Caspar Weinberger
15th United States Secretary of Defense
In office January 21, 1981 – November 23, 1987
President	Ronald Reagan
Deputy	Frank Carlucci (1981-1983) W. Paul Thayer (1983-1984) William Howard Taft IV (1984-1987)
Preceded by	Harold Brown
Succeeded by	Frank Carlucci
10th United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
In office February 12, 1973 – August 8, 1975
President	Richard Nixon Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Elliot Richardson
Succeeded by	Forrest David Mathews
20th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
In office June 12, 1972 – February 1, 1973
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	George P. Shultz
Succeeded by	Roy Ash
42nd Chairman, United States Federal Trade Commission
In office December 31, 1969 – August 6, 1970
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	Paul Rand Dixon
Succeeded by	Miles W. Kirkpatrick
Personal details
Born	Caspar Willard Weinberger (1917-08-18)August 18, 1917 San Francisco, California, USA
Died	March 28, 2006(2006-03-28) (aged 88) Bangor, Maine, USA
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Jane Weinberger (1942-2006)
Alma mater	Harvard College (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Attorney
Religion	Episcopal
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1941 - 1945
Rank	Captain
Unit	41st Infantry Division
Battles/wars	World War II

Caspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006), was an American politician and businessman. He served in a variety of prominent state and federal positions for three decades, most prominently as Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.

Born in San Francisco, California, Weinberger served in the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific theater of World War II. His entry into politics was as a California State Assemblyman from 1953 to 1959, and he would go on to serve as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. An accomplished private sector businessman, he later became vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation, and still later Chairman of Forbes.

His tenure as Secretary of Defense is the third longest in U.S. history, and spanned the final years of the Cold War. He is also known for his key role in the administration's Strategic Defense Initiative and later indictments in the Iran-Contra affair. He was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 and an honorary British knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

Early life[link]

Weinberger was born in San Francisco, California, the younger of two sons of Herman Weinberger, a Colorado-born lawyer. His mother, the former Cerise Carpenter Hampson, was an accomplished violinist whose parents were immigrants from England.^[1] Weinberger was named "Caspar" for a friend of his mother's; his father began calling him "Cap", a nickname that stuck into adulthood.

Weinberger was a first cousin of the nationally-broadcast radio personality Don McNeill of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club; their mothers were sisters-in-law. Caspar Weinberger's father Herman was the younger brother of Luella Weinberger McNeill, mother of Don McNeill. The 1910 Census shows Herman and Luella living in the household of Nathan Weinberger, the grandfather of Caspar Weinberger. Weinberger was a sickly child and required close nurturing from his mother; in time, he overcame his poor health and shyness.

Weinberger's paternal grandparents had left Judaism because of a dispute at a Bohemian synagogue. He was reared in a home with no denominational ties, though with a general Christian orientation. In time he became an active Episcopalian and often expressed his faith in God.^[2] When he enrolled at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mrs. Weinberger rented an apartment nearby for the first semester that Weinberger and his older brother, Peter, attended Harvard. She then returned to her husband in San Francisco. Weinberger received his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in 1938 and a Juris Doctor degree in 1941, both from Harvard. He edited the Harvard student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and recalls in his memoirs entitled In the Arena: A Memoir of the 20th Century two specific interviews of which he was most pleased: one with the highly decorated soldier Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and another with Alabama-born actress Tallulah Bankhead.

He entered the United States Army as a private in 1941, was commissioned as a second lieutenant at the United States Army Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and served with the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific. At the end of the war he was a captain on General Douglas MacArthur's intelligence staff. Early in life, he developed an interest in politics and history, and, during the war years, a special admiration for Winston Churchill, whom he would later cite as an important influence in his life. From 1945-1947, Weinberger worked as a law clerk for a federal judge before joining a San Francisco law firm.

