Count Alexandre de Marenches (7 June 19212 June 1995) was a
French military officer, a director of the
SDECE French external intelligence services (6 November 1970 – 12 June 1981), special advisor to US President
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
, and a member of the
Academy of Morocco.
Family
He was the son of Captain Charles-Constant-Marie de Marenches, a French aristocrat from a very old family of knights of Norman origin, an aide-de-camp to Marshal
Ferdinand Foch and, together with
Aldebert de Chambrun a representative of Marshal
Philippe Pétain to General
John J. Pershing
General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Wes ...
. His mother, Margaret Clark Lestrade, (7 May 1881 New York3 May 1968 Paris) was a US citizen of distant French descent.
Early life
In his youth, Marenches met many of the Allied leaders of the
First World War, such as Marshal
Foch and General
Pershing. Marshal
Petain was a witness at his parents' wedding. In 1939, as Count de Marenches, he joined the cavalry of the army and entered the field of intelligence by informing his relatives and contacts in the US of German activities in France im 1940. He narrowly escaped arrest by the
Gestapo in 1942 by crossing the
Pyrenees on foot and making his way to
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
. He joined the French resistance there and played a distinguished role in the
Italian Campaign. Wounded at the
Battle of Monte Cassino
The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino, was a series of four assaults made by the Allies against German forces in Italy during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The ultimate objective was ...
, he became ''aide-de-camp'' to General
Alphonse Juin, the commander of the French forces in Italy (1943 — July 1944). There, Marenches helped coordinate the US military, the French expeditionary corps, and the eventual successful Allied advance into Rome.
After the war, he ventured into industry but remained in the Army Reserve and ultimately reached the rank of colonel. In 1962, he resigned in protest to President
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
's policy in
Algeria.
Appointment by Pompidou
He was eventually chosen to head the French intelligence services by French President
Georges Pompidou mainly because of Marenches's perceived independence and integrity. Pompidou was aware that factions in the intelligence services had been circulating defamatory rumours for the last six months of de Gaulle's presidency on his wife and himself. Other rumours alleged Pompidou's involvement with the film star
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (; born 8 November 1935) is a French actor and filmmaker. He was one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for h ...
, whose bodyguard had been found murdered in September 1968.
Some agents had taken the opportunity to smear Pompidou in revenge taking very firm action against some of their colleagues involved in the kidnapping of
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, the leader of the Moroccan opposition in 1965. Marenches was brought in to clear up the factions. The fact that Marenches had been close to de Gaulle's former comrade-in-arms,
Alphonse Juin, may have also played a role in the original choice.
In 1970, he was installed as head of the SDECE, the forerunner of the current
DGSE. He deliberately carried out Pompidou's instruction to clean up the service and was indifferent to any protests on his actions. A natural activist, he began to travel and to meet with other governments to pursue the interests of
France in different parts of the world.
Under Giscard d'Estaing
He had such authority that when
Giscard d'Estaing succeeded Pompidou as president in 1974, Marenches kept his position for 11 years. Tellingly, when Pompidou died, and the key to his personal safe was deemed lost, Marenches was found to be in possession of another one. In chapter 7 ("Serving Two Masters") of his autobiography and in ''The Fourth World War'', Marenches says that Pompidou's safe in
Elysee Palace was opened by one of the Secret Services' safecrackers only after Marenches had summoned Pompidou's son and his chef du cabinet as witnesses to its contents. Op. cit. at 147.
Under Giscard d'Estaing, Marenches tried to awaken interest in the former
Portuguese colonies in
Africa, and when Giscard d'Estaing protested that they were a long way away, he answered, "Yes, but they are getting nearer". Like many others in the intelligence community, Marenches resented Giscard d'Estaing's lack of concern about the communist threat and, more generally, about Giscard's deliberate ignorance that "History is tragic".
Achievements
It is difficult to assess Marenches's achievements. There are those who believed that while he was one of the busiest figures on the intelligence circuit, some of his pronouncements (such as those on the
Soviet Union) were based on slander. Others noted how he successfully cultivated his contacts in the
Middle East, pushed the sales of
Dassault Mirage fighters, and helped to establish a relationship with
Iraq that persisted. In
Africa, sometimes working with the old Gaullist emissary
Jacques Foccart
Jacques Foccart (31 August 1913 – 19 March 1997) was a French businessman and politician, best known as a chief adviser to President of France, French presidents on African affairs. He was also a co-founder of the Gaullist Party, Gaullist Servi ...
and sometimes behaving as his rival, Marenches strengthened France's traditional strongholds.
