James R. Schlesinger websearch @ GOOGLE indypress @ GOOGLE booklist @ NAMEBASE socialmap @ NAMEBASE James Rodney Schlesigner was Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration from 1973 to 1975.

He was Senior Staff Member at the RAND Corporation from 1963-67, and Director of Strategic Studies there from 1967-69.

In the Nixon administration he held the following positions:

• 1969-70 - Assistant Director and Acting Deputy Director of the Bureau of the Budget;
• 1970-71 - Assistant Director, Office of Management and Budget;
• 1971-73 - Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission;

In the Ford Administration Schlesinger was CIA Director from Feb. 2, 1973 to July 7, 1973 [1]. Appointed to this position on December 21, 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon, he was confirmed by the Senate on January 23, 1973, and sworn in on February 2, 1973. [2].

From 1973 to 1975 he was Defense Secretary in the Ford Administration(followed, in that position, by Rumsfeld).

Schlesinger tried to bring Paul Nitze (author of NSC-68, the 1950 document that has been called "American's official Cold War Manifesto" [see Truman/Nitze]

Watergate had [in 1974] cost Nitze an appointment as James Schlesinger's Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Defense Secretary Schlesinger had intended to bring Nitze into the Pentagon to strengthen his hand against the State Department. Like Schlesinger, Nitze was an open skeptic of detente generally ... - Jerry Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983), page 152.

... Once again, like a deja vu of NSC-68, we quickly discover that the Soviet Threat which preoccupied the defense secretary [Schlesinger] was not military but political in nature. - Jerry Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983), page 167.

Jerry Sanders figures that it may have been the nomination, by Carter, of Harold Brown as Secretary of Defense, instead of Schlesinger, the military hardliner's choice, that prompted the leaking of the undiluted 'Team B' analysis to the press. It was this document that pulled the rug out from under Carter's early foreign policy intentions. [For more on Team B (and the role that George HW Bush and Paul Wolfowitz played in this incident, see: Ford/Team B, Carter/Team B and Truman/Team B]

In the Carter Administration (1977-79) Schlesinger was Secretary of Energy

After 1979, he worked as a private consultant.

During the Clinton Administration Schlesinger attended the Great Reunion of the Big Six (six Defense Secretaries who originally worked under Richard Nixon) - when they came together again to testify against Clinton's Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999, nixing it. [see Rumsfeld, and Gang of Four]

On thursday, Oct. 26, 2000, Schlesinger, Weinberger, Rumsfeld and Carlucci join with others to "express alarm over Al Gore's secret agreement allowing Russia to slip arms to Iran" [3]

In 2001 Schlesinger, Rumsfeld and Weinberger are seen patting each other on the back at a black-tie award celebration that celebrates Schlesinger: [4]

Here is Schlesinger on Sept 12, 2002, concerning Iraq:

The challenge was quite simple: Is this going to be a talkfest? Are we going to just talk? We have had 12 years now of defiance of UN Resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Do you want to wind up like the League of Nations? If you do want to wind up like the League of Nations, that is one course that can be followed. We are going to take a different course. [5]

In 2002, Schlesinger gave the closing remarks at the ' Heritage Foundation'. That conference was described like this:

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret attempt during World War II to create the atomic bomb. During this symposium, panelists discussed the lessons learned from the project, and how they apply to today's domestic security issues.[6]

Schlesinger is currently Senior Advisor, Lehman Brothers, Inc. and a steering committee member [7] of the Transnational Threats Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. [8]

... Drug trafficking, links between drug traffickers and terrorists, smuggling of illegal aliens, massive financial and bank fraud, arms smuggling, potential involvement in the theft and sale of nuclear material, political intimidation, and corruption all constitute a poisonous brew — a mixture potentially as deadly as what we faced during the cold war. - R. James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence [Clinton Administration] and Transnational Threats Initiative Steering Committee Member

A member of The Homeland Security Advisory Council [in 2002] [9], he also argued for 'regime change' in Iraq:

James R. Schlesinger, a member of Bush's Defense Policy Board, says: "Given all we have said as a leading world power about the necessity of regime change in Iraq, means that our credibility would be badly damaged if that regime change did not take place."[7]