Major General Roland Lajoie graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1958, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and an ROTC commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. He also holds a Master of Arts Degree in History from the University of Colorado. His military education includes completion of the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the United States Army War College. During academic year 1980-1981, General Lajoie was a Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center. He speaks fluent Russian and French.
General Lajoie had a long, distinguished military career of various command and staff assignments to include two tours in the Republic of Vietnam. From 1973-1976, he was Assistant Army Attaché to the Soviet Union, after which he commanded the US Army Russian Institute in Garmisch, Germany. Returning to the United States in 1979, General Lajoie commanded the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion, Fort Bragg, NC. Other key assignments included Deputy Director for International Negotiations, J-5, Joint Chiefs of Staff; first Director, U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency; U.S. Defense Attaché in Paris and in Moscow; and Chief, U.S. Military Liaison Mission, Potsdam, East Germany.
During his 35-year military career, General Lajoie held a wide variety of important national security positions culminating in his last active duty assignment as the Associate Deputy Director for Operations/Military Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency. In this position, he created and directed the Office of Military Affairs, which was established in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm to facilitate the interaction between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense.
General Lajoie served in a civilian capacity as the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) until January 1998. In this position, he was also the Program Manager for CTR and responsible for implementation of the Nunn-Lugar initiative mandated by Congress in 1991 to assist the Former Soviet Union in the reduction and elimination of its weapons of mass destruction and other related non-proliferation efforts. In December 1998, President Clinton appointed General Lajoie the U.S. Chairman to the US-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs. In this capacity, working with his Russian Co-Chairman, he led the effort to uncover the fate of military personnel of both sides missing since WWII.
Major General Lajoie has received the Defense Distinguished Service Medal (with Two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Defense Superior Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster), the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and the French Order of Merit.
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