The White House President George W. Bush |
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Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
On February 5, 2001, President Bush announced his intention to nominate Dr. Paul Wolfowitz to be Deputy Secretary of
Defense. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 28th and sworn in March 2, 2001 as the 28th Deputy
Secretary of Defense. This is Dr. Wolfowitz's third tour of duty in the Pentagon.
For the last seven years, Dr. Wolfowitz has served as Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H.
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University. SAIS is widely regarded as one
of the world's leading graduate schools of international relations with 750 students, studying on campuses in
Washington, D.C.; Nanjing, China; and Bologna, Italy. As Dean, he led a successful capital campaign that raised more
than $75 million and doubled the school's endowment. Also under his leadership, the curriculum and facilities were
modernized and new faculty and programs were added to shift the school's focus from the Cold War to the era of
globalization.
From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Wolfowitz served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in charge of the 700-person defense
policy team that was responsible to Secretary Dick Cheney for matters concerning strategy, plans, and policy. During
this period Secretary Wolfowitz and his staff had major responsibilities for the reshaping of strategy and force
posture at the end of the Cold War.
Under his leadership, the Policy Staff played a major role in reviewing war plans for the Gulf War, and developing and
executing plans that successfully raised more than $50 billion in Allied financial support for the war and prevented
Iraq from opening a second front with Israel. Other key initiatives included the development of the Regional Defense
Strategy, the Base Force, and two presidential nuclear initiatives that led to the elimination of tens of thousands of
U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons.
During the Reagan administration, Dr. Wolfowitz served for three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia - the fourth
largest country in the world and the largest in the Moslem world. There he earned a reputation as a highly popular and
effective Ambassador, a tough negotiator on behalf of American intellectual property owners, and a public advocate of
political openness and democratic values. During his tenure, Embassy Jakarta was cited as one of the four best-managed
embassies inspected in 1988.
Prior to that posting, he served three and a half years as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, where he was in charge of U.S. relations with more than twenty countries. In addition to contributing to
substantial improvements in U.S. relations with Japan and China, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz played a central role in
coordinating the U.S. policy toward the Philippines that supported a peaceful transition from the dictatorship of
Ferdinand Marcos to democracy.
Dr. Wolfowitz's previous government service included: