X-Nico

5 unusual facts about United States Secretary of Defense


Francis William Billado

In 1957 Billado made national headlines when he called for the firing of Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson after Wilson called the National Guard a haven for “draft dodgers” during the Korean War.

History of the United States National Security Council 1993–present

The President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense were members of the NSC as prescribed by statute.

Lightweight Fighter program

To reflect this new, more serious intent to procure a new aircraft, along with its reorientation toward a fighter-bomber design, the LWF program was rolled into a new Air Combat Fighter (ACF) competition in an announcement by U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger in April 1974.

Ted N. Branch

On 16 May 2013, Branch was nominated by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to become the Director of Naval Intelligence and the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance.

United States Navy Working Capital Fund

The 1949 amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 authorized the United States Secretary of Defense to establish revolving funds as the business model for the operation of these funds.


1952 steel strike

Attending the meeting were Attorney-General James P. McGranery, who had been confirmed by the Senate on May 20; Solicitor General Philip Perlman; Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett; White House Counsel Charles S. Murphy; Press Secretary Joseph Short; Steelman and Sawyer.

Ben Shapiro

On February 7, 2013, Shapiro published an article citing unspecified Senate sources who claimed that a group named "Friends of Hamas" was among foreign contributors to the political campaign of Chuck Hagel, a former US Senator awaiting confirmation as Secretary of Defense as a nominee of President Barack Obama.

Bruce Kupper

Bruce served Senator William Cohen, then U.S. Senator from Maine and later United States Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, as central district staff member and office manager from 1973 to 1975.

DEFCON

The DEFCON level is controlled primarily by the U.S. President and the U.S. Secretary of Defense through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commanders, and each DEFCON level defines specific security, activation and response scenarios for the troops in question.

Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board

Additionally, the President can confer the award on persons not nominated by anyone; however, normally, each component of the Department of Defense will nominate recipients through the Secretary and the Public Service Awards Panel.

Elisabeth Gordon Chandler

Chandler excelled especially in portraiture, and produced busts which were definitive images of such notables as Nobelist Dr. Albert Michelson, United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, Supreme Court Chief Justices John Jay, Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone, actor Charles Coburn, artists James Montgomery Flagg and Alphaeus Philemon Cole, and Adlai Stevenson.

F. Whitten Peters

In 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen recommended Peters for appointment as Under Secretary of the Air Force.

Golf-class submarine

After Halibut discovered a sunken Soviet submarine containing at least one intact ballistic missile complete with nuclear warhead, Melvin Laird, United States Secretary of Defense under President Richard Nixon, approved Azorian.

Graham T. Allison

He was a special advisor to the Secretary of Defense (1985–1987) and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans (1993–1994), where he coordinated strategy and policy towards the states of the former Soviet Union.

Herbert D. Riley

In the late 1940s he had duty in the Strategic Plans Section of the office of the Chief of Naval Operations and served as an assistant to United States Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and hus successor Louis A. Johnson, and then was student at the National War College.

History of the United States National Security Council 1963–69

Secretary of State Dean Rusk later observed that during the Kennedy Presidency neither he nor Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara liked to "get into much discussion" in the NSC with "so many people sitting around the room" and the possibility of leaks so great.

History of the United States National Security Council 1977–81

Instead, Carter used frequent, informal meetings as a decision-making device, typically his Friday breakfasts, usually attended by the Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, the NSC Adviser, and the chief domestic adviser.

J. Daniel Howard

He worked for Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and dealt with the aftermath of the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S.S. Vincennes and the explosion of a gun mount on the U.S.S. Iowa.

Jim Courter

Jim Courter was chairman of the Committee for the Common Defense at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, which was in 1995 responsible for writing a letter in support of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber that seven former Secretaries of Defense (representing every Democratic and Republican Administration since Richard Nixon) signed.

Kalorama, Washington, D.C.

Recent Kalorama residents include the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and historian Elizabeth Eisenstein.

Kathleen Troia McFarland

She also served as a speech writer to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate Republican nomination in New York in 2006 and is currently a Fox News contributor on foreign policy and national security issues.

Militant Liberty: A Program of Evaluation and Assessment of Freedom

Published on November 2, 1955, it was the result of a thesis, ‘Militant Liberty’, presented to Charles Erwin Wilson, United States Secretary of Defense by John C. Broger.

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008

Section 1822 requires the President to "establish a bipartisan Council of Governors to advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions."

Resignation

This could be a gesture of confidence in the official, as with US President George W. Bush's refusal of his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's twice-offered resignation during the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

Schlesinger v. Holtzman

It involves Elizabeth Holtzman and several air force officers against James R. Schlesinger, the Secretary of Defense.

Senatorial courtesy

This type of "courtesy" was dealt a serious blow in 1989, when the Senate failed to confirm former U.S. senator John Tower of Texas to be Secretary of Defense.

Simon Ramo

In October 1953 an Assistant Secretary of Defense, Trevor Gardner, created a committee to consider the future of guided missiles.

Social effects of H5N1

Donald Rumsfeld, formerly United States Secretary of Defense, is a past board member and current minor shareholder of Gilead Sciences which owns intellectual property rights to Oseltamivir (also called "Tamiflu").

The Special Warfare Memorial Statue

Both John Wayne, co-director and star of the 1968 film, The Green Berets, and Barry Sadler, composer of the song, “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” each donated $5,000 toward the creation of the statue as a symbol of the, “Quiet Professionals.” Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense at the time, donated $1,000.

The Unknown Known

The Unknown Known (also known as The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld) is a 2013 American documentary film about the life of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, directed by filmmaker Errol Morris.


see also

Louis Johnson

Louis A. Johnson (1891–1966), second United States Secretary of Defense, from March 28, 1949 to September 19, 1950

Robert Lovett

Robert A. Lovett (1895–1986), United States Secretary of Defense