“We must tell the truth as we see it,” said Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the founder of L’Express. So yes, this brilliant definition of journalism is the one which, seventy years later, continues to animate our editorial staff. Tell the truth, as it appears in full, in these KGB archives, smuggled to the West in the 1990s and, since then, carefully preserved at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Thousands of sheets typed in Cyrillic, which, under the aegis of the defector Vasily Mitrokhine, former KGB archivist, and the British historian Christopher Andrew, had already begun to speak in 1999 (1), showing to what extent the France had become a nest of Soviet spies during the Cold War.
This time, after an investigation lasting several months, we went further, with the revelation of the name of a major French journalist, who was hiding behind the alias “Brok”. According to the Cambridge documents, to which we were able to have access, this KGB agent worked at the heart of the French media for several decades, in particular at L’Express, where he held the position of editor-in-chief in the 1950s and 1960s. before becoming editorial director in 1974.
Philippe Grumbach, “aristocrat of the press”, was written at the time of his death in 2003, at the age of 79. A brilliant journalist. But also a traitor to France who, for thirty-five years, worked for the KGB. By ideology? Then by taste for money? If Grumbach took part of his secrets to his grave, it was impossible not to reveal this gray area within a newspaper which, from Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber to Jean-François Revel, from François Mauriac to Raymond Aron has always strived to combat totalitarian utopias and the ravages of communism.
On the field of dishonor, the name of Philippe Grumbach thus joins that of other Eastern agents infiltrated in the highest spheres of the State or in the media, and now unmasked: in 1996, L’Express revealed how former minister Charles Hernu worked on behalf of the KGB and its satellites. In 2016, we also revealed the ongoing relations between Claude Estier, former president of the socialist group in the Senate, and the Romanian secret services. In 2022, our colleagues from The Obs have once again shown how Jean Clémentin, former editor-in-chief of Chained duck, disinformed for Czechoslovak intelligence.
Other investigations will undoubtedly reveal other names, actors from a bygone era. But this Soviet penetration into the spheres of power during the Cold War must constantly call us to a duty of vigilance. With the return of the East-West confrontation, attempts at foreign interference have never been so strong in France, as highlighted in the latest public report from the parliamentary intelligence delegation. With new operating methods, manipulation of information on a large scale. It is no longer enough to tell the truth as we see it: in an age of falsehood being elevated to truth, this truth must more than ever be authenticated.
(1) The KGB against the West, 1917-1991. The Mitrokhine archives, by Christopher Andrew and Vassili Mitrokhine (Fayard, 1999).