Knew Nothing of Greenpeace Plot, Fabius Says

Premier Laurent Fabius, insisting that he had known nothing in advance about the bombing and sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, put the blame Wednesday on his former defense minister and his former director of intelligence.

Fabius dismissed as electioneering the opposition’s demands for his resignation and told a national television audience: “I am the prime minister of the government of France. I have the confidence of the president of the republic. I intend to maintain my responsibilities.”

Fabius laid the primary responsibility for the Rainbow Warrior incident at the feet of Charles Hernu, the former defense minister, saying he was the only political official involved.

“In a democracy like ours,” Fabius said, “the responsibility for a decision of this kind lies with the political authority, the minister.”

But he said he is convinced that the decision came out of discussions between Hernu and Adm. Pierre Lacoste, who has been dismissed as director of intelligence.

“It is my conviction,” Fabius said, “that both of them acted, motivated by their own idea of what was in the interest of our country. My conviction is that it is at their level where the responsibility lies.”

Whatever their motivation, Fabius described what happened as “a bad decision, executed, unfortunately, with grave consequences.”

He said he made up his mind about what happened earlier Wednesday after interviewing Hernu and Lacoste, one at a time, in his office. Asked when he learned that there had been a French government plot to sink the Rainbow Warrior, he replied:

“I only knew last Saturday. I was never informed by the minister of defense about the preparations for this project.”

Fabius thus put on the record that he did not find out about French responsibility until a day after he dismissed Lacoste and pressured Hernu into resigning. At that time, neither acknowledged responsibility for the plot.

Lacoste was dismissed for refusing to answer questions about the possible involvement of government agents in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand last July 10. Hernu resigned, saying he had discovered that his officers lied to him.

On Sunday, Fabius announced that the bombing, which killed a Greenpeace photographer, definitely was the work of French agents. But he did not say who ordered the bombing.

This set off a clamor in the French press for the identity of those responsible. It was clear that Fabius could not avoid discussing the subject at his regularly scheduled appearance on a monthly national television program.

On a key point, Fabius said that the budget for the project had to receive final approval from the secretary general of the government, who is a bureaucrat in the office of the premier.

In any case, Fabius said there was no way for anyone approving the budget to know that a bombing was planned since all written files described the project as one of intelligence-gathering.

Fabius also echoed a suspicion expressed by many of his fellow Socialists that some agents of the General Directorate of External Security, as the French intelligence agency is known, might have sabotaged the execution of the plot to embarrass the Socialist government.

The agency has long been known as a right-wing bastion hostile to the Socialists who govern France.