Another Hess Theory Involving MI6

Rudolf Hess 'was lured to Britain by MI6 plot'
Rudolf Hess was lured to Britain in an elaborate MI6 sting, according to a new book that claims to solve one of the most enduring mysteries of the Second World War.

Published: 11:00PM BST 25 Oct 2010 -- UK Telegraph

The reason for Hitler's deputy making his solo flight to Scotland in May 1941 has kept conspiracy theorists busy for decades. He was arrested in Renfrewshire and spent the rest of his life in prison.

Nearly 70 years on, a fresh theory has emerged. Author John Harris claims that Hess was lured to Britain in an MI6 plot led by Tancred Borenius, a Finnish art historian who was working as an agent for the British secret service.

Borenius travelled to Geneva in January 1941 and convinced Hess that members of the Royal Family were willing to broker a peace deal with Germany, according to Harris. "Tancred was key in giving Hitler hope that Britain was interested in joining an alliance," he said.

Harris claims that Borenius's son, Lars, gave him the information shortly before he died. The theory is expounded in a book, Rudolf Hess: The British Illusion of Peace.

However, historians cast doubt on the theory. Roger Moorhouse, author of Berlin at War, said: "MI6 would have little to gain from luring Hess to Britain. Although nominally important, he was actually a peripheral figure by 1941. The most likely theory is that he came over of his own volition."

See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8086418/Rudolf-Hess-was-lured-to-Britain-by-MI6-plot.htmlSphere: Related Content

China's Efforts to Control US Telecom

The Wall Street Journal

* OPINION ASIA * OCTOBER 17, 2010

The Huawei Security Threat
There is a genuine national security need to block a Chinese investment in U.S. telecommunications.

By MICHAEL R. WESSEL
AND LARRY M. WORTZEL

All signs point to a new round of Chinese investment attempts in America on the horizon, in industries ranging from oil to finance. The vast majority of these deals should be welcomed, but some raise genuine security worries that require careful attention from policy makers. Huawei's bid to provide telecommunications equipment to Sprint Nextel is a prime example of the latter.

A functional, reliable, resilient telecommunications network is a fundamental American national interest. Connectivity facilitates virtually all U.S. economic activity. Sound communications capabilities also serve as the basis of many other dimensions of national security, playing a key role in everything from emergency response to the transmission of sensitive information between government entities. Access to U.S. information and communications technology infrastructure could enable a motivated adversary to commit a range of malicious activities, including espionage, disinformation campaigns and disruption of service.

Any foreign investment in this sector should thus be carefully studied to ensure American regulators understand who is making the investment and why. Huawei raises many questions: While it claims that it is a fully independent and employee-owned company, it has strong connections to the Chinese military, Communist Party and government.

Retired General Ren Zhengfei, the company's founder and current president, was formerly the director of the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department's Information Engineering Academy, an entity responsible for telecommunications research for the military. The Communist Party and government remain extremely influential in China's large businesses in leadership placement and in directing funding. This is especially the case for firms in what China considers "strategic industries," which include the telecommunications sector.

That makes this deal very different from the scenario if a major publicly listed telecom from a democratic American ally were to invest in an American company. Indeed, Verizon Wireless started as a joint venture between America's Verizon and Britain's Vodafone with minimal controversy over the foreign company's role.

The U.S. government has voiced concerns over Huawei's attempts to enter the American market on previous occasions. In 2008, Huawei dropped plans to acquire 3Com after the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment indicated that it would block the deal, and last year, the National Security Agency reportedly voiced concerns to AT&T over the firm's plans to buy Huawei equipment.

Several other nations have grappled with the same issues. Last year British intelligence officials warned of potential infrastructure threats from Huawei's communications equipment on networks operated by British Telecom, citing concerns that the equipment might allow attackers to "remotely disrupt or even permanently disable" critical communications networks. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization investigated claims by former employees that Huawei had engaged in cyber espionage against Australian interests and that the firm's activities in Australia involved technicians and executives with direct links to China's military. An Indian communications ministry placed limitations on Huawei's operations in India's telecommunications networks, also on national security grounds.

The U.S. should similarly be concerned over any deal for Huawei to supply equipment to Sprint Nextel. The Chinese military has a well-developed doctrine for computer network exploitation and attack. Other entities in China, likely with support from the government, actively engage in computer-related espionage activities. If Huawei were to provide infrastructure for U.S. telecommunications networks, actors within China could gain unparalleled access to multitudes of potentially sensitive U.S. communications information, including cellular telephone calls, email, text messages and browsing activities.

