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Bernard, Antoine, Marie, Paul, Ghislain, Count le Grelle (Aalst, July 7, 1948) is a Belgian journalist, political adviser, writer, former United Nations expert and public affairs executive. He is known for his long term investigation on the JFK assassination.

Le Grelle
Le Grelle was born in Aalst (Belgium) into the Le Grelle family, a wealthy family dating back into the XVIIth century, ennobled in 1794 by Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. His direct ancestor, Joseph J. Le Grelle (1764 – 1822), founded the Joseph-J. Le Grelle bank in 1792 at the age of 27. The bank was thus the oldest bank in the country after the Banque Nagelmackers, founded in 1747. The Bank was minting its own currency.

His son, Count Gérard Le Grelle, the first Mayor of Antwerp, member of the National Congress and the Belgian House of Representatives, saved the Vatican from bankruptcy and received in 1852 the title of Roman Count from Pope Pie IX. By order of King Leopold I of Belgium the title of Belgian Count was registered and extended to all descendants in 1853. Le Grelle‘s grant-uncle Monsignor Count Stanislas Le Grelle (Antwerp 1874 - Rome 1957), friend of Eugenio Pacelli who was elected Pope in 1939 as Pius XII, Master of the House of the Pope and Papal Secret Chamberlain played an important role in the Vatican.

Agie de Selsaeten
Le Grelle's grandmother belongs to the Agie de Selsaeten family. His ancestor, Pierre Agie (1757), came from France and launched in Antwerp a trading company, competing with the Dutch Compagnie des Indes. His son Charles (known as 'Charles le Chinois') went to China and become very influential at the Imperial Court in Beijing. He travelled all the way to Moscow and was the host of Alexander I the Tsar of Russia. Napoleon, while in Antwerp in February 1798, stayed in one of the Agie’s houses. Charles and his son Gustave (1834-1909) were both Consuls of Russia in Antwerp.



Moyersoen
Le Grelle’s maternal great-grandfather was Baron Romain Moyersoen, a Belgian statesman, who was President of the Belgian Senate (1936-1939), Minister of Industry and Economy. After the liberation in 1944, he was asked to form the government by the regent, Prince Charles, but failed in his mission (Royal crisis). In 1946, Romain Moyersoen was appointed Minister of State. In his book Souvenirs politiques (1918-1951), former Prime minister Count Henry Carton de Wiart wrote that in 1939 he told King Leopold III, that in those difficult times "the best man to lead the country would be Romain Moyersoen". According to the Belgian magazine Trends-Tendance: “He was without any doubts one of the most remarkable political figure of the first half of the XX century”. His son Ludovic Moyersoen (1904-1992) was Minister of Justice, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Defense and Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

St Andrew’s Abbey
After his primary studies in Our Lady College in Antwerp, Le Grelle was educated in the boarding school of St.Andrew’s Abbey (Bruges). The very strict benedictine School, where King Philippe of Belgium studied, was reserved to the Belgian aristocracy and the political and business elite.

Touring the world
Bernard Le Grelle started his reporter and writer career while travelling. From Syria to Turkish jail, he travelled 17.000 miles from Antwerp to Kathmandu (Nepal) along the Hippie trail. From the Khyber Pass to Agra, Le Grelle was on the trails of Jacqueline Kennedy’s Pakistan, Indian journey 7 years earlier. The expedition got press coverage and Le Grelle wrote a story for the Gazet van Antwerpen and for the Dutch, French and German editions of “Bonne Route” magazine. In 1970-1971, Le Grelle travelled from Montreal to Patagonia (Argentina). In Guatemala city, he recorded the story from an Austrian diplomat on how a covert operation carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. In the jungle near Puccalpa (Peru), he interviewed a former Nazi SS officer, and in Asunción he got an interview with the grant daughter of Alfredo Stroessner, the US backed ruthless dictator.

Studies
In 1969, le Grelle got a Bachelor degree at the Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences (ESPO) from the Saint-Louis University, Brussels and in 1973 a Master Degree in Social and Political Sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL).

