William Eldridge Odom
1932-
William Eldridge Odom as a Major General
Service/branch	U.S. Army
Years of service	1954-1988
Rank	Lieutenant General
Commands	Director, National Security Agency
Battles/wars	Vietnam War
Other work	Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute Adjunct professor, Yale University Adjunct professor, Georgetown University

William Eldridge Odom (born June 23, 1932) is a retired U.S. Army 3-star general, and former Director of the NSA under President Ronald Reagan, which culminated a 31 year career in military intelligence, mainly specializing in matters relating to the Soviet Union. After his retirement from the military he became a think tank policy expert and a university professor and has since became known for his outspoken criticism of the Iraq War and warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Chronology

Military career

• 1954 Graduated from the United States Military Academy and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.
• 1954-1960, Served in both the United States and West Germany.
• 1962, Earned a Masters Degree from Columbia University, and married Anne Weld Curtis.
• 1964-1966, Served as part of the military liaison mission to the Soviet Union at Potsdam, Germany.
• 1966-1969, Taught at West Point as an assistant professor of government.
• 1970, Completed a Ph.d. at Columbia.
• 1970-1971, At this point a Lieutenant Colonel, served in Vietnam, being on the Staff of Plans, Policy, and Programs, and working on the Vietnamization phase of the war.
• 1971-1972, Odom was a visiting scholar at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs at Columbia.
• 1972-1974, US military attache at the United States embassy in Moscow.
• 1974, Published The Soviet Volunteers: Modernization and Bureaucracy in a Public Mass Organization, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 360 pp.)
• 1974-1975, Associate of the Research Institute on International Change at Columbia
• 1974-1977, Associate professor, Department of Social Science at West Point.
• 1975-1976, Associate member of the Columbia University Seminar on Communism
• 1975-1977, Senior research associate, Research Institute on International Change at Columbia
• 1981, promoted to Major General
• 1977-1981, Military assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the assistant to the president for national security affairs.
• 1981-1985, Assistant chief of staff for intelligence, United States Army.
• 1984, promoted to Lieutenant General.
• 1985-1988, Director of the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland

Post-Military

• 1989, Director of national security studies, Hudson Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana
• 1989, Adjutant professor, political science, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
• Extensive publications; see bibliography below

Biography

General Odom earned a national reputation as an expert on the Soviet Union. Early in his military career he had an opportunity to observe Soviet military activities while serving as a military liaison in Potsdam, Germany. Later, he taught courses in Russian history at West Point, New York, and while serving at the United States embassy in Moscow in the early 1970s, he visited all of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Upon returning to the United States, he resumed his career at West Point where he taught courses in Soviet politics. Odom regularly stressed the importance of education for military officers.

In 1977, he was appointed as the military assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish assistant to the president (Carter) for national security affairs. Primary issues he focused on at this time included American-Soviet relations, including the SALT nuclear weapons talks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran hostage crisis, presidential directives on the situation in the Persian Gulf, terrorism and hijackings, and the executive order on telecommunications policy.

From 2 November 1981 to 12 May 1985, Odom served as the Army's Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. From 1985 to 1988, he served as the director of the National Security Agency, the United States' largest intelligence agency, under president Ronald Reagan.

He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he specializes in military issues, intelligence, and international relations. He is also an adjunct professor at Yale University and Georgetown University, where he teaches seminar courses in U.S. National Security Policy and Russian Politics.

Since 2005 he has argued that US interests would be best served by an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, calling the Iraq war the worst strategic blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. He has also been critical of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of international calls, saying "it wouldn't have happened on my watch".^[1]

General Odom is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Bibliography

Books:

• The Soviet Volunteers: Modernization and Bureaucracy in a Public Mass Organization, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 360 pp., 1974)
• On Internal War: American and Soviet Approaches to Third World Clients and Insurgents, (Duke University Press, 1992)
• Trial After Triumph: East Asia After the Cold War, (Hudson Institute, 1992)
• America's Military Revolution: Strategy and Structure After the Cold War, (American University Press, 1993)
• Commonwealth or Empire? Russia, Central Asia, and the Transcaucasus, with Robert Dujarric, (Hudson Institute, 1995).
• The Collapse of the Soviet Military, (Yale University Press, 1998). Won the Marshall Shulman Prize.
• Fixing Intelligence For a More Secure America(Yale University Press, 2003)
• America’s Inadvertent Empire, co-authored with Robert Dujarric, (Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 0300100698

Journal publications include pieces in:

• Foreign Affairs
• World Politics
• Foreign Policy
• Orbis
• Problems of Communism
• The National Interest
• The Washington Quarterly
• Military Review

Television and radio appearances:

• Major news shows such as PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer", ABC's "Nightline", BBC's "The World Tonight"
• CNN, NBC News
• C-Span
• Hugh Hewitt on February 15, 2007. Transcript Here.

Also has published newspaper op-ed pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others.

Quotes

• "The president has let (the Iraq war) proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies."[1]
• "An attempt to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril.. surely would constitute the 'high crime' of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest."[2]

References

1. ^ Reagan’s NSA chief speaks out.

See Also

The Generals Revolt

External links

General

• Odom papers archive at the Library of Congress
• official biography
• Staff Bio at Hudson Institute
• SourceWatch profile of General Odom
• Profile of General Odom, Notable Names DataBase.
• William Odom, Daily Kos.
• General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq
• 'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'
• Review of America's Inadvertent Empire in Foreign Affairs

Iraq related

• NSA DIRECTOR ODOM DISSECTS IRAQ BLUNDERS- Hammernews
• Interview. General Odom Calls For U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Iraq, Democracy Now, May 12, 2004.
• What’s wrong with cutting and running?, Nieman Watchdog, August 3, 2005
• Interview. General Odom: U.S. Should "Cut and Run" From Iraq, Democracy Now, October 4, 2005.
• General William Odom Supports the U.S. Empire
• Victory Is Not an Option Washington Post, Feb 12, 2007
• Retired Gen.: Bush should sign Iraq bill
• General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq
• 'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'

Preceded by Lincoln D. Faurer

Director of the National Security Agency 1985–1988

Succeeded by William O. Studeman

Directors of the National Security Agency
Canine • Samford • Frost • Blake • Carter • Gayler • Phillips • Allen • Inman • Faurer • Odom • Studeman • McConnell • Minihan • Hayden • Alexander

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