Frank Carlucci


Frank Charles Carlucci III was an American politician and diplomat who served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
Carlucci served in a variety of senior-level governmental positions, including Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Richard Nixon administration, Deputy Director of the CIA in the Jimmy Carter administration, and Deputy Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor in the Reagan administration.

Early life

Carlucci was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Roxann and Frank Charles Carlucci, Jr., an insurance broker. His father was of Italian and Swiss descent. His grandfather was from Santomenna in Italy. After graduating from Wyoming Seminary in 1948, Carlucci attended Princeton University, where he roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. He graduated with an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1952 after completing a 153-page long senior thesis titled "Two American Businesses in Costa Rica." He then attended Harvard Business School for an M.B.A. in 1954-55. He was a Naval officer from 1952 until 1954. He joined the Foreign Service, working for the State Department from 1956 until 1969.

Early career

In 1961, Carlucci was the second secretary at the United States Embassy in the Congo. During that time, Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo, was executed in January 1961 during the Congo Crisis.
According to subsequently released US government documents, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to eliminate Lumumba. Minutes of an August 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles to "eliminate" the Congolese leader. The official note taker, Robert H. Johnson, testified to this before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975. However, subsequent investigations indicate that Lumumba was ultimately executed by order of political rival Moïse Tshombe of the State of Katanga with Belgian assistance.
According to James Schlesinger, a subsequent Prime Minister of the Congo, Cyrille Adoula, began a White House meeting with President John F. Kennedy with the question "Où est Carlucci?". Kennedy first responded "Who the hell is Carlucci?'" and then sent Dean Rusk to find him.
A fictionalized 2000 biopic of Lumumba, titled Lumumba, and directed by Raoul Peck, portrayed Carlucci as being involved during his service in Congo in the murder of Lumumba. Carlucci furiously denied the claims, and successfully went to court to prevent being named in the film when it was released in the United States.

Service in Presidential administrations

In 1969, when President Nixon persuaded U.S. Rep. Donald Rumsfeld to leave his congressional seat to become director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the agency created by Sargent Shriver to fight President Johnson's War on Poverty, Rumsfeld had Carlucci transferred to OEO from the State Department to head up the Community Action Program. Carlucci was Undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare when Caspar Weinberger was secretary during the Nixon administration.
Carlucci became Ambassador to Portugal, and served in this position from 1974 until 1977. He was remembered in Portugal among the winners of the November 25 Coup d'État. The Carlucci American International School of Lisbon, the oldest American school in the Iberian Peninsula, is named for him.
Carlucci was Deputy Director of the CIA from 1978 until 1981, under CIA Director Stansfield Turner.

Department of Defense

Carlucci was United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1981 until 1983. He later served as United States National Security Advisor from 1986 until 1987, where he appointed Colin Powell, later his successor, as United States Deputy National Security Advisor.
Carlucci became United States Secretary of Defense in 1987, following the resignation of Caspar Weinberger due to his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. He served as Secretary of Defense until the end of the Reagan administration on January 20, 1989. He was notable during the administration for advocating an arms build-up to hasten the end of the Cold War, a policy which Reagan followed.

Post-Administration work

Business

Carlucci served as chairman of the Carlyle Group from 1992 until 2003, and chairman emeritus until 2005. He had business interests in the following companies: Ashland Global Holdings, General Dynamics, Westinghouse, Neurogen, CB Commercial Real Estate, Nortel, BDM International, Quaker Oats, and Kaman. Carlucci was at one time a director of the private security firm Wackenhut, and was a co-founder and senior member of the Frontier Group, a private-equity investment firm. Carlucci was an advisory board member of G2 Satellite Solutions and the Chairman Emeritus of Nortel Networks.

Organizations

Carlucci was affiliated with the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank. He was Chairman Emeritus of the US-Taiwan Business Council having been Chairman from 1999-2002; he was succeeded in 2003 by William Cohen. Carlucci was a member of the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was founding co-chair of the Advisory Board for RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy. He was also a member of the Honorary Board of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group which advocates drug legalization.

Personal life and death

Carlucci was married to Billie Jean Anthony from 1954 until the couple divorced in 1974. They had two children. Carlucci was later married to Marcia McMillan Myers from 1976 until his death. They had one daughter.
Carlucci died on June 3, 2018, from complications of Parkinson's disease, at his home in McLean, Virginia, at the age of 87.

Honours