Word: ailleret
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Died. General Charles Ailleret, 61, France's top soldier, chairman of the Chiefs of Staff and builder of his country's nuclear force de frappe; when his military DC-6 crashed on takeoff from the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, killing 19 aboard, including his wife and daughter. Placed in charge of developing a French Abomb, Ailleret orchestrated the project that succeeded in detonating a low-yield plutonium device in the Sahara in 1960; as Chief of Staff, he planned the "all azimuths" strategy, in which France seeks the ability to deliver nuclear weapons...
Gaullists, who refer to France's still inoperative nuclear deterrent as the force de dissuasion, have never been very precise about how or what it would dissuade. In the April issue of France's National Defense Review, General Charles Ailleret, chief of the general staff, comes up with a nuclear strategy custom-made to fit the force itself...
Dismissing U.S. and Soviet theories of massive annihilation as "highly improbable" unless "confirmed madmen" were in charge, Ailleret, a veteran infantryman, argues that it would take only a few nuclear strikes, "cleverly applied," to reduce the enemy to terror. Then, he reasons, "a rapid and brutal invasion by mechanized forces" would cause the enemy to "collapse through panic." Ailleret does not say flatly which side would panic first in such a war, but concludes confidently that victory would go to the government that is "capable of assuring the nation, through a sufficiently solid framework, of a stability that will permit...
...French army's annual fall war games. The setting was lovely: the meadows and fir-covered hills of the Jura mountains, a few miles from the Swiss border. The assemblage was splendid: Charles de Gaulle in his brigadier general's uniform; Premier Georges Pompidou; General Charles Ailleret, the modern-minded chief of staff of all French forces; General Louis Le Puloch, the traditionalist chief of staff...
General Charles Ailleret, former commander of the French forces in Algeria, was contemptuous of S.A.O. courage...