Today in 1985, French secret agents—in an elaborate intelligence operation codenamed Satanique—bombed and sank the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand, as it prepared to return to Mururoa Atoll to protest French underground nuclear testing there.
France denied responsibility for the attack, which killed 35-year-old freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, and most of its agents (at least nine were involved) escaped. But New Zealand police detained two suspects, posing as Swiss honeymooners, and unraveled the plot.
After France's culpability was proven, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, was fired. In 2005, it was confirmed President François Mitterand had personally approved Opération Satanique.
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