Political career[link]

Weinberger entered the race for California assemblyman in the San Francisco Bay area in 1952 at the persuasion of his wife, Jane Weinberger,^[3] who also served as his campaign manager.^[4] He won election to the California State Assembly in 1952 and reelection in 1954 and 1956. As the Chairman of the Assembly Government Organization Committee, Weinberger was responsible for the creation of the California Department of Water Resources and was instrumental in the creation of the California State Water Project. Although unsuccessful in his 1958 campaign for California Attorney General, Weinberger continued to be active in politics and was chosen by Nixon in 1962 to become chairman of the California Republican Party.

Governor Ronald Reagan named him chairman of the Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy in 1967 and appointed him State director of finance early in 1968. Weinberger moved to Washington in January 1970 to become chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. He subsequently served under President Richard Nixon as deputy director (1970–1972) and director (1972–1973) of the Office of Management and Budget and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (1973–1975). While serving the Office of Management and Budget, Weinberger earned the nickname "Cap the Knife" for his cost-cutting ability. For the next five years, Weinberger was vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Corporation in California.

Secretary of Defense[link]

Defense Minister Caspar Weinberger (left) with Israeli Minister of Defense Arik Sharon, 1982

Although not widely experienced in defense matters, Weinberger had a reputation in Washington as an able administrator; his powers as a cost cutter earned him the sobriquet "Cap the Knife." He shared President Reagan's conviction that the Soviet Union posed a serious threat to the United States, and that the defense establishment needed to be modernized and strengthened. Belying his nickname, at the Pentagon Weinberger became a vigorous advocate of Reagan's plan to increase the Department of Defense budget. Readiness, sustainability, and modernization became the watchwords of the defense program. In his early years at the Pentagon, Cap Weinberger was known as "Cap the Ladle" for advocating large increases in defense spending.

Caspar Weinberger inspecting new hardware, Fort Lewis, Washington on April 22, 1983

As Secretary of Defense, Weinberger oversaw a massive rebuilding of US military strength. Major defense programs he championed included the B-1B bomber and the "600-ship Navy". His efforts created economic and military-industrial pressures that were associated with the beginning of Perestroika and the beginning of the end of both the Cold War and the Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]}However this thesis was not confirmed by the extensive study on the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union by two prominent economists from the World Bank- William Easterly and Stanley Fischer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “… the study concludes that the increased Soviet defense spending provoked by Mr. Reagan's policies was not the straw that broke the back of the Evil Empire. The Afghan war and the Soviet response to Mr. Reagan's Star Wars program caused only a relatively small rise in defense costs. And the defense effort throughout the period from 1960 to 1987 contributed only marginally to economic decline." ^[5]

While these events were clearly substantial and world-changing, they came at the cost of helping to triple the national debt. Weinberger pushed for dramatic increases in the United States' nuclear weapons arsenal and was a strong advocate of the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative, an initiative which proposed a space and ground-based missile defense shield.^{[citation needed]}

In response to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, President Reagan assembled his national security team and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. However Weinberger said there would be no change in the US's Lebanon policy and aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm US relations with other Arab nations.

Iran-Contra affair[link]

Though he claims to have been opposed to the sale on principle, Weinberger participated in the transfer of United States TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran during the Iran–Contra affair. By 1987, the disclosure of the Iran-Contra Affair and increasing difficulties with Defense budgets weighed on Weinberger. Weinberger resigned on November 23, 1987, citing his wife's declining health. He specifically denied that he was opposed to the INF Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Washington in December 1987. In fact, he took credit for proposing the substance of the treaty early in his term at the Pentagon.

Following his resignation as Secretary of Defense, legal proceedings against Weinberger were brought by Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. A federal grand jury indicted Weinberger on two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice on June 16, 1992.^[6] He was defended by defense attorney Carl Rauh. Weinberger received a Presidential pardon from George H. W. Bush on December 24, 1992.^[7]

Later career[link]

Weinberger had been Secretary of Defense for six years and ten months, longer than any man except for Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld. After Weinberger left the Pentagon, he joined Forbes, Inc., in 1989 as publisher of Forbes magazine. He was named chairman in 1993. Over the next decade, he wrote frequently on defense and national security issues. In 1990, he wrote Fighting for Peace, an account of his Pentagon years. In 1996, Weinberger co-authored a book entitled The Next War, which raised questions about the adequacy of US military capabilities following the end of the Cold War.

