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." NNNN .