Some observers might assume that the quantity of data transmitted by U.S. networks would be sufficient to protect privacy and confidentiality—there would simply be too much for snoops to sift through—but this is not the case. Chinese telecommunications firms have perfected technologies to intercept, sort and evaluate staggering volumes of telecommunications data, as demonstrated in the "Great Firewall" censorship regime on the Internet. China has also perfected disruptive technologies, such as the outright blocking of text messages in western China for months following unrest in Xinjiang province in 2009.

Huawei has sought to counter concerns that the deal with Sprint Nextel would enable malicious network activities in America. Specifically, Huawei has proposed to submit source code for its equipment's operating systems to an independent third party to certify that the software is benign. In parallel, Huawei reportedly would allow other third-party firms to service the equipment.

These solutions are absolutely inadequate to counter the risk. Networked systems offer numerous attack vectors. Some look legitimate, such as those that are designed to offer remote diagnostics and support. Other vulnerabilities could be introduced by patches or updates once the basic software is already in place. Chain-of-custody principles introduce a whole other set of problems: It would be difficult to guarantee that a piece of software evaluated by a third party would share the exact characteristics of the software installed on the machines that ultimately operate U.S. telecommunications networks.

Even if a firm could somehow certify the harmlessness of a piece of equipment's operating system, and ensure that no new vulnerabilities were introduced after the fact, and maintain proper chain-of-custody principles, a malicious actor could still potentially gain access to systems. "Back doors" could be built into a piece of equipment's firmware or hardware components. The technology to discover these potential access points remains limited at best.

Given that the U.S. is already at great risk of cyber attacks, making our communications networks more vulnerable by using technology developed by a company with close ties to China's military would be a grave mistake. In this case, there are a number of competitive alternative suppliers of advanced telecommunications technology. Sprint Nextel should take national security concerns into consideration when selecting partners. Moreover, the U.S. government has an obligation to use every available means to ensure safe and secure telecommunications infrastructure.

"National security" has too often been a recourse for protectionists. But remaining open to foreign investment in general does not mean abandoning caution. Telecommunications is one industry that warrants a careful approach.

Mr. Wessel, president of the Wessel Group, is a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Mr. Wortzel, a former U.S. Army colonel and intelligence officer, is also a commissioner of the Commission.Sphere: Related Content

Any Differences with Today's Russian Army?

From Steven Aftergood's Project on Government Secrecy

A LOOK BACK AT THE SOVIET ARMY

"The Soviet Army is the best prepared force in the world to conduct both offensive and defensive NBC [nuclear, biological and chemical] operations," according to a 1984 U.S. Army manual (large pdf) that is newly available online.

The three-part manual, based on Soviet military literature and other open sources, provides a dauntingly detailed account of almost every aspect of Soviet military structure and operations.

So, for example: "The Soviets recognize three basic types of smoke screens: blinding, camouflaging, and decoy. Each type is classified as being frontal, oblique, or flank in nature, depending on the placement of the screen."

Perhaps of equal or greater importance, the manual implicitly documents the U.S. Army's perception of the Soviet military late in the Cold War.

"In the Soviet view, the correlation of forces has been shifting in favor of the socialist camp since the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology requires the correlation to shift continuously in favor of socialism. The correlation of forces may be advanced by both violent and nonviolent means. When it is advanced by violent means, the military component of the correlation is the dominant factor."

The first volume of the manual, originally "for official Government use only," has not previously been published online. See "The Soviet Army: Operations and Tactics," Field Manual 100-2-1, July 16, 1984 (203 pages, large pdf).

The second volume is "The Soviet Army: Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support," FM 100-2-2, July 16, 1984 (100 pages, pdf).

The third volume is "The Soviet Army: Troops, Organization, and Equipment," FM 100-2-3, June 1991 (456 pages, large pdf).

In February 1957, the Army produced an extremely detailed "Glossary of Soviet Military and Related Abbreviations" (pdf), Army Technical Manual TM 30-546.

Sphere: Related Content

Atomic Bomb Secrets Espionage Courier

The usual apologetic treatment . . .

The Wall Street Journal
BOOKSHELF -- OCTOBER 16, 2010

The Invisible Harry Gold
By Allen M. Hornblum
Yale University Press, 446 pages, $32.50

"Another Quiet American"

By Michael J. Ybarra
On May 23, 1950, the FBI arrested Harry Gold, a 49-year-old chemist who lived with his father in Philadelphia. The FBI accused him of being a Soviet espionage agent—the man who, as a courier, literally gave the Russians the secrets of the atomic bomb. Though other Soviet spies from that era—Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg—remain notorious to this day, Gold has faded from the story. Allen M. Hornblum offers a welcome corrective with the biography "The Invisible Harry Gold."

