Summary
The head of French intelligence (the French secret service and counter-intelligence) who chaired the 23 June 1956 Vermars meeting with the Israeli defence establishment and, with Military Intelligence chief Yehoshafat Harkabi, signed the “Operation Fig” and “High Tide” plan, as recorded in the appendices of Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.517, 521).
Details
- At Vermars, Boursicot opened the conference and gave the floor to Moshe Dayan; in reply he “identified with the basic approach outlined by Dayan and affirmed France’s willingness to cooperate” against Nasser (Mordechai Bar-On, Etgar ve-tigra, p.153, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.517-518).
- In June 1956 Dayan, Shimon Peres and Harkabi returned from three days of feverish negotiations in Vermars, south of Paris, facing Boursicot “in the luxurious rooms of the French secret service”; the plan for Operations “Fig” and “High Tide”, signed by Boursicot and Harkabi, was shown to Ben-Gurion, who called parts of it “definitely fantastical and superfluous” but approved entering “this business” (Yigal Sarna’s investigation, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.521).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Operation Sinai, Mordechai Bar-On, Yehoshafat Harkabi, France