Family[link]

In 1942 Weinberger married Rebecca Jane Dalton, who was born on March 29, 1918 in Milford, Maine.^[4] A World War II Army nurse, and later author and publisher, she, according to "[c]oaxed her husband ... into politics and was a loyal Washington wife during three Republican administrations before she began to write and publish children's books".^[3] Jane Weinberger, a uterine cancer survivor, died on July 12, 2009, aged 91, at Bar Harbor, Maine, following a stroke.^[3] The couple had a daughter, Arlin, and a son, Caspar.

Death[link]

Weinberger's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery

While residing on Mount Desert Island, Maine, Weinberger was treated for and died from complications of pneumonia at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine, aged 88. He was survived by his wife, the former Rebecca Jane Dalton, their two children and several grandchildren.

He was buried in Section 30, Grave 835-1 at Arlington National Cemetery on April 4, 2006.

Shortly after his death President George W. Bush in a public statement said:

Caspar Weinberger was an American statesman and a dedicated public servant. He wore the uniform in World War II, held elected office, and served in the cabinets of three Presidents. As Secretary of Defense for President Reagan, he worked to strengthen our military and win the Cold War. In all his years, this good man made many contributions to our Nation. America is grateful for Caspar Weinberger's lifetime of service. Laura and I send our condolences and prayers to the entire Weinberger family.^[8]

Then United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated:

Cap Weinberger was a friend. His extensive career in public service, his support for the men and women in uniform and his central role in helping to win the Cold War leave a lasting legacy ... He left the United States armed forces stronger, our country safer and the world more free.^[9]

Awards[link]

• Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987.
• Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1988, awarded in recognition for an "outstanding and invaluable" contribution to military cooperation between the UK and the US, particularly during the Falklands War of 1982.
• Weinberger was awarded the Gold Star Award by the International Strategic Studies Association for Outstanding Contributions to Strategic Progress Through Humanitarian Achievement.
• Caspar Weinberger was inducted into the United States Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame in 1981, the highest honor that can be bestowed on any graduate from the school.

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Caspar Weinberger

• Department of Defense biography
• Obituary in Fortune magazine
• An interview with Caspar Weinberger (MP3)
• Interview about the MX missiles for the WGBH series
• Booknotes interview with Weinberger on Fighting for Peace, July 15, 1990.
• War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
• BBC News obituary
• Caspar Willard Weinberger Biography
• Caspar Weinberger at Find a Grave
• Baltimore Sun obituary
• Caspar Weinberger at the Internet Movie Database

v t e Secretaries of Defense of the United States of America Forrestal Johnson Marshall Lovett Wilson McElroy T. Gates McNamara Clifford Laird Richardson Schlesinger Rumsfeld Brown Weinberger Carlucci Cheney Aspin Perry Cohen Rumsfeld Gates Panetta

v t e United States Secretaries of Health and Human Services (previously United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare) Secretaries of Heath, Education, and Welfare Hobby Folsom Flemming Ribicoff Celebrezze Gardner Cohen Finch Richardson Weinberger Mathews Califano Harris Secretaries of Health and Human Services Harris Schweiker Heckler Bowen Sullivan Shalala Thompson Leavitt Sebelius

v t e Directors of the United States Office of Management and Budget Dawes Lord Roop Douglas D W Bell Smith Webb Pace Lawton Dodge Hughes Brundage Stans D E Bell Gordon Schultze Zwick Mayo Shultz Weinberger Ash Lynn Lance McIntyre Stockman Miller Wright Darman Panetta Rivlin Raines Lew Daniels Bolten Portman Nussle Orszag Zients (Acting) Lew Zients (Acting)

