Cot, Pierre (1895-1977)

French leftist politician who was one of the leading figures in France’s Popular Front governments of the 1930s. From 1936 to 1938, Cot, a member of the Radical Party and a convinced Socialist, became one of the leading supporters of the Popular Front and was Minister for Air in several Popular Front cabinets. In early March, 1938, Cot was still Minister for Air; later that same month, he became Secretary of Commerce, a post he held until May 1939. An antiwar activist, Cot was president of the International Peace Conference from 1936 to 1940. He has been cited as a passionate supporter of the Franco-Soviet alliance against Nazi Germany – and a Soviet source within the French government “who used to hand over to the Soviet Union secret information he had obtained in his capacity as Aviation Secretary.” ¹

Following the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, Cot emigrated, first to Great Britain and then, in September of the same year, to the United States. In the United States, he quickly made contact with Earl Browder, the head of the Communist Party of the U.S.A. In 1992, historians Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes discovered an important reference to this meeting in the Comintern archives in Moscow: Browder reported on the conversation to the Comintern’s Georgy Dimitrov, via NKVD intelligence. ² Soon after, that portion of Comintern records was reclassified – and was partially reopened again only in the spring of 2008.

It is now a matter of historical record that, in war-torn Europe, NKVD foreign intelligence served as an indispensable communication channel between the Comintern leadership in Moscow and the leadership of Communist parties in other nations. The American Communist Party was no exception; in cases of urgent need, the Party sent messages to the Comintern via NKVD foreign intelligence’s ciphered cable traffic. On November 29, 1940 the NKVD received “a cable from New York from the secretary of the CP USA, Earl Browder, directed (“adresovannaya” – addressed) to the leadership of ECCI.” After being deciphered and translated into Russian, the cable was sent to Comintern head Dimitrov with a cover letter signed by NKVD head Lavrentii Beria. The translated text was signed by Pavel Fitin, the head of NKVD foreign intelligence (this was a routine procedure). The cable consisted of four unrelated messages and was classified by the NKVD as Top Secret. Dimitrov considered the cable of high importance, as we can see from his initialed note in red pencil in the upper left corner of Beria’s letter, “c. (comrade) Stalin and c. Molotov informed. 3.12.40. G.D.”

In his fourth and last message, Browder informed Dimitrov about his recent meeting with Pierre Cot, where “the latter asked to inform the Soviet Union that he was campaigning for a full union of France with the Soviet Union, which, in his opinion, could be realized only through the French Comparty, since, according to his statement, there was currently no other force in France defending the interests of the French people.” The message went on to say that “Pierre COT also supported England’s struggle against the Vichy government. COT wanted the leaders of the Soviet Union to know about his willingness to perform any of our assignments, for which (purpose) he would even be ready to break faith with his position.”

According to KGB cable traffic partially deciphered in the course of the American counterintelligence operation now known as Venona, NKVD foreign intelligence followed up on Browder’s November 1940 message. In June 1942, Cot was approached by Soviet operative Vladimir Pravdin, who was operating under cover as head of the New York bureau of TASS, the Soviet information agency. Pravdin’s approach was followed by instructions from Moscow re the “signing on of Pierre Cot,” who was assigned the code name “Daedalus“.  There are no Venona decrypts to suggest that Cot had indeed been formally “signed on.” However, in the next partially decrypted Daedalus cable a year later, dated July 8, 1943, we see Daedalus, then in New York, reporting on the French Committee of National Liberation in Algiers. (Its establishment had been officially announced just a few days before, on July 3, 1943.)

In the following partially deciphered cable, dated July 22, 1943, the Soviets were checking with Cot about several French officials.  The most likely background for these decrypted fragments is suggested in a chapter entitled “De Gaulle or Garreau?” in the fourth volume of the semi-official history of the Russian Foreign intelligence. In July 1943, the Soviet government decided to assign its foreign intelligence to establish and maintain direct contact with General De Gaulle – that is, to establish a confidential back-channel to the French leader.  With this purpose, in August, 1943, the Soviets dispatched to Algiers an experienced foreign intelligence operative, Ivan Agayants, who operated under cover as a “repatriation official” named Avalov. Most probably, information obtained from Cot was sent to Moscow to brief Agayants (who was then the foreign intelligence resident in Tehran) on his forthcoming mission.

Cot left for Algiers himself in the fall of 1943, which is probably why there was a gap of several months in decrypted Venona traffic from Daedalus.  In March 1944, Cot arrived in the USSR on a five-month mission on behalf of the French Committee of National Liberation – only to return to Algiers by August 1944. While he was still in the USSR, his name was mentioned “in the clear” (without use of his code name) in the decrypted fragment of a cable sent from New York to Moscow on June 15, 1944. A cable dated October 12, 1944, quoted a September 2 report from Algiers on Daedalus’ “impressions of the Soviet Union.” The last mention of Daedalus in Venona decrypts is dated December 12, 1944, when “Sergei” (the code name for Vladimir Pravdin) reported on his repeated, unsuccessful efforts to contact Daedalus’s wife in New York – which continued long after Madame Cot had sailed from New York to Europe on October 21, 1944. A parcel and letter Pravdin was to forward to her would remain undelivered.

After the war’s end, Pierre Cot returned to France and briefly served again as the Minister for Air. He continued to champion Soviet-French friendship, and in the early Cold War period was one of the organizers of the international peace movement sponsored by the USSR – for which the Soviets awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953. ³

For further information, see:

John Earl Haynes & Harvey Klehr, VENONA. Decoding the Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press, 1999, p. 211; and also Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, & Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism, Yale University Press, 1995, pp. 235-237.

The files of the Office [Secretariat] of Dimitrov, fund 495, descriptions 73, 74 & 75, RGASPI, Moscow. L. Beria to Comrade Dimitrov, 29/30 November 1940, N 5170/b – 495-74-478, p. 1; Fitin to Dimitrov, Ibid., p. 3.

Venona KGB New York to Moscow 894, June 26, 1942; KGB Moscow to New York 424, July 1, 1942.

Venona KGB New York to Moscow 1107, July 8, 1943; 1137, July 13, 1943; 1197, July 22, 1943 and 1198, July 22, 1943.

Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence, vol. 4, 1941-1945. Moscow: International Relations, 2003, pp. 288-309.