Contesting France: Intelligence and US Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War

Contesting France reveals the untold role of intelligence in shaping American perceptions of and policy toward France between 1944 and 1947, a critical period of the early Cold War when many feared that French communists were poised to seize power. In doing so, it exposes the prevailing narrative of French unreliability, weakness, and communist intrigue apparent in diplomatic dispatches and intelligence reports sent to the White House as both overblown and deeply contested. Likewise, it sho...