Highlights
& Quotes
James Roche, a 23-year Navy veteran, was (as of October 2003) the secretary designate of the U.S. Army. After the embattled Thomas White -- a former Enron vice chairman -- resigned from his post as secretary of the Army, George W. Bush nominated Roche, who was at the time Air Force secretary, to take over the post.
Roche, a longtime government insider with ties to the ultra-hardline Center for Security Policy, is closely connected to defense contractors. He had worked for Northrop Grumman since 1984 before taking over as Air Force secretary. Since he began working for the Bush administration, Roche has proved loyal to corporate interests. He is knee deep, for example, in the Boeing scandal over leasing air force tankers. According to columnist Robert Novak, while Roche was still Air Force secretary he twisted some arms in an effort to push the controversial leasing proposal through after the Pentagon’s program analysis director, Ken Krieg, issued a report (on June 20, 2003) arguing that leasing the tankers “is more expensive in the long run” than direct purchases. Wrote Novak: “On June 23 an internal memo shows then-Secretary of the Air Force James Roche ... in on the deal. ‘We have a big problem’ with Krieg’s report, Roche is quoted as saying. Roche urged Boeing to pressure Krieg ‘to write a new letter essentially undoing the first letter.’ Boeing wanted it made clear to Krieg that his report was ‘going to embarrass’ Rumsfeld. ... Roche’s lieutenant, Deputy Assistant Secretary Darleen Druyun, is reported in an April 1, 2002, Boeing memo as having ‘told us several times to keep in mind’ that the Airbus price was [much] cheaper per plane than Boeing’s 767. ‘Darleen is fearful/concerned with Sen. McCain [who had launched an investigation into the deal],’ the memo adds. She left the Pentagon in January to become a Boeing executive and is under investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general.” (3)
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Institutional
Affiliations
Center for Security Policy: Member of CSP’s National Security Advisory Board until he was tapped to be secretary of the Air Force in 2001 (2)
Government
Posts/Panels/Commissions
Secretary
of the Air Force: 2001-2003 (1), (4)
Navy: Veteran (4)
U.S.
Senate Committee on Armed Services: Staff Director, 1983-1984 (4)
Department
of State: Principal Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff (4)
Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence: Senior Professional Staff Member, 1979-1981 (4)
Office
of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense: Assistant Director, 1975-1979 (4)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
Boeing
(3)
Northrop
Grumman: Corporate Vice President and President of the Electric
Sensors and Systems Sector, until 2001 (4)
Education
Illinois
Institute of Technology: B.A.
(4)
U.S. Naval Postgraduate School: M.A. (4)
Harvard Gradate School of Business: Ph.D. (4)
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