rule of intelligence operations, deny everything. But you know, the police are on the case, they're led by a kind of Dower Scotsman called Alan Galbraith, you know, in that kind of British

detective style, you know, like a kind of detective drama, like an Inspector Morse, I don't know if you know Inspector Morse. We don't have him in Texas. No, you got different type of police officers there, I think. And they start to follow the clues. And it's fascinating because they get some lucky breaks because there's a local yacht club right by the dock side where the Rainbow Warrior had been. They'd been worried about thefts overnight. Some of them had stayed up overnight, that night, keeping watch for anything that might

happen. They'd seen people getting off a small dinghy. This had been Jean-Luc Quistaire amongst others and neighborhood watch style, they'd got the license plate of the camper van that had been used to escape. So, these are literally the local community watching out for crime and they've got French intelligence in the act and by getting that license plate. Then they're able to trace the license plate and they work out, well, this has been a rental camper van and they've been hired by a couple. And then by chance, the next morning, the couple turn up at the rental office and they're

there to return their camper van early. Seems like a bad decision to go back to the rental office, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. It does. And the office have already been alerted by the police. So they call the police and say, look, you know, we've got the people here and the police say, well, stall them. Don't let them get to the airport. Don't let them get out of here. And so the office say, well, we owe

you some money. If you hang on, we can get you the money. And again, you know, the couple make the mistake of waiting, but that's crucially give the police time to arrive and arrest them. Now, do you have the Keystone cops in the UK? Okay, before we go treating French intelligence, I think somewhat appropriately as the Keystone cops here, it is worth saying, I think at this point, it's unlikely that anyone inside the DGSE, because this is within 24 hours or even less of the explosion, they probably don't know that someone has died. So from their perspective, they've got the boat obviously sunk, they've probably got photographs of

that. This is a successful operation. And then it begs the question of, well, why are they doing things like going back to the rental office? And I do think there's a tradecraft point here, which is somewhat subtle. And it's still actually debated in operational circles here at CIA and imagine across a lot of other security services, which is after you conduct an operation like this, do you get off the X, do you immediately just get out of New Zealand and therefore allow your travel patterns to be correlated to the attack?

Or do you stay and continue in pattern and leave as a vacationer and not have your travel linked to the attack? And I think what's going on here is that the DGSE officers have made the choice to stay in pattern and to continue living their cover as normal. And that's why you're back at the rental office. That's really interesting. And it does make perfect sense because actually quite a few of these teams are still in the region. And even Jean-Luc Kista, who's planted the bombs, he actually stays sense because actually quite a few of these teams are still in the region.

And even Jean-Luc Quistet, who's planted the bombs, he actually stays in the country for a week or two. He goes skiing on the South Island of New Zealand before he goes. So it does look as if they're just trying to maintain their cover and not blow it by suddenly running and escaping. Well, if you think about one of your favorite stories, Gordon, in old Salisbury, as we'd say in Texas, I mean, you could pretty much cleanly map their travel and movement to the poisoning, right? And so there's no clear answer on what the right tradecraft move is here. But, you know, security services make different decisions in different circumstances. And I think

that in this case, yeah, the friendship decided, look, Jean-Luc, he's there, he's going to stay and know, security services make different decisions in different circumstances. And I think that in this case, yeah, the French have decided, look, Jean-Luc, he's there, he's going to stay and ski for two weeks because he's there as a tourist. But the problem is that now the New Zealand police have got this couple, and they're supposed to be a Swiss honeymooning couple, and they keep them apart, they question them, you know, they start asking the question, they're getting kind of to shrugs, they claim they helped a stranger pull a dinghy out of the water when they're asked about it. It doesn't quite seem entirely like the kind of thing you do on honeymoon.

Maybe you would help people. I don't know. You wrote Gaelic shrugs here, Gordon. What is a Gaelic shrug? I wrote question mark next to this. You know what a Gaelic shrug is? It's like a pear. It's that kind of thing.

