Place de la Bourse, in Paris, facing the columns of the Palais Brongniart stands another building steeped in history: the headquarters of Agence France-Presse (AFP). Generations of journalists have worked here, and others continue to send their dispatches to media outlets around the world. There were a few hundred of them when the AFP established itself within these walls in 1944; today there are nearly 2,000, spread across France and abroad.
During the Cold War, this discreet omnipresence and central role in the dissemination of information made the agency a priority target for Soviet intelligence. The KGB archives transmitted in 1992 to the British after the fall of the USSR by the defector Vassili Mitrokhine today provide unprecedented information on the level of penetration of Moscow spies within the AFP. The Mitrokhine notes, that The World was able to consult in Cambridge, England, we learn that the KGB had recruited six AFP journalists as agents between 1956 and 1982. The names of three of them can be revealed.
The most successful, always elegant, falsely nonchalant, marked the memory of the company through the high positions he held. His name was Francis Lara. Born on August 3, 1925, in Paris, he grew up in the world of the press. His father, René Lara, was director of Gallicdaily newspaper of the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie having merged with Le Figaro in the interwar period. With a degree in English, he was hired by the AFP in 1946. Starting at the bottom of the ladder, his career ended at the top, when in 1982 he combined the functions of head of information and deputy from the CEO of the agency.
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