Count Alexandre de Marenches (June 7, 1921, Paris - June 2, 1995) was a French military officer.
During the Second World War, Count de Marenches was aide de camp to General Juin. As such, he helped to coordinate the US military with the remaining French divisions.
He was head of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE, France's external intelligence agency) from November 6, 1970 to June 12, 1981.[1]
He co-founded the Safari Club, a "private intelligence group [which was] one of George H. W. Bush’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."[1] 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.
Among other things, Count de Marenches is known to have predicted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to an American journalist that immediately reported his conversation to US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and left for Kabul, "arriving in the same time as the Soviet tanks did" (Marenches in Dans le Secret des Princes).
In 1986, he co-authored Dans le secret des Princes ("In the Princes' secret", literally, published in English as The Evil Empire: Third World War Continues) with journalist Christine Ockrent about his days working in secret services.
In 1992, he co-authored The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism with David Andelman.
De Marenches was a member of the Knights of Malta.[1]