Founded in Paris in 1957 by Major Lucien Ott, a member of the French Deuxieme Bureau and former bodyguard to General Charles de Gaulle. The Association originally served as a think tank for bodyguards when Major Ott found that international methods of protection for military VIPs were drastically outmoded and increasingly ineffective.
The Association’s instructors have led training teams in the Baltic Republics, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The IBA were the first outsiders to train the KGB (Crimea 1991) as well as government and corporate teams in Poland (1988), Estonia (1989 Latvia and Lithuania (1990). In addition, we have trained UN forces in Bosnia and elements of the security forces for the European Union.