Even though they're trying to be Swiss, they're giving Gaelic shrugs, I think. But the problem is their stories don't quite match up and crucially, the documents don't quite work and the documents don't match, which is the real problem for them because then obviously it's falling apart and the New Zealand police are working out we actually now have in custody two French intelligence officers it looks like. Did the names not match the names they gave the police? They went to the Swiss government and said, are these legitimate documents? And they were able to check and the Swiss said no.

So at that point, they've got a problem. Interesting enough, if you remember from last time, our party loving, yachting DGSE team who'd been, you know, kind of living it up, bringing in the explosives, they're still in the region as well, and they're actually located on Norfolk Island, north of Australia, another very nice place, still kind of clearly enjoying their cover. And they're arrested there, but because they're on Australian territory, they can only be held for 24 hours and they haven't got enough evidence on them so in the end they get released.

Meanwhile Jean-Luc Kista himself eventually escapes on his false passport but there's clearly a problem now for Paris because they've got two agents who are in custody. How did our Dower Scotsman investigator find them on Norfolk Island? It's interesting. They actually managed to match up the camper van with meeting another vehicle and with the yacht. Then they also find traces of explosives in all the different places. It's real detective work, which takes a bit of time.

They managed to connect effectively those two teams together, the couple and the kind of yacht support team. And the yacht meets an interesting fate, doesn't it? Because it actually, I believe that some of the officers are on the yacht, actually meet up with a French submarine in international waters off of New Zealand, board the submarine and then they scuttle the yacht. Yeah. I mean, it's a proper escape, you know, escaping on a French sub, which I guess is,

you know, at this point, they need an extraction plan. And actually what's going on in Paris is because there's panic in Paris. I mean, there's panic because of A, someone has died and B, you've got these arrests and you've got these teams in the region. And so they're effectively in the first few weeks trying to stall any inquiries or any sense that they might be responsible because they've got to get these teams out, you know, they've got to extract them, or whatever way they can. And they start planting stories around to kind

of divert the attention that it might be French intelligence. I mean, there's one story they plant that it was actually mi six. And the story is that French agent provocateurs had strewn the beaches of Auckland. You don't pronounce the S. Yeah. The S is silent. Thank you very much. I'm really enjoying these lessons, by the way. They strewn the beaches

with diving gear saying, made in France, because they find some kind of like oxygen bottles with French labels and re-breathing gear.. The claim is that this is so obvious that it couldn't be French intelligence. It's actually MI6 planting stuff saying Made in France. This is all part of a clever British plot to get back at their French over having supported and sold some military hardware to Argentina in the Falklands War. Was Made in France printed in French or in English? I think there were some French labels at least. I'm not sure it actually said made in France on the kit. But there were just all these kind of clues which had been left at the scene, which start to get discovered. You know, oxygen tanks are found in the Bay and things like that. But it's unraveling. And that's the problem for Paris.

The other element we haven't really discussed is the, I guess, risk tolerance of doing something like this in New Zealand, which is nominally a Western ally of the French, right? I mean, they're not doing this in kind of a hostile environment. And it's got to be really embarrassing for the Kiwis, I would think, to have the French marauding around Auckland, you know, sleeping with policemen's wives and blowing up Greenpeace boats. So I don't know how much real kind of fallout there was between, you know, New Zealand and France over this, but it seems like it's pretty embarrassing to do this kind of on the turf

of an allied state. And I think there's going to be a lot of anger about it and a lot of fallout precisely because of that. Keister himself goes back to HQ and it's interesting in Paris, he says actually there wasn't really a debriefing about it because the bosses are so kind of panicky. They're so preoccupied with this fallout of the operation and the fact that it's a growing story. Crucially, pesky investigative journalists, David, are kind of, you know, are starting to look into this and starting

to kind of unravel on the French side as well, what really happened and who was responsible, and they're going to get to the story. Leave it to these bothersome journalists to ruin a perfectly good piece of botched covert action work, you know, I mean, give me a break. But there is a downside, which is, of course, that they are French investigative journalists who are going to break this story. So, there's the French investigating their own Secret Service. It's interesting.

