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Institutional
Affiliations
Center
for Security Policy: National Security Advisory Council Member
(8)
Foreign
Policy Research Institute (University of Pennsylvania): Member
of Board of Trustees (5); Co-Chairman of Defense Task Force (1996-2000)
(6); Staff Member (1967-1969); former vice-president (3) (15)
Project
for the New American Century Letter on War on Terrorism: Signatory
(2001) (7)
Project
for the New American Century Letter on Israel, Arafat, and War on
Terrorism: Signatory (2002) (7)
Committee on the Present Danger: Member (10)
Cambridge
University Gonville and Caius College: Honorary Fellow (1)
Princess
Grace Foundation USA: Chairman (1)
OpSail
Foundation: Director (1)
University
of Pennsylvania School of Engineering: Member of Board of Overseers
(1)
LaSalle
College High School: Trustee (1)
Heritage Foundation: Washington Policy Roundtable Meetings, participant; Resource Bank, alumnus (15)
Government
Posts/Panels/Commissions
National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Commissioner
(2002-current) (1, 2)
U.S. Department
of Defense: Secretary of the Navy (1981-1987) (1); National
Security Council: Special Counsel and Senior Staff Member to Kissinger
(1969-1974) (1, 3)
Force Reductions
Negotiations: Delegate (1974-1975) (1, 3)
U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency: Deputy Director and Chief Operating
Officer (1975-1977) (1, 3)
National Security Council: Member (1969-74) (15)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
J.F.Lehman
and Company: Founding Partner, Managing Principal and Chairman
(1, 4)
OAO Technology
Solutions: Chairman (1)
Ball Corporation:
Director (1987-current) (1, 3)
Sperry
Marine, Inc.: Former Chairman (1993-1996) (3)
Insurance
Services Office: Director (1)
SDI Inc.:
Director (1)
Elgar Inc.:
Director (1)
Racal Instruments,
Inc.: Director (1)
Paribas
Affaires Industrielles: Advisory Board Member (1)
Paine Webber
Inc.: Investment Banker (1)
Abington
Corporation: President (1977-1981) (1)
Education
St.
Joseph's University: B.S. (1)
Cambridge
University: B.A.; M.A. (1)
University
of Pennsylvania: Ph.D. (1)
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Highlights
& Quotes
Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the "independent, bipartisan commission" that was "chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks." (16) As was often apparent during the committee hearings, Lehman is a right-wing ideologue and militarist, who as a commissioner was the most dependable supporter of the Bush administration.
During his four decades in government and in the military-industrial complex, Lehman has established himself as a threat escalator who has ignored the facts and resorted to fear-mongering and alarmism in the interest of bolstering military spending and increasing U.S. military overseas operations to raise alarms about threats to U.S. national security. In the late 1970s, Lehman joined the Committee on the Present Danger, a coalition of liberal hawks, neoconservatives, and militarists who called for an end to the politics of détente and a major increase in the U.S. military budget. The Committee on the Present Danger relied on the threat assessments of Team B, an independent group of militarists who disputed the CIA's National Intelligence Estimates, which were regarded as being naïve with regard to Soviet imperial ambitions and imminent threats to U.S. national security.
