Saggi di Dodis 8 (2026/2)

Half a century after the Jeanmaire affair, the gradual opening of archival records makes it possible to revisit the origins of one of the most notorious espionage cases in Swiss history. While the facts that led to Brigadier Jean-Louis Jeanmaire’s conviction are now largely established, the motives behind his collaboration with Soviet intelligence remain poorly understood. Drawing on previously unpublished sources from Swiss and Czech archives, this article uncovers a hitherto unknown meeting between Jeanmaire and a Czechoslovak military intelligence officer in 1949. These documents reveal that an attempt to recruit Jeanmaire had already been initiated a decade before his first contact with Vasili Denissenko, offering new insights into both the origins of the affair and the motivations underlying Jeanmaire’s subsequent actions.

Jean-Philippe Ceppi, holds a PhD in history and is a journalist for the Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) programme «Temps Présent», which he led from 2004 to 2024. He also teaches investigative journalism at the University of Neuchâtel.