Atlantic Council

Biography

Walter B. Slocombe

Walter B. Slocombe is a member of the Washington, DC law firm of Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered and a member of the Council's Strategic Advisors Group.  He served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from September 1994 to January 2001.

He was, from May to November 2003, Senior Advisor and Director for Security Affairs (National Security and Defense) in the Coalition Provisional Authority for Iraq.  During his service in Iraq, he was on leave from his position at Caplin & Drysdale, to which he returned in March 2004.   In July 2004, President Bush appointed him to the “Silberman-Robb” Commission on United States Intelligence Capabilities Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.  He was, from 2002 to 2004 (except during his service in Iraq), a member of the US Department of Defense Policy Board.

Prior to becoming Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, he was Principal Deputy Under Secretary from June 1993, and, pending confirmation for that post, a consultant to Secretary of Defense Aspin from January 1993.  In earlier DOD service, he had been Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Planning from November 1979 to January 1981 and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs from January 1977 to November 1979.  In both jobs, he served concurrently as Director of the DOD Task Force on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT).

Following his service as Under Secretary he returned to Caplin & Drysdale, where he had been an associate from 1971 to 1974 and partner from 1974 to 1977 and 1981 until 1993.  At the firm, his practice has been primarily in the fields of bankruptcy litigation, defense trade, tax litigation, and tax-exempt organizations.

He received his undergraduate education at Princeton University (A.B. 1963, summa cum laude).  From 1963 to 1965 he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he did graduate research on Soviet politics.  His legal training was at Harvard Law School (L.L.B. 1968, summa cum laude) where he was Note Editor of the Law Review.  After graduating from law school, he clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas in the October 1968 Term.  Following a brief period as a Special Assistant in the Office of Economic Opportunity Legal Services Office, he served on the National Security Council staff in 1969 and 1970, working on strategic arms control, nuclear issues and intelligence analysis policy.

He is Secretary, a director, and member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council of the United States, a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Council for Germany, of the International Advisory Council of the Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces.  He serves on the Advisory Board of Our Military Kids, an organization that supports educational and recreational opportunities for the children of deployed National Guard and Reserve personnel, and on the board of the South Africa Environmental Project, which provides pre-school, elementary, and secondary educational opportunities for students in the townships of Cape Town.  He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Defence College’s Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.