Gold was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants—he was born in Switzerland in 1910 before his parents made their way to America. While studying chemical engineering at Drexel University in the mid-1930s, he was recruited as a Soviet spy. Thus began a 15-year espionage career that began with the theft of industrial secrets—Gold later said that he just wanted to make life easier for the Soviet people—and ended with his passing information from the Manhattan Project, provided by physicist Klaus Fuchs, to the Soviet Union. Gold confessed to his crimes, and his testimony would help convict the Rosenbergs.

Gold has long been a riddle. To his supporters, he was a shy, decent man whose total being seemed at odds with his secret life. To his critics— not a few of them on the left—he was a liar and a psychopath who sought fame as a government witness. Mr. Hornblum calls him "one of the most denounced, slandered, and demonized figures in twentieth-century America," which may be excessive, but Harry Gold was certainly loathed by many.

Mr. Hornblum presents us with a balanced portrait, tracing Gold's hardscrabble young life, his slow entanglement with the Soviet espionage network and the many unhappy years he spent working on Moscow's behalf. Gold was never much of an ideologue but was grateful for a job that a communist friend helped him to land. He was naïve enough to believe that the Soviet Union was actually fighting anti-Semitism, and he was easily bullied into continuing to work with the Soviets whenever he tried to return to a normal life. During World War II he could even convince himself that he was sharing secrets with America's wartime partner—and thus not undermining his own country's security.

Gold didn't confess until the FBI tracked him down, but shortly after his arrest he began cooperating fully. Sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment (a longer sentence than the government had requested), he was paroled in 1965. He went to work at a hospital, where Gold was, according to Mr. Hornblum, a beloved employee with many friends. When Gold died in 1972, he had kept such a low profile that a year would pass before newspapers noticed.

"I have never intended any harm to the United States," Gold wrote from prison. "For I have always steadfastly considered that first and finally I am an American citizen. This is my country and I love it." If Gold had not cooperated with authorities, Mr. Hornblum writes, it is unlikely that he could have been convicted: Fuchs, the physicist, had confessed, too, but he was being held by the British and would probably not have been allowed to testify. If Gold had not implicated other spies, the author notes, they might well have escaped.

"How did such a gentle, apolitical person," Mr. Hornblum asks, "get caught up in the 'crime of the century'?" This finely crafted biography gives us the most complete answer we are ever likely to have.

—Mr. Ybarra writes about art, literature and extreme sports for the Journal.

Sphere: Related Content

Jordan Trains Afghans

Jordanian Instructors Sent to Train Afghan Forces

(AFP) – Oct 4, 2010

AMMAN — A group of Jordanian military instructors was sent to Afghanistan on Sunday to help train the country's security forces, the official Petra news agency reported.

"Instructors from Jordan's armed forces and security service went on Sunday to Afghanistan where they will train Afghan forces in security methods, to help them do their duty in restoring law and order there," it said.

The agency did not report how many instructors were sent.

In March, Jordan said it had been asked by NATO to train Afghan police, and said it was studying the request.

In May, Information Minister Nabil Sharif told a news conference: "Jordan has trained 2,500 members of the Afghan special forces. This was in the past. The group has completed its training and there are no trainees now."

A Jordanian military source told AFP that training took place in 2007, but declined to elaborate.

Jordan's special forces chief Brigadier Ali Jaradat has said in published remarks that 1,500 servicemen, including anti-terror forces, from Afghanistan and Iraq have received training at the 200-million-dollar King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre, which was inaugurated in May last year.

The NATO alliance, facing waning public support for the war in Afghanistan, is anxious to begin a transition next year that would have Afghan army and police take over security from US-led troops in some parts of the country.

Jordan acknowledged it had a counterterrorism role in Afghanistan after the death in a January suicide bombing of a senior intelligence officer, who was also a member of the royal family.

His death along with seven US Central Intelligence Agency personnel spotlighted for the first time Jordan's role in the international coalition in the war-hit country.Sphere: Related Content

Vickers, DoD Intel Chief

SpecOps Vet Vickers Tapped as DoD Intel Chief

By Andrew Tilghman - Army Times Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 4, 2010 5:28:02 EDT

The White House has nominated Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces soldier and Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary operations officer, to be undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Since July 2007, Vickers has served as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. During his 13 years in Special Forces, he said he served on both the “black” and “white” — covert and overt — sides of special operations, Vickers told Congress.

