Alexandre de Marenches

Count Alexandre de Marenches (June 7, 1921, Paris - June 2, 1995) was a French military officer, former director of the SDECE French external intelligence services (6 November 1970 - 12 June 1981), special advisor to U.S. President Ronald Reagan and a member of the Academy of Morocco.

Alexandre de Marenches was born in Paris in 1921, son of Captain Charles-Constant-Marie de Marenches, a French aristocrat from a very old family of knights of Norman origin, aide-de-camp to Marshal Ferdinand Foch and, together with Aldebert de Chambrun a representative of Marshal Philippe Pétain to General John J. Pershing. His mother Margaret Clark Lestrade, (May 7, 1881 New York - May 3, 1968 Paris) was a U.S. citizen.

As a youth he met many of the Allied leaders of the First World War, such as Marshal Foch and General Pershing. Marshal Philippe Petain was a witness at his parent's wedding. In 1939 the then Count de Marenches joined the army — the cavalry — and entered the field of Intelligence by informing his relatives and contacts in the United States of German activities in France 1940. He narrowly escaped arrest by the Gestapo in 1942, crossing the Pyrenees mountains on foot and making his way to Algiers. He joined the French forces of liberation there and played a distinguished role in the Italian campaign. Wounded at the Battle of Monte Cassino, he became aide-de-camp to General Alphonse Juin, the commander of the French forces in Italy (1943 — July 1944). In this role he helped coordinate the US military and French expeditionary corps, and the eventual successful Allied advance into Rome.

After the war he ventured into industry but remained in the Army Reserve, ultimately reaching the rank of Colonel. In 1962 he resigned in protest to Charles de Gaulle's Algerian policy.

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