It's like the kind of crime reporters on some of the French newspapers, and they are digging away. I mean, they sense straight away that there's something to this and that, you know, this is a story. I mean, this is one of those big stories as a journalist you get and where everyone is racing to kind of get the latest lead. And you can see what they're doing is they're kind of talking to all their contacts in the French state in French officialdom,

things are starting to leak. And also when you get something which goes wrong like this, you know, typically you get a blame game, don't you and people want to point the finger at someone else. So then they start leaking. And so at that point, you know, things are starting to come out. And then crucially, Le Monde, the French newspaper, reveals that there was what they call the third team there, that there was a French operation. This third team from the DGSE was part of it, and that Jean-Luc Kistère himself was

part of it. Eventually, his name is going to come out as linked to it. He actually thinks it's been leaked by someone, you know, deliberately almost, was part of the kind of machinations in Paris. But through whatever way, his identity is being revealed as part of that dive team who've carried out the operation. And it's growing, you know, as a political scandal at this point. And, you know, the journalists are piling in and, and of course it gets a name because you've got to give a scandal a name. Yeah, what's the I was going to ask, what is the nickname given to this horrible piece of work?

What would you think it would be? We're about 10, 15 years after, after Watergate. So this becomes Underwatergate. Or some people will put it Blunderwatergate. Is the, is the way they call it. That's clever. Although I don't know how that, that would probably not translate well into French, but I guess Watergate was so well known.

I'm assuming they use the English. And as with Watergate, it's similar in a way because Watergate is a burglary which gets exposed because the burglars get arrested and the question becomes who authorized it. Exactly the same with Rainbow Warrior. The question is who authorized this? Where does the blame lie? How high up in the French state does it go? And pretty quickly, it's rising up the ranks of the French state.

So within days of that kind of first Le Monde report, you know, the head of the DGSE, Admiral Lacoste, is sacked and the French defence minister Charles Erneux is forced to resign. So it's pretty clear at that that point this is rising up but the question is how high is it gonna rise where is it gonna get to if i'm jenny is there the diver you know who's had his name put out in the papers as a result of this i mean this is a classic case i think of. classic case, I think, of investigative journalism, sort of, at least from the perspective of a spy agency. The journalists going after the spies for a decision that their political masters made. I mean, it is Keister and, frankly, the officers of the DGSE who were on the ground, who were the ones who had the real skin in the game, And they're the ones kind of being tarred and feathered.

And they were more or less told to do this, right? I mean, they were told the KGB was behind Greenpeace, go blow up this boat. So I think, you know, there's obviously a very complicated relationship between spy services and investigative journalism and the press more generally. But I mean, there are elements of this that are quite admirable and, you know, the Monde revealing that this decision had actually been made in Paris. But at the same time, you've got the people down the line who are being told to do this who are also being raked through the mud. You're right. But I think this question of who is responsible is the central one for something like this, you know, who gives the green light.

And once the kind the journalists have got the bit between their teeth, you can see them pushing up to ask, did this go up to the president's office? The head of state, had he given the order? Had he approved the plan? What it looks like is, to some extent, the other resignations are partly to protect the president. They are the fall guys. The fall guys are the head of the DGSE. At the time, there was never any proof about it, but we can now kind of reconstruct, I think, a little bit more about what happened because Lacoste, more than a decade later, writes his memoirs. He says he checked with Mitterrand. He checked whether the president wanted to see preparations continue with a view to satisfying the request of the Minister of Defense and that

he'd studied the request of the Minister of Defense. Lacoste says, you know, President Mitterrand gave me his agreement expressing the importance he attached to nuclear tests. He says, I didn't go into further detail about the project, meaning the sinking. The authorization was sufficiently explicit. Lacoste, the head of the DGSE suggests, you know, you wouldn't have launched an operation like that without the personal approval of the president of the republic. Now there's a bit of ambiguity there. He knew, he knew. There's a great line from a friend of mine who served in MI6 who was talking about sort