According to his Defense Department biography, during his Special Forces and CIA years Vickers had operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, spanning covert action and espionage, unconventional warfare, counterterrorism (including hostage rescue operations), counterinsurgency, and foreign internal defense.

His tenure as a CIA operative included serving as a “principal strategist” of the largest covert action in CIA history, the arming of Muslim insurgents in Afghanistan in 1980s against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. The paramilitary operation ended with the Soviet Union withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The undersecretary for intelligence, one of the most senior positions in the Defense Department, reports directly to the secretary of defense. If his nomination is approved by the Senate, Vickers would replaces James Clapper, who was recently appointed to serve as director of national intelligence, a job created in 2004 to oversee 16 intelligence agencies.

Vickers and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have a “long professional relationship” that dates back to their time together at the CIA, said Gates’ spokesman Geoff Morrell.Sphere: Related Content

Army's New Reg on Espionage, Subversion, Terror . . .

ARMY SEEKS INCREASED AWARENESS OF SUBVERSION, LEAKS
Steven Aftergood | The Project on Government Secrecy
October 5, 2010

A U.S. Army regulation (pdf) issued yesterday requires Army personnel to report any incident on a newly expanded list of possible indications of "espionage, international terrorism, sabotage, subversion" as well as "leaks to the media."

"The Army is a prime target for foreign intelligence and international terrorist elements... from within and OCONUS [outside the continental United States]," the regulation states. "The Army also faces threats from persons on the inside... who may compromise the ability of the organization to accomplish its mission through espionage, acts of terrorism, support to international terrorist organizations, or unauthorized release or disclosure of classified or sensitive information."

The regulation presents an extensive description of suspicious behaviors that are reportable to authorities, including "attempts to expand access to classified information by repeatedly volunteering for assignments or duties beyond the normal scope of responsibilities."

It also provides guidance on how to respond to the discovery of a clandestine surveillance device ("do not disturb the device") or an approach by a foreign intelligence officer ("remain noncommittal, neither refusing nor agreeing to cooperate"; also, "do not, under any circumstances, conduct your own investigation").

The regulation includes tables listing behavior that may be exhibited by a person engaged in espionage, indicators of insider threats of terrorism, and signs of extremist activity that may pose a threat to U.S. military facilities or operations. See "Threat Awareness and Reporting Program," U.S. Army Regulation 381-12, October 4, 2010. (The prior edition of this regulation, formerly titled "Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA)," dated January 15, 1993.

See: http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar381-12.pdfSphere: Related Content

First World War Officially Ends

First World War Officially Ends

The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies.

By Allan Hall, Berlin
Published: 1:37PM BST 28 Sep 2010
London Telegraph

The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.

Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.

The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, a sum later reduced to 132 billion, £22 billion at the time.

The bill would have been settled much earlier had Adolf Hitler not reneged on reparations during his reign.

Hatred of the settlement agreed at Versailles, which crippled Germany as it tried to shape itself into a democracy following armistice, was of significant importance in propelling the Nazis to power.

"On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany," said Bild, the country's biggest selling newspaper.

Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war.

France, which had been ravaged by the war, pushed hardest for the steepest possible fiscal punishment for Germany.

The principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, John Maynard Keynes, resigned in June 1919 in protest at the scale of the demands.

"Germany will not be able to formulate correct policy if it cannot finance itself,' he warned.

When the Wall Street Crash came in 1929, the Weimar Republic spiraled into debt. Four years later, Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany.

See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8029948/First-World-War-officially-ends.htmlSphere: Related Content

The Legacy of the OSS

Group Preserves Legacy of OSS, Predecessor to CIA

By Gregg MacDonald
Fairfax County Times
Thursday, September 30, 2010; VA16

Art Reinhardt of Great Falls was in China on Aug. 6, 1945 -- the day the United States dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

Although only 20 at the time, he already was keenly aware that his short service with World War II's Office of Strategic Services soon would be coming to an end.

The OSS -- the predecessor to the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Forces -- was formed in June 1942 by order of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The agency's mission was to collect and analyze strategic intelligence requested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to conduct "special" operations outside the scope of other agencies.

"The OSS was the first centralized foreign intelligence agency in U.S. history and was organized along the lines of some of the chief responsibilities of CIA today: analysis, collection, counterintelligence and covert action," CIA spokeswoman Donna Weiss said.

Reinhardt, 85, was recruited by the OSS in May 1944, shortly after joining the U.S. Army Air Corps at 17.

After being recruited, Reinhardt received advanced OSS training as a radio operator and cryptographer at "Area C" in Prince William County -- a one-square-mile tract of heavily wooded land about five miles west of Quantico where the OSS trained its agents from 1942 to 1945. Today the training area is preserved as part of Prince William Forest National Park and is open to the public.

"From 1942 to 1945, the communications branch of the OSS used the area as a training facility for about 1,500 communications personnel learning international Morse code, ciphering, weapons, demolition, self-defense and physical training," Reinhardt said.

After three months of training, Reinhardt was deployed to China to provide intelligence targets for Air Force bombers attempting to disrupt the Japanese occupying forces that had taken control of key Chinese railways and seaports.

While in China, Reinhardt lived the life of a secret agent. He spent much of his time in remote forested areas, living off the land and being sure not to draw much attention from locals.

"As American agents in China, we had a bounty on our heads," he recalled. "It was rumored that Japanese soldiers were offered the equivalent of $50,000 to capture one of us."

Reinhardt decoded incoming communications and encoded outgoing messages, transmitting them from his portable SSTR-1 "suitcase" radio.

"One of my daily duties from the field was to give hourly weather reports for the B-29 bombers," Reinhardt said. He soon discovered he was on his own in terms of scrounging up food and supplies.

"I ate a lot of rice," he said.

Once, after discovering he had no antennae wire, he improvised by scavenging materials from a discarded B-24 bomber and made his own.

"I was a free spirit," he recalled. "I had no uniform, and often no orders. It was very easy to forget that I was in the military."

Reinhardt left China not long after the Hiroshima bombing. The OSS was disbanded the following month -- September 1945.

In 1947, Reinhardt joined the ranks of the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency.

"When the CIA was created in 1947, it built on the solid foundation of the OSS, and many of our officers drew on their OSS experience to build the new agency and meet the new postwar challenges," Weiss said. "The agency inherited its very DNA from the OSS, an organization of courageous men and women who made decisive contributions during and after the war."

Reinhardt retired in 1976. Today, he is treasurer of the McLean-based OSS Society, which lists President H.W. Bush, Ross Perot and James R. Schlesinger as honorary chairmen. The nonprofit organization will honor Perot at its annual award dinner Saturday.

"At its peak, there were nearly 13,000 active OSS agents and operatives," said OSS Society President Charles Pinck, 46. "Today, there are about 200 [to] 300 left."

Pinck, the son of legendary OSS agent Dan Pinck, said the original organization, founded in 1947 as Veterans of the OSS, changed its name in 1998 to the OSS Society.

The elder Pinck also served behind enemy lines in China and wrote a memoir, "Journey to Peking: A Secret Agent in Wartime China," about his time in the OSS.

"It's sad, but we basically had to prepare for a time when the organization would have to continue on with no actual OSS veterans left," Charles Pinck said. The group today includes CIA and Special Operations Forces members.

Reinhardt recently donated his rare suitcase radio to the society.

"I am proud to have served in the OSS communications branch," he said. "Communications underpinned everything OSS ever did, and I dedicate my field radio to all the men and women who served in the communications branch during WWII."

For information about the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, including documents and books relate to its history, visit http://www.ossreborn.com.Sphere: Related Content

Sarkozy's Watergate?

Sarkozy Accused of Using Watergate-style Tricks to Muzzle the French Press
By John Lichfield in Paris

'Le Monde' launches legal action against President, claiming he used security services to find insider who leaked information to paper

In a scandal having many parallels with the Watergate affair, President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused by France's most prestigious newspaper yesterday of illegally using the counter-intelligence service to muzzle the press.

Le Monde said that the President's office had deployed France's equivalent of MI5 like a "cabinet noir", or dirty-tricks operation, to uncover the source of leaks in the L'Oréal family feud and political financing scandal. The newspaper said that it had started a legal action against "persons unknown" at the Elysée Palace for breaking a century-old French law which guarantees the secrecy of journalistic sources.

Le Monde said that the French security service, the DCRI, had tracked down a senior figure in the Justice Minister's office as the source of embarrassing leaks to the newspaper in July on the so-called "Bettencourt-Woerth" affair. The official, a long-term aide of the Justice Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, had been forced out of his post and sent on a minor legal mission to French Guyana.

