Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie of Wilton, an Army officer who served in Vietnam and oversaw the monitoring of decommissioning nuclear forces in former Soviet states, died at the age of 87 on Oct. 28.
Lajoie, originally from Nashua, had a bachelor’s degree in government from University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in Russian history from the University of Colorado. A first-generation immigrant, born to French-Canadian parents, Lajoie was fluent in French as well as Russian, and served in the Army dating back to his two tours of service dating back to the Vietnam War.
The centerpiece of his career, however, was his role as an expert in the Soviet military, including the implementation of a program to account for and destroy Soviet nuclear weapons. On Veterans Day, state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, about Lajoie, who he attended the University of New Hampshire and shared a fraternity with, calling him a “key player in the dismantling of the ICBMs in the Soviet Union,” and thanking him for his long service.
“Roland Lajoie passed away recently, leaving a legacy of service and commitment,” he stated.
On a memorial wall for Lajoie on his obituary, D’Allesandro wrote the country “has lost another great American.”
Lajoie came from a large family of eight children. After graduation from UNH, he commissioned into the Army, serving as an intelligence officer in Vietnam. He learned Russian during his time in the Army, and served as the military attache in the United States Embassy in Moscow.
Under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, Lajoie was selected to head an organization intended to ensure the Soviet Union complied with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, creating and heading the On-Site Inspection Agency, or OSIA, which confirmed the destruction of 1,800 Soviet missiles.
In 1992, Lajoie established and led a new Office of Military Affairs within the Central Intelligence Agency.
Lajoie retired from the Army in 1994, but continued to be involved in government agencies, serving as the deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for cooperative threat reduction, continuing the Pentagon’s efforts in decommissioning Russia’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons stockpiles. In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed Lajoie to chair the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, searching Russian archives to locate soldiers designated missing in action for the past 60 years.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.