ACCESSION
NUMBER:351065
FILE ID:EUR420
DATE:06/30/94
TITLE:SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WILLIAM J. PERRY (06/30/94)
TEXT:*94063003.PFE
*EUR420 06/30/94
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WILLIAM J. PERRY
(Biography) (690)
OCCUPATION: Public official, academic, businessman.
POSITIONS HELD: Secretary of Defense, 1994-Present.
Under Secretary of Defense, 1993-1994.
Co-director, Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford
University, 1989-1993.
Professor of Engineering, Stanford University, 1989-1993.
Chairman, Technology Strategies and Alliances, 1985-1993.
Managing Director, Hambrecht and Quist, 1981-1985.
Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, 1977-1981.
Technical Consultant, Department of Defense, 1967-1977.
President, ESL, Inc., 1964-1977.
Director, Electronic Defense Laboratories, GTE-Sylvania, 1954-1964.
Instructor of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, 1951-1954.
MILITARY SERVICE: U.S. Army, 1946-1947.
EDUCATION: Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1957.
Master's Degree, Stanford University, 1950.
Bachelor's Degree, Stanford University, 1949.
PERSONAL: Born October 11, 1927.
Married, five children.
William J. Perry, a Pentagon veteran who has been a successful corporate
leader in the defense industry, a mathematician and a scholar, is the
nation's 19th secretary of defense. Before taking that position, Perry was
one of President Bill Clinton's military technology advisers and also
deputy secretary of defense to former Defense Secretary Les Aspin.
Perry is noted within the military-industrial community as an innovative
thinker and an organizational genius, a man who has used his expertise in
academia, business and defense to further U.S. policy goals at home and
abroad. During the Carter administration, Perry served as under secretary
of defense for research and engineering; he is credited during that tenure
with spearheading the drive for radar-evading "Stealth" technology, which
has a number of military applications, including the B-2 strategic bomber
1nd the F-117A fighter, credited with helping to win the Gulf War.
In a White House ceremony announcing the nomination, President Clinton said
that Perry has the right skills and management experience for the job of
secretary of defense. "For years, and throughout his service this past
year, he has been at the cutting edge on defense issues," the president
said. "In every aspect of his work, Bill Perry has earned high respect
from members of both parties in Congress, in the military among those who
study military strategy, and in the business community."
He "brings a highly evolved and unique blend of competencies" to the defense
arena, says Lockheed Corporation chairman Daniel S. Tellep. "He knows
academia, venture capital, defense procurement, technology, military force
structure and the international scene."
Early in his career, Perry was the president of ESL, Inc., a company he
founded in 1964, which used the complex math of computers to interpret
electronic signals and thus break codes. Prior to that, Perry was the
director of GTE-Sylvania Company's electronic defense laboratories in
California.
Perry was hired as a technical consultant at the Pentagon by the Department
of Defense in 1967. He became the under secretary of defense for research
and engineering in 1977. After leaving the Pentagon, Perry was managing
director of Hambrecht and Quist, an investment banking firm in San
Francisco, California. He left in 1985 to form Technology Strategies and
Alliances, a management consulting firm which advises companies both in the
United States and abroad on high technology issues.
Perry is a recipient of the Army's Outstanding Service medal. He has been
a member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the
technology review panel of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence
and a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perry has earned the Defense Department's Distinguished Public Service medal
twice -- in 1980 and 1981 -- the year in which the Federal Republic of
Germany also awarded him the Knight Commander's Cross. In 1982, France
presented Perry with the Grand Officer de L'Ordre National du Merite.
At his confirmation hearing, Perry said that the secretary of defense must
be a key member on the U.S. national security team. The president has
demonstrated the vision needed to achieve the best possible national
security, Perry continued, "but the waters are uncharted, and we owe the
president our best advice and counsel in planning strategy as we maneuver
through the shoals of the post-Cold War era."
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