The 1974 class and JFK
In 1973, Le Grelle entered the international division of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. At this time, he began to focus in John Fitzgerald Kennedy. JFK has influenced Le Grelle's since his early life and has played a major role in his professional path. Le Grelle read every article about the President and the First Lady. Among students of the school were Zachary Sklar, who met Jim Garrison in 1987, helped him rewrite and edited his book On the Trail of the Assassins and wrote with Oliver Stone the screenplay of the movie JFK. There was also Robert Pear, who gripped by President John F. Kennedy’s assassination when he was 14, recorded every moment of television that weekend on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and collected an archive of newspaper coverage from across the country and Jean Lesieur, famous French journalist, author of the book Murder in Georgetown, The CIA and the Secret Love of Kennedy. At that time, Le Grelle spent hours on the JFK assassination, especially on the Warren Report. Le Grelle wrote his master project on Inga Arvad, a Danish-American journalist, known for her romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy from 1941 and 1942.

From WCBS to the United Nations
In January 1974, Le Grelle was hired as a trainee reporter to work with Jim Jensen, the anchorman of WCBS Evening news. At that time, he realized the interview of the Special FBI Agent William F. Higgins, Jr. . Le Grelle got unpublished information on the Watergate linked case, but also on the JFK assassination. Le Grelle chose “The United Nations Office of Public Information” for his master project. He interviewed Yuri Seppokrylov, First Secretary of the USSR’s Mission to the United Nations, who gave him first-hand information on US-Russian secret agreements during the Yom Kippur War, which were used by Teltsch for The New York Times. He tried to cultivate Le Grelle but the FBI warned Le Grelle that he was a Russian spy. Le Grelle also interviewed numerous UN diplomats and Ambassadors (John Scali, who played an important role in the Cuba missile crisis of 1962, Louis de Guiringaud, Carlos_Ortiz_de_Rozas), head of States and governments (Mobutu Sese Seko about the CIA in Congo).

Early Career
Le Grelle started in 1973 as a consultant of the United Nations Development Program Administrator on a field trip to Peru to work on urban developing projects. He wrote for ITT World Headquarters in New York and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in 1974. In 1975, Le Grelle became a field expert for UNESCO in Tobago. He founded The Tobago News, the first and only newspaper of the island of which he was the editor and publisher from 1975 to 1977.

In 1977, as deputy publisher of Le Nouvel Economiste in Paris, Le Grelle organized, on the model of Time magazine CEO’s Business travels, an economic mission for twenty chairmen of French major companies, with a total turnover of 30 billion dollars and employing over half a million employees, including the banker Guy de Rothschild to meet with the new Carter administration. They had meetings at the White House and with cabinet members, including Bert Lance and Robert Strauss, discussions with the AFL-CIO, the Joint Economic Committee, with members of Congress (John Rhodes, Orrin Hatch, Jacob Javits), with Henry Kissinger, with Paul Volker of the Federal Reserve Bank. During their stay in New York, the French delegation met also with leading economists, the financial community and CEO’s of large US corporations, such as John Diebold with Robert Sargent Schriver, with Mayor Beame at Gracie Mansion. They lobbied hard for Concorde landing rights in New York.

In 1978, he organized the first French economic mission to China since Mao Zedong in 1978 and served as an intermediary between several governments, including South Korea, the Philippines, the United States and China, and major French industrial groups such as Bouygues, Framatome, Air Liquide, Air France, Accor, Essilor and Thomson.

In 1980 Le Grelle organized a mission in Korea and the Philippines under the leadership of François Giscard d’Estaing special envoy of the French President. In Korea, the business leaders where officially received by Choi Kyu-hah President of Korea, his Prime minister Shin Hyun-hwack, and most members of the government. The visit had two outcomes: Framatome won the bid for two nuclear power plants and the 1.7 billion contract to build the university of Riyadh won by Francis Bouygues, thanks to Korean subcontractors he met during the mission.

In 1980, Bernard Le Grelle resigned as deputy publisher of Le Nouvel Economiste to join Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber at l’Expansion.

