CdT-ch04-planning

Chapter 4 The Planning of the Coup d’État Even barricades, apparently a mechanical element of the uprising, are of significance in reality above all as a moral force. —Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) In the early morning of April 23, 1961, elements of the First Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment seized the key points of the city of Algiers in the name of Generals Maurice Challe, André Zeller, Edmond Jouhaud, and Raoul Salan. The four generals, because of their personal prestige and their position in the French hierarchy, quickly asserted their control over the local military command and started to extend their authority over all the armed forces in Algeria. At this time, de Gaulle’s government was in the process of opening negotiations with the Algerian nationalists, and the generals were determined to replace him with a leader who would carry the war to a victorious conclusion. The French armed forces in Algeria were much more powerful than those stationed in France and Germany, and the four generals were hopeful that, once their allegiance was assured, they would find it easy to take effective control of the French government. After all, de Gaulle himself had come to power after a similar episode in May 1958, and there seemed to be no major obstacle to a successful second edition of the famous treize mai. When the four generals made their declaration over Algiers Radio, the First, Fourteenth, and Eighteenth Colonial Parachute regiments rallied to the coup. A few infantry units, some of the marines, and much of the air force remained loyal to de Gaulle (as in May 1958 they had remained loyal to the Fourth Republic), but most of the armed forces in Algeria were attentiste. Wait-and-see is the attitude that usually favors a coup, and when General Henri de Pouilly withdrew his headquarters in Algeria from Oran to Tlemcen to avoid having to choose between fighting or joining the coup, he was objectively favoring the coup. The four generals seemed to be on the verge of victory. The determined pieds noirs population of Algeria was 100 percent behind them. The powerful parachute units gave them a hard-hitting force of intervention, and the bulk of the armed forces were either for them or neutral. Even the forces loyal to de Gaulle’s government did nothing to actively oppose the coup. While the leaders of the coup started to gather support, the French Defense Minister was on a visit to Morocco; Maurice Papon, the head of the Paris police, was on vacation; Michel Debré, the prime minister and chief “firefighter” of the regime, was ill; and de Gaulle himself was entertaining the visiting president of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor. Other ministers were on visits to Algiers itself, and were promptly captured and held in confinement, together with other representatives of the president. Everything pointed to an early victory of the coup, and, yet, a few days later, General Challe was being flown to Paris for eventual trial and imprisonment, Salan and the others were fleeing to the interior on their way to exile or capture, and the 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment drove back to their barracks singing Edith Piaf’s “Je ne regrette rien” (“No, I Regret Nothing”), though their officers were under arrest and their unit was to be disbanded. Why did the coup fail? Perhaps the main reason was that the four generals had utterly neglected the “political” forces and had allowed the immediate power of the armed forces to obscure the somewhat less immediate, but ultimately decisive role that they could play. In the Gaullist coup of May 1958, the action of the military and the population of Algiers had been supported by the Gaullist infiltration of the civil service and by the steady corrosion of the will of other political groups to oppose the dissolution of the Fourth Republic. This time, the generals had simply ignored the civilians. De Gaulle went on television and asked for help from the population at large: “Françaises, Français, aidez-moi.” Debré, who followed him on the screen, was more specific: “Go … to the airports … convince the soldiers who are misled.” He also started to arm a militia drawn from the Gaullist party. More important, the trade-union organizations, the Communists (CGT), the Christian Democrats (CFTC), and the Force Ouvrière, all rallied around the government while most political parties did the same; the left-wing Catholic movement started to organize sit-down strikes among the national servicemen in Algeria; and, in general, most organized forces of French society intervened and refused to accept the authority of the coup. The effect of this refusal was decisive; the larger part of the “wait-and-see” element in the armed forces stopped waiting and declared its support for de Gaulle, and this was the end of the coup. We will only be able to avoid a repetition of the crucial error made by the generals if we can neutralize the political forces as effectively as the military ones. Immediate political power is always concentrated in the country’s government, but, in every country and under all political systems, there will be groups outside the government—and even outside formal politics—which also have political power. Their source of strength can be their ability to influence particular groups of voters (as in democratic societies) or their control over certain organizations important in the country’s political life. Whether these groups, which we have called “the political forces,” are pressure groups, political parties, or other associations does not greatly matter. What is of importance is their ability to participate in the formation of governments, and, later, to influence the decisions of those governments. The nature of the forces important in the political life of a particular country will reflect the structure of its society and economy, and it will also depend on the particular context of decision making (see Table 4.1 for an American example). If, for example, we were asked to list the most important forces in British political life, we could produce the following (rather conventional) list: —the major political parties —the regional parties —the major unions —the Confederation of British Industry —the senior civil-service-academic complex —the city and its corporations —the press Table 4.1. Groups that try to influence US policies in the Middle East (formal and unofficial participants) Official The president and the White House staff The Department of State The Pentagon The CIA (as supplier of information) The key congressional committees Unofficial