He co-founded the
Safari Club
The Safari Club was a covert alliance of intelligence services formed in 1976 that ran clandestine operations around Africa at a time when the United States Congress had limited the power of the CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), k ...
, a "private intelligence group
hich was
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District (Ijrud County), Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 72 ...
one of
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
's many end runs around congressional oversight of the
American intelligence establishment and the locus of many of the worst features of the mammoth
BCCI scandal."
The Club involved a number of states, including
Saudi Arabia (which financed the operations),
Morocco,
Egypt and
Iran, and was intended to counter
Soviet operations in the
Middle East and
Africa.
An interlocutor with many heads of state in the world and a close friend of King
Hassan II of Morocco, he was elected member of the Academy of Morocco. After the election of
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
to the presidency of the
United States, he would have become, according to the American journalist Colley, one of his closest advisers doing business in
Afghanistan.
Im ''Dans le secret des princes'', he states he was asked by an American journalist, who was a distant relative, where he could go in the world to write an article on an important geopolitical situation that was almost unknown. Marenches proposes several places. The journalist answers that he wanted one place. Marenches chooses randomly Afghanistan because of the threat of a
Soviet invasion The journalist asked US
National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils.
National sec ...
Zbigniew Brzezinski if Afghanistant could be an interesting place to write. Brzezinski said that it was not an interesting place. The journalist left for
Kabul, "arriving in the same time as the Soviet tanks did", just a coincidence.
Marenches also conceived Operation Mosquito. In a meeting with Reagan at the White House, he suggested for the
Drug Enforcement Administration to take all the drugs confiscated and supply them covertly to the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. In a few months, he explained, it would be demoralized, and its fighting ability would be gone. Marenches added, according to his published memoirs, that a few trusted people could do all that at a cost of approximately a million dollars.
Marenches also told Reagan that the United States controlled only four of the eight strategic raw materials and that the Soviets controlled all of them.
Édouard Balladur knew Marenches well from when they were both working closely with Pompidou. When Balladur was prime minister, he was due to preside over a medal-awarding ceremony. He was suddenly unable to attend and so asked Marenches to take his place. That was a serious mark of Balladur's respect and friendship.
At 6'4" and heavily built, he was called
Porthos in reference to the character in ''
The Three Musketeers''. Charismatic and colourful, he was popular for his valour and patriotism.
Resignation
After the
French Socialist Party
The Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste , PS) is a French centre-left and social-democratic political party. It holds pro-European views.
The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major p ...
came to power in 1981, Marenches resigned that year because of presence of
French Communist Party in the government. He disapproved of the new organisation of security. He was particularly scathing about the fiasco of the ''
Rainbow Warrior'', but he accepted a seat on the
Constitutional Council Constitutional Council might refer to:
* Constitutional Council (Chad)
* Constitutional Council (France)
* Constitutional Council (Ivory Coast)
* Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka)
* Constitutional Council (Cambodia)
* Constitutional Council (Kaz ...
.
Publication
In 1986, along with journalist
Christine Ockrent, he co-authored a book, ''Dans le secret des princes'' ("In the Princes' Secret", published in English as ''The Evil Empire: Third World War Continues'') about his days working in secret services. Claims were made on concealed archives with evidence of collaboration with Germans by figures of the
French Resistance during the
French Occupation
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
.
In 1988, he publishes in French an ''Atlas géopolitique'' (Stock, ISBN 9782234020214), a reference for anyone studying the period from 1945 to 2001 as it shows many maps and discusses many issues.
In 1992, along with
David A. Andelman
David A. Andelman (born October 6, 1944, Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an American journalist, political commentator and author.
Biography
Born October 6, 1944 to a Jewish family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Selma (née Nathanson) and S ...
, he co-authored ''The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism'', a book in which he predicted the rise of terrorism as a new form of warfare. That book became very popular in American countries elites after
September 11, 2001.
See also
*
Michel Roussin, Alexandre de Marenches' chief of staff
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marenches, Alexandre De
1921 births
1995 deaths
Knights of Malta
Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
Military personnel from Paris
French military personnel of World War II
Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur