Bernard Thillaye

Bernard Thillaye  (naval officer)
Born	16 June 1921 Epernay, France
Died	24 September 2012 (Age 91)
Nationality	Canadian
Tri Bilderberg Canadian mariner

Bernard Thillaye was born in France, where he started his military career. After the Second World War he moved to Canada, where he became a military strategist and Cold War hawk.

Career

He began his military career with the French Navy in 1939. Escaping a France fallen to the Germans, he signed on with the Royal Navy. During his service, Captain Thillaye survived being torpedoed twice in 24 hours, as well as both the Allied and D-Day Landings.

He joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1949 and went on to command HMCS Restigouche. He retired from military service to become the Director of Strategic Policy and Planning for National Defence. In 1983, he was Vice-Chief at the Department of National Defense.

He is quoted in a 2010 Canadian Defence Associations Institute magazine as having formulated in 1973: ”National security is the matter of guarding national values and interests from both internal and external dangers.” (What those "internal dangers" were, was not stated.)

He wrote an article "The Global Strategic Setting: the Risks to the West," for the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies in 1980. He taught at the National Defence College. was always "good for a lecture on the looming Soviet threat"

In 1980, Bernard Thillaye, who was then Director of strategic policy planning, told the Vancouver Island chapter of the Royal United Services Institute that "Defence spending must be increased if Canada and its North American Treaty Organization [sic] allies are to close the gap that has opened for the Soviet leaders"...“We’ve been slack keeping our guard up and the balance of power has moved against us.” It was time to redress the balance by spending more money on new equipment, he said. Canada and its allies were “under an illusion of detente."

Bilderberg

During the early 1980s, there were different opinions withing the transatlantic community on how to approach the East Bloc. Several, mostly European, leaders wanted a softer approach, with an easing of tensions, while the North Americans tended towards a more confrontative line.

Thillaye would have contributed to the discussion in the 1982 Bilderberg on the subject "Divergent Policies And Attitudes In The North Atlantic Community" and in 1983 on "East-West Relations: Containment, Detente or Confrontation".

 

Events Witnessed

Event	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1968	Canada Mont Tremblant	The 17th Bilderberg and the 2nd in Canada
Bilderberg/1982	Norway Sandefjord	The 30th Bilderberg, held in Norway.
Bilderberg/1983	Canada Quebec Château Montebello	The 31st Bilderberg, held in Canada

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