US helped France go nuclear to keep Europe divided, documents show

Henry Kissinger

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
The government of the United States secretly helped France expand its nuclear arsenal, in order to promote its rivalry with Britain, according to newly declassified documents. The clandestine assistance to France, which tested its first nuclear bomb in Africa in 1960, began during the Richard Nixon administration, and was actively directed by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s senior National Security Advisor. The documents, which were obtained by researchers at the George Washington University and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, include a 1973 memorandum authored by Kissinger, in which he writes: “We want to keep Europe from developing their unity as a bloc against us. If we keep the French hoping they can get ahead of the British, this would accomplish our objective”. Toward that goal, the US ought to provide the French with information that will make them “drool but doesn’t give [them] anything but something to study for a while”. By doing so, Washington would be able to force Britain to stop “behaving shitty” and conform to American foreign policy objectives: “if they know we have another option, they might buck up”, writes Kissinger. Prior to Nixon’s ascendancy to the presidency, the United States had been actively opposed to France’s nuclear ambitions, because it feared that it would set off a dangerous nuclear arms race between West and East Germany. But Washington’s longstanding policy was abandoned by President Nixon who, under Kissinger’s advice, concluded that the US should exploit France’s nuclear arsenal to keep Europe politically and militarily divided.