Pierre Cot

Pierre Cot (20 November 1895, in Grenoble, Isère – 21 August 1977), was a French politician and leading figure in the Popular Front government of the 1930s. Born in Grenoble into a conservative Catholic family, he entered politics as an admirer of the World War I conservative leader Raymond Poincaré, but moved steadily to the left over the course of his career. Through the decrypting of 1943 Soviet intelligence cables through the Venona Project it was established that Cot was an agent of the Soviet Union with the code name of "Dedal". However, other sources suggest that Cot was a communist fellow-traveller rather than an agent. The British Secret Intelligence Service describes him as "a highly controversial figure, vilified at the time by the French Right, and since accused of having been a Soviet agent".

In the 1920s Cot was a supporter of Aristide Briand, an independent socialist. In 1928 he was elected to the National Assembly as a Radical Deputy for Savoy. In December 1932 he was appointed Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the centre-left government of Joseph Paul-Boncour. In January 1933 he became Minister for Air in the Radical government of Édouard Daladier. He oversaw the establishment of Air France, and advocated a major expansion of the French Air Force. He was conscious of the real aim of the nazi policy of creating sailgliding clubs through hitler's youth movement and supported the expansion of working class aero-clubs movement called Aviation Populaire as a countermeasure, but left office in February 1934 when the Stavisky Affair forced Daladier from power. He was again Minister for Air in three brief governments led by Camille Chautemps.

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