With Lee Huebner, the publisher and CEO of the International Herald Tribune, he organized the meeting of 300 businessmen, bankers and diplomats from 35 countries with members of the French Socialist government including Pierre Mauroy, Prime minister, Michel Rocard and Laurent Fabius, Jacques Delors, Jacques Attali, representing President Mitterrand, trade union leaders, members of parliament and two panels of international bankers and industrialists. The conference was covered by 200 journalists from 21 countries, 17 radio stations and a pool of 19 televisions. . Le Grelle worked for the IHT during the following months.

In 1984, Le Grelle launched with Al Neuharth and his partner an International edition in Europe of USA Today, which he founded on September 15, 1982.

The American Space Program
Bernard le Grelle was appointed director of the National Air and Space Bicentennial Agency by the French Presidency in 1982. In June 1982, he was approached by Larry Mihlon, a former member of President Kennedy's space team, to set up a similar organization in the United States and became a founding member of the US Bicentennial Committee. The United States Organizing Committee of the 1983 Air and Space Bicentennial Committee included Senator Charles Mathias, appointed Chairman, President Ronald Reagan, Honorary Chairman and Vice President George Bush, Honorary Vice-Chairman General Clifton von Kann (Director), President of the National Aeronautic Association, Anna Chennault, Senator John Glenn, Senator Barry Goldwater, Apollo 17 astronaut and Senator Harrison Schmitt, Scott Crossfield, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins and Walter J. Boyne, Acting Director of the National Air and Space Museum. On July 12, 1982 Senator Mathias introduced S.J.Res.270, a joint Congressional resolution to designate 1983 as the Bicentennial of Air and Space Flight. The Resolution passed the House by Unanimous Consent on December 20, 1982 and was signed in the Senate on December 21, 1982. On January 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Official Proclamation to designate the year beginning January 1, 1983 as the Bicentennial of Air and Space Flight, which became Public Law (No: 97-413). On November 9, 1982, Mathias, Mihlon and Le Grelle did organize a ceremony in the Senate caucus room in the Russell Senate Office Building to launch the Bicentennial Year. The event televised life, hosted by Vice President Bush included a taped message from President Reagan and featured first close-up coverage of Challenger via life remote from Cape Canaveral and last minute preparation for the final test flight of Columbia. Jim Beggs of NASA, Lynn Helms of the FAA, Deputy Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Guy Fiske, Don Fuqua, Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Anna Chennault and General Clifton von Kann also participated. The event was attended by senior executives of the Departments of Commerce and Defense, diplomats and nearly one hundred journalists. It included a live television link with Paris. The White House organized a ceremony for the Bicentennial with President Ronald Reagan on February 7, 1983 to commemorate the Bicentennial Year of Air and Space Flight. Following his remarks, President Reagan, escorted by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, inspected the model of Columbia shuttle. Senator Charles Mathias, Chairman of the Bicentennial Committee, presented Walter J. Boyne, Acting Director of the National Air and Space Museum, with the Air and Space Bicentennial logo which flew in space with the Columbia shuttle mission STS-5 in November 1982. The logo was the subject of the first televised commercial from space when mission commander Vance Brand displayed it for television and is now part of the Museum's space collection. In December 1982, Senator Mathias suggested to have a Space Shuttle at the 1983 Paris Air Show. The space shuttle Enterprise prototype was flown, in June 1983, atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) during the 35th Paris International Air and Space Show. Americans fenced off the Space craft until the night of the opening, when they flew it around the city at 3.000 feet for all of Paris to see. It flew over Roland Garros during the French Open. John McEnroe stopped playing, fell to knees, put up his hands and saluted the Space Shuttle while the crowd cheered in a standing ovation.

In December 1982, Mihlon and Le Grelle came up with an idea to make the U.S. space program popular again and to convince the American taxpayer that the 211 billion dollar project was worthwhile. The idea was to send a female schoolteacher on the Shuttle, from which she would teach children a lesson from space. This would be relayed to all the schools in the United States via the public television network PBS. The White House accepted to support the project named the Teacher in Space Project (TISP). It was announced by President Reagan on August 27, 1984. 11,000 teachers sent completed applications to NASA. In 1985 NASA selected Christa McAuliffe, from Concord, New Hampshire, to be the first teacher in space, with Barbara Morgan as her backup. She planned to teach two 15-minute lessons from the Space Shuttle. McAuliffe died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (STS-51-L) along with the crew just 73 seconds after liftoff on the morning of Tuesday, 28 January 1986. The incident was broadcast live on CNN. When the explosion occurred, Bernard Le Grelle was aboard the Boeing 757 of Eastern Airlines bound to Miami, cruising at 39,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center. Le Grelle, who was on the telephone with Charles Villeneuve, the managing editor of Europe 1 radio station, became the first and only journalist to report the accident live as he watched the explosion. The report was cited among the great scoops of Europe 1 Radio.

