L’affaire Georges Pâques (1963-64). Un haut-fonctionnaire français au service des Soviétiques pendant toute la Guerre froide

Abstract

The Pâques Affair was, arguably, the most sensational case of espionage during France’s 5th Republic. Caught red-handed in the Summer of 1963 by the DST (French counterespionage), high civil servant George Pâques made no bones about confessing he had been, for almost 20 years, communicating to the Soviets all the intelligence (some of it highly classified) to which he had had access. But he claimed he hadn’t done it for money or because constrained, not even because he was a closet Communist, but because he sincerely believed that, by doing so, he had been contributing to Peace and defused the danger of war.