of the French system and the French spy services. And he has this anecdote of, you know, this is a British spy speaking to a French spy and says, you guys have it easy, you can whack anyone. And the French spy replies, you have no idea. We have to fill in so much paperwork every time we do it. And I think two elements relevant here. One is the maybe somewhat surprising propensity for action

in the French system and the attraction of these kind of covert action operations. And then two, the reality that this is a Western bureaucracy that's got paperwork and lawyers and all this stuff attached. So I think it seems almost implausible that the president, and especially if you're Admiral Lacoste, who's running the DGSE, you need certainty that you were doing this at the request of the president. Although I can also imagine the conversation goes, you know we're planning to take definitive

action against the Rainbow Warrior, and the president goes, yes. You wonder whether it was papered, because I think one of the lessons from Rainbow Warrior, the French intelligence learn, is you need the paper. So I think that's where maybe there's a bit of ambiguity, but I think one of the lessons from Rainbow Warrior that French intelligence learned is you need the paper. So I think that's where maybe there's a bit of ambiguity, but I think you're right. I think Mitterrand, I'm sure, was informed, told, and authorized it. Exactly how explicitly? Hard to be sure. Well, maybe Gordon there we should just take a break and when we come back, we'll get more

into who was exactly responsible for bombing the Rainbow Warrior. This episode is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Now, Gordon, what do you find most useful about Nord? 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. 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. So to stay secure online you should take advantage of our exclusive NordVPN discount. All you need to do is go to nordvpn.com rest is classified. When you sign up you can receive a bonus four 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. Welcome back to The Rest Is Classified. We are talking about who is actually responsible for this tragedy, this tragic death of photographer Fernando

Pereira on the Rainbow Warrior? And I think it's a kind of evergreen question, right? Are the operatives who carried out the orders or are they the political masters who actually issued the orders? I mean, who's ultimately to blame here for this debacle? Well, it's really interesting because the officers are the ones who are who are if you like feeling that they're being hung out to dry cuz remember this actually to french intelligence office you been arrested in new zealand you got to who are going to stand trial for the rainbow warrior and the world's press gather for what they think is gonna be the kind of big trial. And at the last minute, literally on the day, they switch their pleas to guilty to manslaughter

rather than having to stand trial for murder. And the result is they get sentenced. And then it's fascinating because then there is a huge campaign by France to get them back. And actually, even though they're sentenced to 10 years, within a year or two, they are sent off to a French prison and then basically released. The French put quite a lot of diplomatic pressure on New Zealand and commercial pressure on New Zealand to get those two people out. Even though they were part of an operation which killed someone and blew up a boat.

So, there's quite a lot of tension between France and New Zealand over this, even though France can't deny it and there's a claim in international court brought against you know france for compensation as well for it and in the end they have to pay i think eight point one million dollars in compensation for the sinking of the rainbow warrior which is then used by greenpeace's side, you know, they get through that tragedy and their reputation is enhanced as, you know, the people are willing to kind of take on the French state and they're able to go about their mission. The French will later in the 90s storm and tear gas the Rainbow Warrior II in the South Pacific also. Okay, so they don't let it go.

They don't let it go. The battle continues. But I think your question about, you know, who really bears the brunt of it and who takes responsibility is a really interesting one because Jean-Luc Quistère himself, his name has kind of come out at the time and he feels deeply bruised by it. And then many years later, he's tracked down by a New Zealand TV reporter called John Hudson and interviewed about it. And you can see, I mean, he looks quite haunted. And there's another documentary called Murder in the Pacific

where he's interviewed about it, which is more recent. And in both of them, you can sense that this is a man kind of haunted by what happened. He did not want to be a killer. He did not want to kill anyone. And yet that is how he is branded as a kind of murderer. And of course, he did, you know, he planted a bomb that killed someone, he admits that role. But you know, in his mind, he was one of those people who was there to do the state's

dirty work, but would be protected in return for doing that, you know, he's taking the risks, he's out there getting exposed. And yet, he's the one who is then branded a kind of murderer, you know, in the aftermath, and whose kind of reputation is destroyed. And he feels really kind of angry, clearly, and let down, you know, certainly, some of the politicians pay a price like Charles, a new the defense minister, but you know, meter on certainly doesn't. And, you know,