Politicians with significant Jewish populations in their constituencies. (These naturally follow a visible pro-Israel line on congressional voting and make appropriate speeches.) Pro-Zionist organizations of American Jewry. Anti-Zionist organizations, including those with a Jewish identity. Think tanks and lobbies with a special interest in Arab or Middle Eastern studies. (They usually identify with Arab views and seek a sympathetic hearing of Arab claims.) But if we were asked to isolate the groups that would matter in foreign policy decision about, say, the Middle East, we would come up with a quite different list: —the two major British and part-British oil companies —the Foreign Office–academic “Arabist” group —British defense industry exporters In a sophisticated society, with its complex industrial and social structure, there are hundreds of organizations that, regardless of their primary purpose, also act as pressure groups and attempt to influence political decisions in a manner that serves their members’ interests. These organizations will reflect in their divergent attitudes the diversity of a complex society. In economically backward countries, however, the structure of society is simpler, and any conflict of interests, though just as strong, is played out in a much smaller arena and with fewer participants. In sub-Saharan Africa, with few exceptions, religious groups are generally fragmented and apolitical, and where the local business community is still relatively small and weak, the major political forces are limited to a few groupings: —tribal and other ethnic groups —trade unions —students’ and graduates’ associations —civil-service officials and officers of the armed forces —the activists of the ruling political party In much of West Africa, one would have to add the local market traders’ association and, in immediate sub-Saharan areas, the traditional Muslim leadership structures. In Asia, religious groups and their leaders would have to be added to the list, and in some countries (such as Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and Hong Kong) the local business class will be of importance. Missing from all the lists are the foreign business interests which may play an important role but which represent a special problem already dealt with in Chapter 2. Whatever groups dominate the political scene of our target country in normal times, the special circumstances of the coup will mean that only a few elements among them will be important to us. Political forces can intervene against the coup in two ways: (a) they can rally and deploy the masses, or some part of them, against the new government; (b) they can manipulate technical facilities under their control in order to oppose the consolidation of our power. The action of individual political, religious, ethnic, or intellectual leaders, who could use the framework of their party or community against us, is an example of the first kind of intervention; a strike of the staff of the radio and television services is an example of the second. A general strike would, in effect, combine both kinds of intervention. Neutralizing the Political Forces I: General Politics, like economics, has its infrastructure. Just as industry and commerce require a background of facilities such as roads, ports, and energy sources, direct political action requires certain technical facilities. The mobilization of French public opinion that took place during the attempted coup in Algiers—and was the principal cause of its failure—could not have taken place without the use of a whole range of technical facilities. The government appealed to public opinion by means of the mass telecommunications media, chiefly the radio and television services—today of course it would primarily use social media; the trade unions and other organized bodies coordinated the agitation of their members by means of their network of branches, connected to the central headquarters by means of the public telecommunications facilities; finally, the mass demonstrations could not have taken place without the use of public and private transport. Our general neutralization of the “political” forces will be conducted in terms of this infrastructure. We will seize and hold such facilities as we require for our own purposes, while temporarily putting the others out of action. If the means of communication and the transport system are under our control, or at any rate do not function, the potential threat posed by the “political forces” will be largely neutralized: the leaders of the pre-coup government will be arrested, since they are part of the infrastructure and they would probably be the major sources of inspiration of any opposition to the coup.a We will neutralize some political forces in particular by identifying and isolating their leadership and by disrupting their organizations; this will only be necessary for those forces sufficiently resilient and sufficiently militant to intervene against us even though the infrastructure has been neutralized. Both forms of neutralization will involve the selection of certain objectives that will be seized or put out of action by teamsb formed out of those forces of the state which we have fully subverted or, in our terminology, “incorporated.” Unless our target country is particularly small and its physical and political structures particularly simple, its system of government will be complex, its physical facilities will be extensive, and its political forces will be many in number while their intervention capabilities will be difficult to forecast. We will, therefore, start by analyzing the governmental leadership in order to determine which personalities must be isolated for the duration of the active phase of the coup and which can be safely ignored. Next, we will study the physical facilities and select those most likely to be relevant during the coup, in order to plan their seizure or neutralization. Finally, we will investigate the nature of those political forces that could still retain a degree of intervention capability after our “general” measures have been implemented, in order to prepare for their individual neutralization. Personalities in the Government However bloodless our coup, however progressive and liberal our aims, we will still have to arrest certain individuals during and immediately after its execution. Of these, the most important group will be formed by the leading figures of the pre-coup regime or, in other words, the leaders of the government and their close associates, whether they are formally politicians or not. The members of a cabinet will form a fairly large group, from 10 to 50 