v t e Cabinet of President Gerald Ford (1974–1977)   Cabinet Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1974–1977) Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon (1974–1977) Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger (1974–1975) Donald Rumsfeld (1975–1977) Attorney General William Saxbe (1974–1975) Edward Levi (1975–1977) Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton (1974–1975) Stanley K. Hathaway (1975) Thomas S. Kleppe (1975–1977) Secretary of the Agriculture Earl Butz (1974–1976) John Albert Knebel (1976–1977) Secretary of Commerce Frederick B. Dent (1974–1975) Rogers Morton (1975) Elliot Richardson (1975–1977) Secretary of Labor Peter J. Brennan (1974–1975) John Thomas Dunlop (1975–1976) William Usery, Jr. (1976–1977) Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Caspar Weinberger (1974–1975) F. David Mathews (1975–1977) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development James Thomas Lynn (1974–1975) Carla Anderson Hills (1975–1977) Secretary of Transportation Claude Brinegar (1974–1975) William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr. (1975–1977)   Cabinet-level Vice President None (1974) Nelson Rockefeller (1974–1977) Ambassador to the United Nations John A. Scali (1974–1975) Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1975–1976) William W. Scranton (1976–1977) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Roy Ash (1974 – 1975) James Thomas Lynn (1975–1976) Special Representative for Trade Negotiations Frederick B. Dent (1975 – 1977)

v t e Cabinet of President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)   Cabinet Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. (1981–1982) George P. Shultz (1982–1989) Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan (1981–1985) James A. Baker, III (1985–1988) Nicholas F. Brady (1988–1989) Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger (1981–1987) Frank C. Carlucci (1987–1989) Attorney General William French Smith (1981–1985) Edwin Meese III (1985–1988) Richard L. Thornburgh (1988–1989) Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt (1981–1983) William P. Clark, Jr. (1983–1985) Donald P. Hodel (1985–1989) Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block (1981–1986) Richard E. Lyng (1986–1989) Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige, Jr. (1981–1987) C. William Verity, Jr. (1987–1989) Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan (1981–1985) William E. Brock (1985–1987) Ann Dore McLaughlin (1987–1989) Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard S. Schweiker (1981–1983) Margaret M. Heckler (1983–1985) Otis R. Bowen (1985–1989) Secretary of Education T. H. Bell (1981–1985) William J. Bennett (1985–1988) Lauro F. Cavazos (1988–1989) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel R. Pierce, Jr. (1981–1989) Secretary of Transportation Andrew L. Lewis, Jr. (1981–1983) Elizabeth H. Dole (1983–1987) James H. Burnley IV (1988–1989) Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards (1981–1983) Donald P. Hodel (1983–1985) John S. Herrington (1985–1989)   Cabinet-level Vice President George H. W. Bush (1981–1989) Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey (1981–1987) William H. Webster (1987–1989) Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick (1981–1985) Vernon A. Walters (1985–1989) Trade Representative William E. Brock, III (1981–1985) Clayton K. Yeutter (1985–1989)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

Caspar Willard Weinberger, Jr. (born 1947), is the son of U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Jane Weinberger.^[1] Born in San Francisco, he studied Modern British History at Harvard College, the same school where his father had been editor of the Harvard Crimson. He earned a B.A. in 1968.

From 1968 to 1971, Weinberger was an AFTRA producer, director and writer of documentary news films for NBCs San Francisco affiliate, KRON-TV. His documentaries won several awards, including the Associated Press Award for “Best California Documentary”.

In 1972, California Governor Ronald Reagan hired Caspar Weinberger Jr. to help set up the Office of Information Services. He would later work for President Reagan, in 1981, working for the newly formed Federal International Communications Agency (formerly the U.S.I.A.), where he helped create World Net, the TV counterpart to the Voice of America.

Weinberger later worked as a consultant to Smith Affiliated Capital Corporation in New York, and the Washington D.C. public relations firm, Gray and Company. He also worked as an independent consultant and music producer until settling in Mount Desert, Maine in 1997.

