Background
William James Perry was born October 11, 1927, in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a grocer, Edward Martin Perry, and Mabelle Estelle (Dunlop) Perry.
Perry at a conference in Stockholm in 2014.
Perry at the ceremony in the Pentagon Auditorium, March 6, 2015.
450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
In 1949, Perry received Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and in 1950, Master of Arts.
State College, Pennsylvania 16801, USA
In 1957, Perry received Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.
Perry at the National Defense University graduation on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., on June 12, 2008.
(At the moment, the revision of security policy and the fo...)
At the moment, the revision of security policy and the formation of a new consensus to support it are still at an early stage of development. The idea of comprehensive security cooperation among the major military establishments to form an inclusive international security arrangement has been only barely acknowledged and is only partially developed. The basic principle of cooperation has been proclaimed in general terms in the Paris Charter issued in November of 1990.
https://www.amazon.com/Concept-Cooperative-Security-Brookings-Occassional/dp/0815781458/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's...)
William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's foremost defense authorities, draw on their experience as leaders of the U.S. Defense Department to propose a new American security strategy for the twenty-first century. After a century in which aggression had to be defeated in two world wars and then deterred through a prolonged cold war, the authors argue for a strategy centered on prevention. Now that the cold war is over, it is necessary to rethink the risks to U.S. security.
https://www.amazon.com/Preventive-Defense-Security-Strategy-America/dp/0815713088/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(What role should nuclear weapons play in today's world? H...)
What role should nuclear weapons play in today's world? How can the United States promote international security while safeguarding its own interests? U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy informs this debate with an analysis of current nuclear weapons policies and strategies, including those for deterring, preventing, or preempting nuclear attack; preventing further proliferation, to nations and terrorists; modifying weapons designs; and revising the U.S. nuclear posture.
https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Nuclear-Weapons-Policy-Confronting-ebook/dp/B01DRXBD52/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(George Shultz was a Marine in the South Pacific during WW...)
George Shultz was a Marine in the South Pacific during WWII, holds a Ph.D in Economics from MIT, has been Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, President of an international corporation (Bechtel), and has held four cabinet posts. Few can claim such wideranging experience. George writes about the interplay of ideas and action in a book with reflections and advice that can apply to any person or situation.
https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Action-Featuring-Commandments-Negotiation/dp/0578057956/?tag=2022091-20
2010
Businessman engineer mathematician secretary
William James Perry was born October 11, 1927, in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a grocer, Edward Martin Perry, and Mabelle Estelle (Dunlop) Perry.
After graduating from high school, Perry enlisted in the United States Army and served as a non-commissioned officer with the occupational forces in Japan. After his tour was done, Perry signed with the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. At the same time, he attended Stanford University, where he earned his B.A. and M.A. In 1957 he earned his doctorate in mathematics from Pennsylvania State University.
Perry entered the U. S. Army in 1946 and served as a surveyor in the Corps of Engineers in Japan and Okinawa for a year.
Perry taught at the University of Idaho for the 1950-51 academic year and worked as a research engineer at Boeing in 1951. He taught as an instructor there from 1951 to 1954. At the same time, he served as a mathematician at HRB-Singer in State College, Pennsylvania. In 1954, he became director of GTE Sylvania's defense laboratory in Mountain View, California-a post he held for ten years. This position would start a long career with the defense industry. Perry had become a reserve officer in the army and continued to go on training tours, one of which resulted in a hearing loss because of artillery fire. His expertise in electromagnetic systems and partial differential equations, combined with his knowledge of military systems, led to further advancement. In 1964, Perry became president of ESL, Inc. , a firm specializing in military electronics in Sunnyvale, California. From 1966 on, he also served as a technical consultant at the Department of Defense and as a mathematics instructor at the University of Santa Clara. Perry moved to Washington, D. C. , to work full time in 1977 when he became undersecretary for research and development in the Carter administration, under the direction of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. Perry's record in that position has been a topic of considerable debate. A believer in using high-tech weapons to counter the Soviet Union's numerical advantage in both manpower and conventional weapons, Perry pushed the Pentagon and Congress to develop advanced weapons systems such as laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles, the F-117 Stealth fighter, and the Apache helicopter. He was also identified with such questionable programs as the MX missile, the Maverick missile, the F-18, the Divad gun, and the B-2 Stealth bomber, the most expensive aircraft in aviation history. Scheduled to cost $200 million each in the late 19706, the first B-2 entered the Air Force inventory at a cost of $2. 2 billion in 1994.