people; adding their associates and intimate advisers, who could organize opposition against us, we could easily reach a figure four or five times this number. Apart from being uncomfortably large, this will also be an especially determined and dangerous group. The personal repute, presence, and authority of its members might enable them to rally against us the disorganized forces of the state—or the unorganized masses: it could also enable them to impose their will on the team sent to capture them, turning their would-be captors into their allies. General Challe, for example, was regarded as the patron by the NCOs of the French Army in Algeria, and even after the total failure of his attempted coup, the Paris government could not entrust him to a military escort on his way to France and arrest; the government instead had to use the CRS,c whose members had never experienced his per sonal authority. After all, if a young soldier acting outside his familiar roles is facing a political personality whose whole behavior is calculated to make people obey him, it is difficult to be absolutely certain that he will carry out his orders, and not the counter-orders he may be given. The large number of separate targets, along with the possibility of “radiation” effects, indicates that the teams sent to arrest them should be both large and particularly well chosen. Since our resources will be limited, we will have to concentrate our efforts on the most important figures within the group, leaving the others to be picked up later when our means will have been expanded by the allegiance of the “wait-and-see” element. We cannot arrest all those who may constitute an eventual danger, but we must make sure that we do arrest the really dangerous figures—that is, the key figures within the leadership, who may or may not be the first in the formal order of precedence. The formal structure of most modern governments falls into two broad categories (illustrated in Table 4.2): the “presidential” type, in which the head of state is also the main decision maker (as in the United States, France, the Russian Federation, and most African states), and the “prime-ministerial” type, where the head of state has largely symbolic or ceremonial duties and the real decision-making duties are carried out at a theoretically lower level (as in Britain, India, and most of Europe). A third alternative form—which is not a structure at all, but rather a denial of one—is the “strongman” form of government. The “strongman” may not be a top minister, and may hold no official position at all, but actually rules by using the formal body of politicians as a screen. This type of regime evolves when the fabric of the state has been weakened to such an extent that only the actual leader of some part of the armed forces or police can control the situation and remain in power. A person even minimally acceptable as a political leader can take over the formal posts as well, becoming the visible head of the government. Nasser in Egypt, and Reza Shah (the father of the present shah of Persia) both accomplished this after a short period of transition, but there can sometimes be racial or religious reasons that bar the strongman from an official position. The man who controls the bayonets may be totally unacceptable as a public figure, but he can still rule in directly by manipulating the official leaders he keeps under control by the ultimate sanction of force. Table 4.2. Alternative forms of government Presidential Real decision-making level: King (e.g., seventeenth-century England) President (e.g., twentieth-century United States) Emperor (e.g., twentieth-century Ethiopia) Ruler (e.g., twentieth-century Kuwait) Prime (or chief) minister Ministerial level Junior ministers and civil service Junior ministers and civil service Prime-ministerial Ceremonial head of state: King President (e.g., Belgium) (e.g., Italy) Real decision-making level: Prime minister President of council ministers (e.g., United Kingdom) (e.g., Italy) Cabinet-level ministers Junior Higher civil servants When, in early 1966, the Syrian government of the moderate wing of the Ba‘ath Party—headed by Michel Aflak, Salah Bitar, and the army leader Hafiz —was overthrown by an extreme left faction of the party, the new leadership found out that though it controlled the army and the country, it could not rule openly. The army officers who led this latest coup were too young, too unknown, and, above all, they were Alawites. Salah Jadid, their leader, was a dark, brooding figure who inspired fear and hatred among that small part of the public that knew of him. And of all the communities of Syria, the Alawites were among the least prestigious. In colonial times, the French had recruited most of their forces of repression, the Troupes spéciales du Levant, from the minority communities, chiefly the Alawites, and they had given the Alawite area in northern Syria a form of autonomy in order—so the nationalists claimed—to break up Syrian national unity. After independence, the Sunni majority community regarded the Alawites as renegades, and public opinion would only have accepted an Alawite head of state with difficulty. Salah Jadid overcame this problem by appointing a full set of cabinet ministers, carefully chosen so as to balance the various communities, while retaining the real decision-making power within a separate body, the National Revolutionary Council, headed by himself. Thus, though Syria had a president (Nureddin al-Atassi), a prime minister (Youssof Zwayeen), and a foreign minister (Ibrahim Makhous), all major political decisions were made by Jadid; the ministers would go on state visits, make the public speeches, and appear in all ceremonial occasions, but power was not in their hands. The Assads (father and son) followed this model faithfully, placing Sunnis in the nominally important positions but keeping the key positions for Alawites, Druzes, and Ismailis (“Sevener Shi‘a”). Figure 4.1. Alternative forms of government. Party government in “socialist” countries and “People’s Republics.” The sometime Socialist countries were formally ruled by party governments, but they tended to break down into one of the two other types. In its original form, real political power was concentrated in the hands of the central committee, or some other higher party council, as illustrated in Figure 4.1. Once the purely ceremonial figures have been excluded, the number of people still to be dealt with will be reduced, and by applying our time-span criterion, we can reduce their numbers still further. The Minister of Economic Planning may be a crucial figure in the government, his position as