bonjour farewell

In a private meeting between French and US presidents during the Ottawa G7 Summit of the summer of 1981, François Mitterand disclosed to Ronald Reagan of the existence of a Soviet defector, Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a French intelligence asset codenamed Farewell with the notion that if apprehended the KGB would assume he was working for the Americans, and turned over an extensive collection of documents, referred to as the Farewell Dossier, demonstrating that the Soviets had been routinely surveilling and incorporating US and NATO partners’ research and technology.
The files also identified the espionage network that had taken years and considerable expense to build and thus precipitated the expulsion of hundreds of spies from countries in the alliance, but prior to taking action, the US Central Intelligence Agency instigated a counter-campaign of disinformation and disseminated faulty designs in the hopes that the Soviets would try to steal these sabotaged plans as well. Though the correlation is disputed and quite possibly just reflects the angst expressed by the Reagan administration that British and West German support for a trans-Siberian natural gas export pipeline would compromise their allies and make them reliant on Russia for energy, according to some accounts, the CIA delivered a Trojan Horse to pressure control relays that caused a massive explosion in the winter of 1983. The US was already imposing sanctions on the Soviets and restricting the sale of supplies needed for the monumental engineering project, which became operational despite these setbacks.