Contesting France
Intelligence and US Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War

The untold story of how intelligence shaped US perceptions and policy towards France during the early Cold War.

Susan McCall Perlman (Author)

9781316511817, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 February 2023

275 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.58 kg

'In this exceedingly well-written and argued book, Perlman's assessment of American anxiety indicates that US intelligence officials had little grasp of internal French political stability, French nationalism, and independence movements in French colonies. This book could not be more relevant in urging us to think about how we gather, use, and abuse intelligence to achieve foreign policy goals.' Kathryn C. Statler, author of Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam

Contesting France reveals the untold role of intelligence in shaping American perceptions of and policy toward France between 1944 and 1947, a critical period of the early Cold War when many feared that French communists were poised to seize power. In doing so, it exposes the prevailing narrative of French unreliability, weakness, and communist intrigue apparent in diplomatic dispatches and intelligence reports sent to the White House as both overblown and deeply contested. Likewise, it shows that local political factions, French intelligence and government of?cials, colonial of?cers, and various trans-national actors in imperial outposts and in the metropole sought access to US intelligence of?cials in a deliberate effort to shape US policy for their own political postwar agendas. Using extensive archival research in the United States and France, Susan McCall Perlman sheds new light on the nexus between intelligence and policymaking in the immediate postwar era.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations in text
Abbreviations in notes
Introduction
1. Liberation
2. Civil war
3. Restoration
4. March to power
5. L'Evénement
Conclusion: How intelligence becomes policy
Notes
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Second World War [HBWQ], The Cold War [HBTW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], General & world history [HBG]