I think it's an interesting one, isn't it? You know, those people are on the front line. I mean, you know, he's the guy who planted the bomb. And yet, is he the one who's responsible morally and we feel that this is. One of the i guess maybe hollywood lies really about covert action or these kind of operations is there's a tendency to see them as originating inside the security service right for these to be guys like-Luc Kistère, others are the ones coming up with the proposals to do these sorts of operations. And I think the reality in the French service, as it is in the CIA now, and probably across most Western services,

is that covert action ideas typically come from outside the organization, because it's really its policy. You know, in this case, it's not the French service, trying to steal secrets about what the Prime Minister of New Zealand is thinking it is we're going to blow up a boat in the harbor so that Greenpeace won't, you know, try to protest our nuclear tests anymore. tests are our nuclear tests anymore. And that's a policy function. And the DGSE, the CIA, MI6, you know, these are intelligence services that they don't make policy. And so frequently, you have these really, and I'd say in this case, this was a terrible idea. This was a terrible idea. It

was a bad idea poorly executed on top of it. And this was essentially a disaster handed to the DGSE, who was then told to do it and really didn't have any choice by Mitterrand and Jauzelle Nhu, the defense minister, right? So it's coming from the politicals to the spy guys. And they're probably looking at this and saying, oh boy, really? You know, I got it. I got to do this. Yeah, I mean, you're right in the Hollywood version, it's often the spies who are driving

this, but actually the history suggests, I mean, even in Britain, the few times where there have been discussions, you know, in the 50s, 60s, 70s about assassination, it was actually a politician saying to MI6, could you do this? We want to get rid of this person. I think it's the same often that it's the politicians telling their spies to do it. And so they are the ones who are carrying out that work on behalf of the state. So it's an interesting question of moral and political responsibility, you know, and where it lies, and especially if it gets exposed. Right. Well, and in CIA, I just say that there'd be a whole crop of people who would look at covert action in general and say, I don't want to touch that with a 10-foot

pole. It's risky. It's the kind of thing where, you know, oh boy, do we have to take out personal liability policies? There's going to be a bunch of lawyers involved. If you're an operations officer, that's the kind of thing like, ooh, you know, this thing could go south and I'm going to be the one like Jean-Luc is there holding the bag being interviewed. And on the front page of the New York Times. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's why I mean, it's why you get this authorization process, isn't it? Why you know, you have the paperwork.

And you know, in Britain, if they're doing something risky, they get the politician's signature, you know, the foreign secretary is normally signage to say say here are the risks of doing this operation do you understand them are you signing off on this. Are you the politician willing to take ultimate political responsibility for this nothing after. Rainbow warrior got tightened up in france precisely because it was messy and informal and a bit unclear who do you think. Gordon bears ultimate responsibility for this or the, I'm not sure there's blame to go around, but who's, who's most to blame for this disaster? Let me turn the question back, back to you and say, if the defense minister who runs DGSE says, do this, and if you're Lacoste, the head of the DGSE, I mean,

forget Keister because he's kind of down the chain, but if you're the head of the DGSE, can you say no? I mean, maybe you should. Maybe you could go, I don't think that's the right thing to do, but you might get sacked. I guess that's the call you've got to make at some point. And same for Keister who's going, am I going to plant the bomb on this boat? He didn't think it would kill anybody. He thought it wouldn't, but there's bound to be a risk.

