ACCESSION NUMBER:00000

FILE ID:95082802.WWE

DATE:08/28/95

TITLE:28-08-95  SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WILLIAM J. PERRY



TEXT:

(Official biography) (580)



(The following biography of Secretary of Defense William J. Perry was

provided August 28, 1995, by the press office of the Department of

Defense. Secretary Perry will begin a trip September 15, visiting

Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Marshall

Center in Garmisch, Germany.)



Dr. William J. Perry was sworn in as Secretary of Defense on February

3, 1994, following a unanimous vote by the Senate. He previously

served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from March 5, 1993, until his

confirmation as Secretary. Prior to his nomination to these positions,

he was the chairman of Technology Strategies & Alliances, a professor

in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, and co-director

of Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control.



Dr. Perry was born Oct. 11, 1927, in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He

received his B.S. and M.S. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from

Penn State, all in mathematics. He is a member of the National Academy

of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and

Sciences.



From 1946 until 1947, Dr. Perry was a noncommissioned officer in the

Army Corps of Engineers, serving in Japan and Okinawa. He joined the

Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1948 and was commissioned a second

lieutenant in the Army Reserves in 1950. He remained in the reserves

until 1955.



Dr. Perry's extensive experience as an entrepreneur includes being one

of the founders of ESL Inc. in 1964 and serving as its president until

1977. Prior to that, he was with Sylvania/General Telephone and was

the director of their Electronic Defense Laboratories. He has also

served as executive vice president of Hambrecht and Quist

Incorporated, an investment banking firm in San Francisco specializing

in high technology companies.



From 1977 to 1981, Dr. Perry was Under Secretary of Defense for

Research and Engineering. As the Under Secretary, he was responsible

for all weapon systems procurement and all research and development.

He was the Secretary of Defense's principal advisor on technology,

communications, intelligence, and atomic energy.



He received the Army's Outstanding Service Medal in 1977, the

Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Medal in 1980 and

again in 1981, and NASA's Distinguished Service Medal in 1981. He was

awarded the 1980 Medal of Achievement by the American Electronics

Association. The Federal Republic of Germany awarded him the Knight

Commander's Cross in 1981, and the French government conferred the

Grand Officer de L'Ordre National du Merite in 1982. He received the

James Forrestal Memorial Award for 1993 in March 1994.



Dr. Perry has served as a director of FMC Corporation, United

Technologies Corporation, and a number of private companies. He has

also been a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

and served on a number of U.S. government advisory boards, including

the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Technical

Review Panel of the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence. He

is a member of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and

Government and the Committee on International Security and Arms

Control of the National Academy of Science.



His wife, Lee, is a CPA, formerly associated with the firm of Hemming

and Morse in San Mateo. Secretary and Mrs. Perry have two sons living

in the San Francisco area, a son and a daughter in the Washington,

D.C. area, and a daughter in New York.

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