Public Affairs Executive
In 1982 Bernard Le Grelle founded the first European lobbying agency, a public relations and public affairs group with 120 employees in 7 countries based in Brussels. In his capacity of CEO, Bernard Le Grelle launched a series of world forums to bring business executives to meet with the head and the members of a government. Among others, he lobbied the security of the Channel Tunnel for James Sherwood. In 1984 le Grelle became the European partner of Gray & Company, founded by Robert K. Gray, former cabinet secretary of President Dwight Eisenhower, deputy director of the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign in 1980 and co-chairman of Ronald Reagan’s Presidential inauguration. From 1982 to 1986, Bernard Le Grelle, along with James I. Campbell Jr., advisor to Larry Hillblom, the founder of DHL, were instrumental in breaking up the existing postal monopoly in Europe, opening the way for companies such as FedEx, UPS, TNT and DHL to operate on the European continent.

Consul de France
In 1976, Bernard Le Grelle became Consul de France in Tobago, appointed by Henri Chollet, the French ambassador in Port of Spain (Trinidad). He was in charge of the French Navy vessels from Fort de France, call port of the navy forces for the Caribbean (COMAR ANTILLES).

Shadow “Minister” of Foreign Affairs of Tobago
As the German oil company Deminex discovered huge oil find off the Tobago Coast in 1976, the President of the Tobagonians Abroad Association asked Le Grelle to join a shadow cabinet and to be in charge of Foreign affairs. As Winston Murray and A.N.R. Robinson had decided to support the secession. Le Grelle played a major role in convincing France and French speaking African countries to support the secession at the United Nations. Le Grelle was asked by DGSE to stay out of the discussion and finally resigned, the Tobago secession aborted and the Tobago News office founded by Le Grelle was raided by the police to find arms and ammunition.

Policy advisor
Bernard Le Grelle served as a policy advisor promoting foreign investments and building countries' image for several Prime ministers, including Pierre Mauroy, Wilfried Martens, and Ruud Lubbers. He organized the official visit to the United States of Belgian Deputy Prime minister Willy De Clercq, Gérard Longuet, French Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1986 and Jacques Médecin, Secretary of State for Tourism and Mayor of Nice in 1984. In 1980, Le Grelle met with President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to solve a commercial dispute between French companies and the government of the Philippines.

On the Presidential campaign trail of Steve Forbes
Bernard le Grelle joined Steve Forbes on the Presidential campaign trial in New Hampshire in February 1996.

Political clubs
Le Grelle is the founder of The "Cercle des Trente", meetings of 30 CEO of French companies, The Role of the Regions in the External Trade, conference meetings, organized with French Trade Minister Michel Noir and a French version of the United States Congressional Joint Economic Committee, the "Cercle Enterprise et Politique", which organized meetings with senators and members of Parliament of the majority and the opposition for business leaders.

Security and antiterrorism
Since 1986, Le Grelle had regular contacts with the Presidential counterterrorist cell which was particularly active as Paris was the target of numerous terrorist attacks. Le Grelle became an informal agent for the Cell and had regular contacts and meetings in Washington with the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, with staff members of the National Security Council at the White House, with the Heritage Foundation, CIA agents and with personalities like Neil Livingstone.