There are people on it. At some point, I guess you're following orders. That's the truth. And this is, as we said, is a kind of military hierarchical organization. And so your only option really at that point, if you've got a problem, I guess, is to quit. I think the defense minister is responsible here. That's my hot take is that it's our new. I think Mitterrand probably knew what

they were going to do. I think that's pretty clear from the leaks that have come out in the 30 years since. But I think it feels to me like there was a menu of options to deal with Green Peace that the French had been using for going on a decade at that point that had been successful in allowing the French to continue testing nuclear weapons. And he wanted to dial it up. And he's the one who dialed it up and insisted on sinking bombs, things like that, that were adding layers of risk to this operation. So I think ultimately the buck stops with Ernaud, who's the decider here, I believe. And as the former CIA man, I mean, do you look at this operation and say, this was crazy? Or is it just because it went wrong?

Is it just because someone died and the two people got caught? I mean, you know, I've read some French accounts which go, if Fernando Pereira hadn't been killed and if those two people hadn't been caught and got away, the boat would have been sunk. No one would have kind of there'd be no trail back to France. Successful mission. I don't know. No, I think this is a, this was nuts.

That'd be my view. That's a technical term. That's exactly. It's a terrible idea and it was poorly executed, but ultimately it's a terrible idea. And I think it is worth pondering a little bit of how you have very intelligent people who have a lot of experience in the world of national security or in political decision making. These are smart people who made an atrocious decision. It's worth pondering why that is.

I think it really gets to there's group think going on inside this small group who have decided that Greenpeace is the enemy. And if you know, all of a sudden you think about you're in a small meeting, probably in the LEC, this freaky love boat floating around in the South Pacific is standing in the way of our ability to protect France from being potentially overrun by the Soviets. We've got to do something. Do you want to be the Frenchman to stand up and say, let's not use a bomb. So there's a group think element.

It's a small group. It's obviously a highly classified operation. So there's no, there's no sort of team B there's no editor, right. Who's, who's saying, maybe we just continue tear gassing them when they come out to, you know, with these flotillas and no one's died. I could also see a little bit conspiratorially, I could actually see a new or Lacoste saying, look, you know, eventually we're going to have a bigger confrontation with green peace and more

people are going to die. They might kill some of our Marines. We're actually saving lives in the future by sinking the rainbow warrior. That's, that seems a bit of a stretch. That's the point is it doesn't make any sense. It's terrible decision making, but you can see how you quickly get to a point where it makes sense. I think they work themselves up into a frenzy about Greenpeace and about that boat. I think that's right.

And I think it is worth saying as we come to an end, I mean, what the French code named the operation. Operation Satanic. Operation Satanic. I mean, you kind of go either that's a random code name for an named the operation operation satanic operation satanic. I mean, I mean, you kind of go either that's a random code name for an operation, in which case that's kind of weird, but also otherwise, someone kind of knew this was dark stuff, I

feel, you know, giving it that or keeping that name. It reminds me of the well, this is gonna be a good British reference for me to establish my bona fides Gordon reminds me of the Michelin web sketch where the you know know two guys are outfitted like Nazi storm troopers and they're looking at the death said skull on their on their sleep and saying like are we the bad guys here you know I mean we're we're dressed like this we must be the bad guys and I think it does you named this operation satanic so you're kind of giving it away from the get-go.

I think, just to close, I also think the bit also with contemporary relevance is it does make me think sabotage operations can go wrong. We're hearing about Russian sabotage at the moment, and that they're putting incendiary devices on planes. Are they trying to bring down the planes? Maybe, maybe not. But you can kill people without planning it because a bomber and an intendary device can do something much worse than you'd expected. And then suddenly you're in an escalatory situation, which can actually kind of literally blow up pretty quickly and head towards conflict. So, you know, these kinds of covert operations are risky and dangerous.

And I think it's pretty clear in this case, Rainbow Warrior and Operation Satanic was a disaster. and dangerous and I think it's pretty clear in this case Rainbow Warrior and Operation Satanic was a disaster. Or maybe Gordon that is a good place to leave the tragic story of the Rainbow Warrior with this sort of shadow of covert action and sabotage hanging over the world of spy services and intelligence operations even today. We will see you next time on The Rest is Classified. See you next time.

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 Seventh Floor, in Operation Gone wrong has CIA officer Artemis 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 in all good bookshops and also online in e-book and audio formats.