Perry became a Washington insider. He was a trusted adviser to former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and an admirer of Al Gore of Tennessee. He also worked with such Republican defense experts as Brent Skowcroft, with whom he chaired the Aspen Strategy Group. When Perry left Washington in 1981 he had gained a solid reputation in the Capitol as well as a Distinguished Public Service Medal from the Department of Defense (1980) and a Distinguished Service Medal from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), (1981). Relocating in San Francisco, Perry became president of the investment banking firm Hambrecht and Quist, a post he held until 1985. He then became head of Technical Strategies and Alliances, a defense-related industry in Menlo Park, California. He left that firm in 1989 to become a professor of mathematics and co-director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. In 1993, he returned to Washington to serve as deputy secretary for defense in Bill Clinton's administration-a post he made clear he did not intend to serve in President Clinton's second term. His announced goal was to reduce procurement costs by relying more heavily on off-the-shelf commercial products while still contracting for such specialty weapons as nuclear submarines, fighter planes, and tanks. When Les Aspin resigned from the Defense Department in December 1993 and Bobby Ray Inman withdrew his name from consideration the following month, Perry agreed to serve, although he told friends of his reluctance to fight the kind of battles he had seen Aspin and Brown experience. Easily approved on February 3, 1994, Perry was the first technocrat to become secretary of defense since Harold Brown. He faced many problems, not the least of which was how to reduce the defense budget while still maintaining adequate armed forces. Following the chaotic tenure of Aspin, a New York Times report asserted in 1996, that Perry quickly restored order, discipline, and morale-three qualities crucial to military effectiveness. Despite his soft-spoken nature, Perry emerged as an articulate and candid spokesman for the Administration's policies. His record was tarnished however, by the June 1996 terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia killing 19 American servicemen. Perry and his top aides were criticized for failing to put a premium on security at American installations in the Middle East. Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies.
In March, 2006, he was appointed to the Iraq Study Group, a group formed to give advice on the U.S. government's Iraq policy. On June 17, 2006, Perry gave the featured commencement speech to engineering and science graduates at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Perry joined the financial board of the Thailand-based manufacturing company, Fabrinet in 2008, on which he continues to serve. In 2007, Secretary Perry joined three other eminent statesmen, former Secretaries of State George P. Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and former Senator Sam Nunn in calling for the United States to take the lead in reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons.
In 2011, Perry joined a team of former government officials from various countries, formed under the auspices of the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture Hidehiko Yuzaki to prepare a plan for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, that is titled Hiroshima for Global Peace.
In 2013, Perry founded the William J. Perry Project to seek to promote greater public awareness about nuclear weapons and engage more people in acting to mitigate the growing threat they pose to humanity. Perry currently sits on the board of directors for Xyleco.
(What role should nuclear weapons play in today's world? H...)
2007(At the moment, the revision of security policy and the fo...)
1992(George Shultz was a Marine in the South Pacific during WW...)
2010(William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's...)
1999During his tenure as Secretary of Defense, Perry formulated his policy of “preventive defense.” Perry felt that the United States should prevent conflicts as a first line of defense, use deterrence as the second line of defense, and employ the military as a last resort.
In addition to expanding on Perry’s theories of defense, Perry and his collaborator Carter outline the strategies implemented at the Department of Defense during their service at the Pentagon. Preventive Defense illustrates how one of the main priorities of the Clinton administration was keeping control over the development and spread of weapons of mass destruction. Preventive Defense also discusses the questions of how to deal with the changes and volatility in China and Russia and what they could mean to the defense of the United States.
According to Carter and Perry, basic to the defense strategy of the United States was a list of threats, ranked according to the danger they posed to the United States. The “A” list consisted of threats to the survival of the United States. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was on this list. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “A” list stands empty. The “B” list contains names of countries that pose threats to United States interests, but do not directly threaten its way of life. Iraq and North Korea were on this list. And finally, on the “C” list, were circumstances and contingencies that indirectly threatened U.S. security, but did not directly threaten U.S. interests.
Perry and Carter discuss in Preventive Defense how the United States should take action now to prevent any countries from making it back to the top of the “A” list. And while they do not directly discuss exactly how the United States should fight a war if the situation should arise, they do discuss the significance of the acquisition of weapons and the need for recruitment of personnel. Lawrence Freedman, reviewing Preventive Defense for Times Literary Supplement, noted that Perry and Carter are probably right in emphasizing the importance of keeping countries off the “A” list, but “that does not mean the United States dare take its eye off the strategic demands of the apparently minor “C” list wars that, unlike those on the “A” list, actually have to be fought.”
Perry felt that electronics would revolutionize the modern battlefield. Perry wanted to use the most modem and most advanced technology available to enhance the capacity of weapons and personnel currently available.
Quotations:
"We live in an age that is driven by information. Technological breakthroughs... are changing the face of war and how we prepare for war."
"Anyone who considers using a weapon of mass destruction against the United States or its allies must first consider the consequences... We would not specify in advance what our response would be, but it would be both overwhelming and devastating."
Perry plays the piano.
Perry married Leonilla Mary Green, a public accountant, on December 29, 1947. They have five children: David Carter, William Wick, Rebecca Lynn, Robin Lee, and Mark Lloyd.
19th United States Secretary of Defense