Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States
The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Bottom Row: Ellen Williams, John Glenn, James Schlesinger, William Perry, Lee Hamilton, John Foster. Top Row: Frederick Ikle, James Woolsey, Keith Payne, Harry Cartland, Morton Halperin, Bruce Tarter. (Credit: USIP Photo/Steven E. Purcell)
William J. Perry, Chairman
William Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies and the School of Engineering. He is also the co-director of the Preventive Defense Project. Perry is an expert in international security, particularly in the area of arms control. He served as the secretary of defense for President Clinton from February 1994 to January 1997. Perry previously served as deputy secretary of defense from 1993 to 1994 and as under secretary of defense for research and engineering from 1977 to 1981. In 1997, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.
James R. Schlesinger, Vice ChairmanJames R. Schlesinger was the nation's first secretary of energy from August 5, 1977 until 1979. From July 1973 to November 1975, Schlesinger was secretary of defense. Immediately prior to this appointment, he served as director of central intelligence. In August 1971 he was selected by President Nixon to become chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, a position he held until February 1973. Schlesinger has also served on many government commissions and advisory groups. From 1999 to 2003 he was a member of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, and from 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. He recently served as co-chair of the Defense Science Board Task Force on the Future of the Global Positioning System.
Harry E. Cartland
Harry Cartland is an independent technical consultant and entrepreneur in such areas as defense, space launch, and renewable energy. Cartland was a member of the technical staff of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he was a special projects leader for a number of defense and advanced technology projects from 1993 to 2001. After his time at LLNL, Cartland served as a professional staff member with the House Armed Services Committee, from 2001 to 2004 and 2005 to 2007. He led a special oversight team for then-Chairman Duncan Hunter, was staff director of the Projection Forces subcommittee, and served as the Committee’s first staff director of the Strategic Forces subcommittee, which provides oversight of the atomic energy defense activities of the Department of Energy and strategic defense programs of the Department of Defense. Cartland previously served as an officer in the U.S. Army with a nuclear, biological and chemical defense specialty, and was a member of the United States Military Academy faculty.
John S. Foster, Jr.
John Foster is an expert in national security, particularly in the area of nuclear weapons, with over four decades of experience in both the public and private sectors. Foster began his work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he served as an associate director and then as director from 1961 to 1965. After his time at LLNL, Foster was the director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense, from 1965 to 1973. Additionally, he served on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1973 until 1990 and was the chairman of the Defense Science Board from 1990 to 1993.
John Glenn
John Glenn flew 59 missions as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and 90 during the Korean War. The oldest of the seven astronauts selected in 1959 for the Mercury project's spaceflight training, he was a backup pilot for Alan B. Shepard and Virgil I. Grissom (1926 – 67), who made the first two U.S. suborbital flights into space. Glenn was selected for the orbital flight, and in February 1962 his space capsule, Friendship 7, was launched and made three orbits. Glenn retired from the space program in 1964 and pursued his interest in politics, serving as U.S. Senator from Ohio (1975 – 99). In 1998, at age 77, Glenn made his second spaceflight (as part of the crew of the space shuttle Discovery), becoming the oldest person to go into space.
Morton H. Halperin
Morton H. Halperin is the Executive Director of the Open Society Policy Center. Halperin has a distinguished career in federal government, having served in the Clinton, Nixon and Johnson administrations. Halperin also has a long record as a Washington advocate on national and international issues. He spent many years at the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for National Security Studies, where he focused on issues affecting both civil liberties and national security. Halperin has been associated with a number of think tanks and universities including Harvard University where he taught for six years (1960-66) and the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been widely published in newspapers and magazines across the world, and has authored, coauthored and edited more than a dozen books. Halperin holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Yale University. He received his B.A. from Columbia College.
Lee H. Hamilton
Lee H. Hamilton is president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. Hamilton served for 34 years in Congress, representing Indiana’s Ninth District. During his time in office, Hamilton was a leading voice on national security issues and served as chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Since leaving Congress in 1999, Hamilton has remained a leader in national security, serving as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group as well as vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission.
Frederick C. Ikle
Frederick Ikle is a distinguished scholar at CSIS and currently engaged in studies about the impact of technology on national security and the prospects for democracy. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board, a governor of the Smith Richardson Foundation, a director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and an advisory board member of the Center for Security Policy. Prior to joining CSIS in 1988, Ikle was undersecretary of defense for policy during the first and second Reagan administrations. From 1977 to 1978, he was chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Advisory Council on International Security and, from 1979 to 1980, coordinator of Governor Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy advisers. From 1973 to 1977, he served Presidents Nixon and Ford as director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He has held positions with the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the RAND Corporation, and the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University. He has published many books, and his publications include articles in Foreign Affairs, Fortune, the National Interest, and op-eds in leading newspapers.
Keith B. Payne
Keith Payne is president and co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), a non-profit research institute examining foreign and defense policy. At NIPP, Payne’s areas of expertise include U.S. strategic policy and force posture issues, arms control, ballistic missile defense, and Russian foreign policy. From 2002 to 2003, Payne served in the Department of Defense as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy. He currently serves on the Defense Science Board, the DOD Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, is co-chairman of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, and is the policy chairman of the Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group and its Missile Defense Assessment Team.
C. Bruce Tarter
C. Bruce Tarter is the Director Emeritus of the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was the eighth director to lead the Laboratory since it was founded in 1952. A theoretical physicist by training and experience, he has spent most of his career at the Laboratory. As director, he led the Laboratory in its mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important problems of our time. He led the Laboratory through the transition to a post-Cold War nuclear weapons world, helping to set the foundation for current programs in stewardship of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Tarter has served in a number of outside professional capacities. These include a six-year-period with the Army Science Board, service as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis, and membership on the California Council on Science and Technology, the Laboratory Operations Board (Secretary of Energy Advisory Board), Pacific Council on International Policy, Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Draper Laboratory, member of the Corporation and the Board of Directors. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Ellen D. Williams
Ellen Williams is a Distinguished University Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. She is the director and founder of the NSF-sponsored Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Maryland. Williams has received numerous awards for her work, including the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, the Adler Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society, and the David Turnbull Award from the Materials Research Society. She is currently a member of the University of California National Security Panel, the APS Physics Policy Committee, the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society, and the board of reviewing editors for Science Magazine.
R. James Woolsey
R. James Woolsey is currently a Venture Partner and Senior Advisor with VantagePoint Venture Partners. In addition to his role with VantagePoint, Woolsey is a Senior Executive Advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he was previously a Vice President. He has served four times in the federal government for a total of 12 years, holding Presidential appointments in two Democratic and two Republican administrations. He served as Director of Central Intelligence (1993-95), Ambassador and Chief Negotiator for the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty in Vienna (1989-91), Delegate at Large (on a part-time basis) to the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START) and the Defense and Space Talks in Geneva (1983-86), Under Secretary of the Navy (1977-79), and General Counsel to the U.S. Senate committee on Armed Services (1970-73). He was also an attorney with Shea & Gardner in Washington, D.C., specializing in commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution (arbitration and mediation). He received an AB from Stanford University, MA from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and LLB from Yale Law School.