Today, Caspar Weinberger Jr. is a writer, author and lecturer on national and international affairs. He is also publisher of Windswept House, which his mother Jane Dalton Weinberger (died 2009) founded in the 1980s. Weinberger is a frequent contributor to several publications, including the Capital News Group in Wisconsin, www.humanevents.com and the new military magazine Armchair General. He is the principal trustee of the Caspar Weinberger Foundation, a tribute to his father's legacy as a statesman.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peace Through Strength

Sources[link]

This article about an American writer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Lee Hamilton
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 9th district
In office January 3, 1965 – January 3, 1999
Preceded by	Earl Wilson
Succeeded by	Baron Hill
Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee
In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 1995
Preceded by	Dante Fascell
Succeeded by	Benjamin A. Gilman
Chairman of House Intelligence Committee
In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1987
Preceded by	Edward Boland
Succeeded by	Louis Stokes
Personal details
Born	(1931-04-20) April 20, 1931 (age 81) Daytona Beach, Florida
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Nancy Ann Nelson Hamilton

Lee Herbert Hamilton (born April 20, 1931) is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and currently a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999. Following his departure from Congress he has served on a number of governmental advisory boards, most notably as the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Early life and education[link]

Born in Daytona Beach, Florida, Lee Hamilton graduated from DePauw University in 1952, where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, and from the Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington in 1956. He worked as a lawyer in private practice for the next ten years in Columbus, Indiana.

Congress[link]

Lee Hamilton (left) and James Baker (right) presented the Iraq Study Group Report to George W. Bush on December 6, 2006.

Hamilton was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat as part of the national Democratic landslide of 1964. He chaired many committees during his tenure in office, including the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Joint Committee on Printing, and others. As chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial. He remained in Congress until 1999; at the time he was one of two surviving members of the large Democratic freshman class of 1965 (the other being John Conyers). He was viewed as a potential Democratic vice-presidential running mate in 1984, 1988, and 1992, due to his foreign policy credentials and Indiana's potential to turn into a blue state due to economic concerns.

Life after Congress[link]

On March 15, 2006, Congress announced the formation of the Iraq Study Group, organized by the United States Institute of Peace, of which Hamilton is the Democratic co-chairman, along with the former Secretary of State (under President George H.W. Bush) James A. Baker III. Hamilton, like Baker, is considered a master negotiator.

Since leaving Congress, Mr. Hamilton has served as a member of the Hart-Rudman Commission, and was co-chairman of the Commission to Investigate Certain Security Issues at Los Alamos. He sits on many advisory boards, including those to the CIA, the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the United States Army. Hamilton is an Advisory Board member and Co-Chair for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. He is previously the president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and was appointed to serve as the vice chair of the 9/11 Commission. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of Albright Stonebridge Group.

Hamilton serves as a co-chair of the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) at the Bipartisan Policy Center.^[1]

Honors[link]

A nine-mile stretch of I-265 and Indiana 265 in Floyd and Clark counties, part of Hamilton's former House district, was designated the "Lee H. Hamilton Highway" shortly after his retirement from the House in 1999. The moniker is largely symbolic, as locals generally do not refer to the road by that name, although the name is used frequently by the traffic reporter for the area's largest radio station, WHAS 840-AM in nearby Louisville, Kentucky.

2008 Election[link]

Hamilton endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election.^[2]

World Justice Project[link]

Lee H. Hamilton serves as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Bibliography[link]

• A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and the Congress, with Jordan Tama, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lee H. Hamilton at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars wilsoncenter.org
• Lee Hamilton Biography and Resources wilsoncenter.org
• Iraq Study Group usip.org
• Voting record maintained by the Washington Post washingtonpost.com
• Stonewalled by the C.I.A. Op-Ed piece co-authored with Thomas Kean in the January 2, 2008 edition of the New York Times (accessed January 2, 2008)
• Hamilton, Lee H. How Congress Works and Why You Should Care. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
• Hamilton, Lee H. Strengthening Congress. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Hamilton, January 8, 2006

v t e Chairmen of the House Intelligence Committee Select Committee 1975-76 Nedzi • Pike Permanent Committee 1977-Pres. Boland • Hamilton • Stokes • Beilenson • McCurdy • Glickman • Combest • Goss • Hoekstra • Reyes • Rogers

v t e Members of the 9/11 Commission Kean (Chair) Hamilton (Vice chair) Ben-Veniste Fielding Gorelick Gorton Kerrey Lehman Roemer Thompson