The Elysée Palace flatly denied the accusation. It said "the presidency of the Republic has never given the slightest instruction to any (state) service" to investigate leaks in the L'Oréal affair. Other newspapers had already reported, however, that the official, David Sénat, had been punished for leaking witness interviews in the Bettencourt scandal to the press.

Mr Sarkozy's government was also accused yesterday of acting illegally in another great French political soap opera of the summer: the clampdown on Roma immigrants from Eastern Europe. From President Sarkozy's viewpoint, the "Mondegate" saga may prove to be the more damaging of the two.

In a front-page editorial yesterday, Le Monde said that the Elysée had tried to cover its embarrassment in the Bettencourt affair - and to intimidate the press - by misusing the counter-intelligence services whose mission was to "protect the state". Le Monde also said that the Elysée had broken a law protecting press sources which had been strengthened by Mr Sarkozy's government less than a year ago.

The alleged witch-hunt for sources of embarrassing leaks in the Bettencourt affair implies that Mr Sarkozy has been far more rattled by the scandal than he likes to admit. The saga began with a family feud over the alleged abuse of France's wealthiest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, 87, who gave €1bn in cash and art works to a playboy photographer who befriended her.

Secret tapes of her conversations with advisers and the photographer, François-Marie Banier, were handed to the police and leaked to the press in July. The tapes also implied that Ms Bettencourt, the largest shareholder in the cosmetics giant L'Oréal, had been sheltered from possible charges of tax evasion by her links with the Sarkozy government.

It appeared from the tapes that Mr Sarkozy's campaign treasurer in 2007, Eric Woerth - now Employment Minister - had sought campaign donations from Ms Bettencourt. Mr Woerth had also sought a job for his wife.

A former accountant for Ms Bettencourt then told the press, and police, that the billionairess had given illicitly large donations to Mr Woerth for the Sarkozy campaign.

Both President Sarkozy and Mr Woerth rejected the allegations. A preliminary investigation was begun by the public prosecutor for the suburbs west of Paris.

Ms Bettencourt's financial manager, Patrice de Maistre, was interviewed by investigators and contradicted parts of Mr Woerth's story. Details of his confidential testimony appeared on the front page of Le Monde the following day, 15 July.

The leaks so infuriated Mr Sarkozy, Le Monde said yesterday, that the Elysée ordered an investigation by the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur. This is a new umbrella internal security organisation created by Mr Sarkozy two years ago because, he claimed, its predecessors had become too "politicised".

Sources in the DCRI told Le Monde that they checked the telephone records of all potential leakers inside government until they found the trace of a call from the reporter who wrote the story. The DCRI sources insisted that they had acted as part of their "mission to protect the state".

Opposition politicians said that this was a clear abuse of power. Aurélie Filippetti of the Parti Socialiste said that the misuse of security agencies and the muddling of state interests and personal interests were the hallmarks of the Watergate affair which brought down President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. Ms Filippetti said: "This is a new scandal worthy of Watergate, which we could perhaps call 'Woerthgate'."

Watergate, she might have recalled, was also a battle of wills between a right-wing President and a "liberal" newspaper.

French FBI: Agency at heart of accusations was created by Sarkozy

It is scarcely new for French governments to misuse the security services for political purposes. The accusation is, however, especially damaging for President Sarkozy.

Two years ago, he transformed the landscape of counter-intelligence and internal security in France by ordering a shotgun marriage between two competing agencies.

His official argument was that efficiency demanded a single organisation which would become a "French FBI". His real reason, it was said, was he suspected one or both of the old agencies had been used by his enemy and former mentor, President Jacques Chirac, pictured, to try to wreck his rise to power.

Mr Sarkozy suspected they had played a part in dirty tricks such as leaks about his failing second marriage in 2005 and the Clearstream scandal, an attempt to smear Mr Sarkozy as financially corrupt in 2004. Creating a new agency would, it was suggested, separate counter-intelligence from internal politics.

There were other arguments for reform. The old agencies had long fought each other as fiercely as they fought any of France's presumed enemies.

The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire was in charge of counter-espionage. The Direction Central des Renseignement Généraux was a more shapeless agency in charge of everything from spying on French "subversives" to running private opinion polls and the control of horse racing.

From 1 July, 2008, the two agencies were merged into the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI) in a new building just north of Paris. The first director of the new agency is Bernard Squarcini, known as a Sarkozy loyalist.

The DCRI's mission is to fight against espionage, subversion, terrorism and "any act which seeks to weaken the authority of the state, national defence or the economic well-being of the nation."

Which one of those categories covers leaking embarrassing information to the press is unclear.

.Sphere: Related Content