On March 6 1985, Joel Lisker, former head of the FBI antiterrorist unit and chief counsel of the new subcommittee on security and terrorism of the Senate judiciary committee gave to Le Grelle a document in Persian intended for President Mitterrand. Those were the minutes of a May 26, 1984 meeting in Teheran under the leadership of ayatollah Khatami, Minister of culture and islamic guidance, announcing the creation of a terrorist brigade the start subversive war operations in foreign countries. Terrorist will be recruited in the ranks of the army. Primary targets were Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrein and France. Le Grelle gave a copy of the “top secret“ document to Mary Sills, special councilor to the President in charge of the relations with the United States press and to Pierre-Yves Gilleron of the anti-terrorist cell. The security of the president was then highly increased. Later, with Lisker permission, he gave a copy to a journalist. The publication of the Iranian secret document made the front page of Liberation on July 26, 1985 and made next day the headlines of all major newspapers, it was largely commented on prime time television and radio broadcasts.

Climate and Health Advocate
In 2017, Le Grelle was appointed advisor to Dean Linda Fried, dean of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in charge to develop a project to create a guiding coalition to build towards a decision by the United Nations General Assembly to convene a 2019 UN High-Level meeting on the Effects of climate change on health and to develop a strategy and process of collaboration of guiding coalition members, including the WHO, WMO, UNEP, the World Bank, ILO, United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, OECD, United Nations Global Compact, The Climate Centre of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), WEF, Columbia University, PATH, BMGF and other foundations and NGOs. Bernard Le Grelle supported the project with Muhammad Yunus, Nobel peace prize, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mary Robinson, John Kerry, Kerry Initiative, Yale University Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Lionel Zinsou, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rear admiral Robin M. Ikeda, Antonio Guterres, Patricia Espinosa. Bernard Le Grelle was invited by Emmanuel Macron to assist as an observer of the Mailman School of Columbia University at the 1st edition of the One Planet Summit of December 2017.

In 2018, Bernard Le Grelle became director of the World Health and Climate Commission (WHCC) project in Geneva organized by PATH. The Commission's mission was to focus on increasing investment and advancing policies, advocacy, research’ education and specific projects to address critical climate and health challenges. WHCC was expected to become an important and influential voice in the climate, pollution and health intersect and as a trusted source of information and analysis for policymakers and other stakeholders.

Professor and guest speaker
Bernard Le Grelle was professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He was also a visiting Professor at HEC business school Paris at Sorbonne University (Université de Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) and at CECA University (Centre Entreprise et Communication Avancée). He held conferences on lobbying and advocacy strategies for universities, chambers of commerce, professional organizations, the European commission and employers’ associations in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, the United States, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

Memberships
Bernard le Grelle is a member of the Cercle de l'Union interalliée, the Army Navy Club, the Metropolitan Club, the University Club of Washington, DC,  the  Cosmos Club in Washington, the Harvard Club of Boston, the Algonquin Club, the Somerset Club, the Union Club of Boston, the Jonathan Club of Los Angeles, the  Racquet Club of Philadelphia, the Rainier Club of Seattle, the University Club of San Francisco, the Century Association in New York City. He is also an active member of the Cercle MBC in Geneva and Paris, of the Columbia Alumni Associations (New York, Paris, Geneva and Brussels), of the CU J-School International Alums group, American University Clubs of France (AUC France) and he is a former member of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO). Between 2002 and 2005, Bernard le Grelle was Vice Commodore of the Trophée Bailly de Suffren, a sailing race of traditional boats between Saint-Tropez and Malta.

Publications and books

 * The United Nations Office of Public Information, a Reorganization Project (Library, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, 1974)
 * The United Nations Office of Public Information, pour une politique de relations publiques aux Nations unies (Université Catholique de Louvain, 1974).
 * Report on Transmission Services for Urgent International Business Documents and the 19th Congress of the Universal Postal Union in Hamburg, Germany, June‐July 1984 (International Chamber of Commerce 1984).
 * Lobbyman, Le Pouvoir des Coulisses (Lobbyman, The Power behind the Scene), (Hachette 1988).
 * Les Hommes Préfèrent les Myopes (Men make Passes at Girls wearing Glasses), (Editions LPM 1998).
 * Tout le monde doit connaître cette histoire, Editions Stock, 2009, with Jean-Claude Chermann, Olivier Galzi.

Personal Life
Bernard le Grelle married in 2007 Karine Higounet, a French lawyer. They have a son Amaury (2007). They live in Paris and Megève in the French Alps.

Related Links

 * List of noble families in Belgium
 * Bernard Le Grelle