Paul Stehlin

Paul Stehlin     (soldier)
Born	August 11, 1907 Hochfelden, Bas-Rhin, France
Died	22 June 1975 (Age 67) Paris, France
Cause of death	traffic accident
Nationality	French
Children	Marc Stehlin
Victim of	premature death
French officer and politician opposed the defense policy of General de Gaulle, which called for French room for independence, and campaigned for a close alliance with the United States. Went to the 1973 Bilderberg. Died after a traffic accident on the same day in 1975 he was exposed as secret "consultant" for US arms companies.  Member of the French Parliament  In office 11 July 1968 - 22 June 1975  Chief of the French Air Force In office 1960 - 1963 Employer France/Military Opposed the defense policy of General de Gaulle, which called for French room for independence, and campaigned for a close alliance with the United States. Later exposed as secret "consultant" for US arms companies.

Paul Stehlin was a French Air Force general and politician. Of fervent transatlantic outlook, he fought the defense policy of General de Gaulle, which called for French military independence, and campaigned for a close alliance with the United States. He published various works, one of which, La Force d'illusion, was very critical of the French independent nuclear strike force. He went to the 1973 Bilderberg. In 1975, he died in a traffic accident, on the same day he was exposed as secret "consultant" for US arms companies.

Military Career

Between 1935 and 1939, due to his perfect mastery of the German language - his native Alsace belonged to the German Empire until 1918 - Paul Stehlin was Air military attaché in Berlin where he established relations with Goering and participated at the 1938 Munich conference.

In 1940, he participated in the Norwegian campaign then commanded a fighter squadron. After the Armistice, he was assigned to the staff of General Bergeret, Under-Secretary of State for Aviation, and participated in the Hitler-Darlan interview. Under pressure from the Germans, he was finally removed from Vichy by Darlan. Captured by the Germans in 1941, he escaped to Africa. First stationed in Dakar (Fighter Group I/4), he then participated in the Anglo-American landings in North Africa and coordinated the military liaison of the allied air forces with General de Gaulle.

Appointed colonel in 1946, he was military attaché in London from 1947 to 1950. Air brigade general in 1950, he was, from 1952 to 1954, deputy chief of the private staff of René Pleven, Minister of Defense national, then, from 1954 to 1956, deputy head of the French delegation to the permanent NATO group in Washington. Promoted to air division general in 1956, the same year he became commander of the first tactical air command and the French air forces in Germany. In 1958, he became, for a short period, deputy of the 4th Allied Tactical Air Force. The following year, he was appointed major general of the armies. In 1960, after being promoted to the rank of general of the air force, he succeeded General Jouhaud as chief of staff of the air force. Having reached the age limit, he left his post in September 1963 and became State Councilor in extraordinary service.

From then on, he fought the defense policy of General de Gaulle and campaigned for a close alliance with the United States. He published various works, one of which, La Force d'illusion, was very critical of the French nuclear independent strike force, which caused a certain surprise.

After leaving the Air Force, his career in the private sector led him to successively serve as vice-president of Europe for Hughes Aircraft (1964), vice-president of Bugatti (1965) and chairman and CEO of Algeco (1968).

Political career

Entering politics in 1968, he was elected centrist deputy for the 16th arrondissement of Paris, after a campaign in which he virulently attacked "de Gaulle's authoritarianism". This is the only constituency in France in which an outgoing deputy from the majority party, Bernard Lepeu, was defeated by an opponent of Gaullism, with 500 votes ahead of his opponent. He is registered with the Progrès et Démocratie Moderne (P.D.M.). In October 1972, he left this party which he considered as "an annex of the [Gaullist] UDR" and joined the Centre Démocrate of Jean Lecanuet, then the Mouvement réformateur. He was re-elected in 1973 thanks to the transfer of part of the socialist votes. He became vice-president of the National Assembly on July 9, 1974.

American lobbyist

In 1974 and 1975, he was at the center of a controversy over the renewal of the combat air fleets of the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Denmark by openly siding with American aircraft, the YF-17 of Northrop and General Dynamics' YF-16 against Dassault's Mirage F1-E M53. In a twenty-page note addressed to French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on September 17, 1974 and widely distributed, he reported a technological gap favorable, according to him, to American aircraft.

This initiative caused a scandal. Considered by the most lenient as a naive person somewhat unaware of political realities, held by the most severe to be a felon who sold himself to a foreign power. General Stehlin was the subject of a debate in the National Assembly on November 6. In his absence, he was strongly criticized by the UDR and the Communist Party], more moderately by the centrists. Disavowed, he resigned from his position as vice-president of the Assembly. He was automatically retired on November 13 by decision of the Minister of Defense, Jacques Soufflet.

The following month he published La France désarmée, a book in which he expressed all his pro-European and pro-Atlantic theses, as well as the bitterness of a parliamentarian who felt he had been betrayed by the political class. He attacks Jacques Chirac, Jacques Soufflet, Marcel Dassault and admits to being “a great friend of the Americans” (his wife is American). Above all, he expresses his conviction that a new world war is inevitable

Death

On June 6, 1975, in Washington, a subcommittee of the American Senate revealed that the Northrop corporation had made "questionable" payments to parliamentarians and former high-ranking European officers, including Paul Stehlin, who had been paid since 1964 as a "consultant". In this capacity, he provided, for remuneration, information and political-military summaries to the firm.

The same day in Paris around 6:30 p.m., when the information had just been broadcast, Paul Stehlin was knocked down while leaving his office by a bus on avenue de l'Opéra. Victim of serious head trauma, he died from his injuries on June 22 at Cochin hospital. His wife rejected the hypothesis of suicide and files a complaint against the Parisian public transport company. On November 24, 1976, the first civil chamber of the Paris court found the RATP partially responsible for the death of General Stehlin. The judgment recalls the general's positions in favor of the American aeronautical industry and the fact that on the very day of the accident the press revealed that General Stehlin had received a salary in 1974 from the American aviation company Northrop. of $7,500. "If," adds the court, "these revelations and the distress which could result from them for him are likely to explain, if not to justify, the aberrant behavior of Paul Stehlin, who knew full well, in his capacity as an aeronautics technician, that he could not impose on a machine as heavy as a bus at its cruising speed an abrupt stop in order to give him free passage, the fact remains that the driver of the bus had to remain in control of its speed..."

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1973	11 May 1973	13 May 1973	Sweden Saltsjöbaden	The meeting at which the 1973 oil crisis appears to have been planned.

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References

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