At a time when the staff reports from the 9/11 commission and most of the media were dismissing the Bush administration's continuing assertions about the links between al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein government, Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" on June 20 that the commission had documents captured in Iraq that "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al-Qaeda." Lehman succeeded in giving new life to the administration's claims, although the CIA quickly dismissed the assertion saying that the documents did not support Lehman's allegation. In fact, the CIA had investigated this alleged link "a long time ago" and concluded that one officer in Hussein's militia merely had a name that was similar to an al-Qaeda operative. However, Lehman claimed on national television that it was new information, as yet unexamined by the commission or other government entities. (17) (18) (22)
On the day that the 9-11 terrorism commission heard testimony on the allegations that a group of Saudi nationals, including members of the Bin Laden family, were granted special permission to leave the United States for Saudi Arabia immediately following the terrorist attacks, Lehman had no questions. However, he did aggressively question former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke at the hearings, winning favor with the administration and its supporters. (9) (14)
Since his days as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger and as a high official in the Reagan administration, Lehman has long been a critic of the CIA. Like other right-wing critics of the CIA, Lehman has long believed that the CIA has consistently underestimated national security threats and, like the State Department, preferred diplomacy over direct U.S. military action. During the commission hearings, Lehman repeatedly sided with the Bush administration's interpretations of events before and after the 9/11 attacks and called for an overhaul of the U.S. intelligence system, presumably along the lines advocated by neoconservative critics of the CIA who believe that liberals and "Arabists" form the core of the CIA and State Department. (19) (20) Closely associated with the neoconservatives, Lehman signed what were perhaps the two most influential statements produced by the Project for the New American Century-the one sent to President Bush nine days after the 9/11 attacks outlining their agenda for the war on terrorism and the one produced in April 2003 that sketched out a post-Iraq invasion plan for the Middle East with Israel at its center. (23)
Before joining the Reagan team, Lehman was president of the Abington Corporation, a lobbying firm that once employed a fellow neocon, Richard Perle. In his later role as assistant secretary of defense, Perle was able to lobby for an Israeli arms manufacturer and receive close to $90,000 for his efforts. (14) Abington Corporation received subcontracts from such large defense contractors as Northrop Corporation, Boeing, and TRW. (15) As Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, Lehman advocated an expansionist policy for the Navy, and he was a strong advocate of a more aggressive nuclear weapons policy. In 1982, as the nuclear freeze movement gained force, the hawkish Lehman wrote an article in the Conservative Digest, tiled "Bishops' Nuclear Stance Encourages War," which criticized the religious community's implicit support of the nuclear freeze movement. (15) At the time Lehman was Navy secretary, his brother, Christopher Lehman, also an arch-conservative, served as an aide to National Security Adviser William P. Clark, Jr. (15)
Lehman, an aggressive proponent of an expanded military-including his goal of having the Navy deploy 600 ships, made numerous enemies within the Reagan administration because of his uncompromising positions. Although serving as deputy director of the arms control agency and representing the U.S. government in critical arms control negotiations, Lehman was a critic of international arms control agreements that restricted U.S. military build-ups and nuclear weapons options.
Under pressure, he resigned his post in the Reagan administration in 1987, and took a job as managing director of Paine Weber. (15) Lehman is the chairman of J.F. Lehman & Co., an investment firm specializing in aerospace, weapons, and marine sectors. The company has a majority or controlling interest in McCormick Selph, Inc., which manufactures systems and components for military aircraft and tactical missiles, and in Accudyne Corporation, which manufactures marine munitions for the U.S. military. Lehman is also chairman of OAO Technology Solutions, which describes itself as "a subcontractor to global outsourcers." (23)
Lehman, a former member of the Committee on the Present Danger, also sits on the board of the Center for Security Policy and is a signatory for the Project for the New American Century. (7) (8) (10) Lehman has also been associated with other right-wing or conservative organizations, including Foreign Policy Research Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Center for Strategic and International Studies. (15) Lehman's ties to the right wing date back to his student days when he was a member of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), which was founded in 1952 by William Buckley. As a graduate student at Georgetown University, Lehman roomed with Edwin Feulner, another ISI member, who became the president of the Heritage Foundation. (21)
In 2001 Lehman edited the Foreign Policy Research Institute book, America the Vulnerable, along with FPRI President Harvey Sicherman. In it they cautioned against weakening U.S. military capacity and portraying the military as the "linchpin of security" for both Europe and Asia. (11) (12) (13) Lehman has authored several books, including Command of the Seas, Making War, and On Seas of Glory. Lehman has been an outspoken proponent of U.S military supremacy and preemptive military strikes on "violent, Islamic fundamentalism." (22)
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