William Eldridge Odom
Official portrait, 1984
Born	(1932-06-23)June 23, 1932 Cookeville, Tennessee, US
Died	May 30, 2008(2008-05-30) (aged 75) Lincoln, Vermont, US
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
Years of service	1954–1988
Rank	Lieutenant General
Commands	National Security Agency
Battles / wars	Vietnam War
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal Defense Superior Service Medal Legion of Merit
Other work	Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute Adjunct professor,Yale University Adjunct professor,Georgetown University

William Eldridge Odom (June 23, 1932 – May 30, 2008) was aUnited States Armylieutenant general who served as Director of theNational Security Agency under PresidentRonald Reagan, which culminated a 31-year career in military intelligence, mainly specializing in matters relating to theSoviet Union. After his retirement from the military, he became athink tank policy expert and a university professor and became known for his outspoken criticism of theIraq War andwarrantless wiretapping of American citizens. He died of an apparent heart attack at his vacation home inLincoln, Vermont.^[1]

• 1954 Graduated from theUnited States Military Academy and was commissioned asecond lieutenant.
• 1954–1960, Served in both the United States andWest Germany.
• 1962, Earned amaster's degree fromColumbia University, and married Anne Weld Curtis.
• 1964–1966, Served as part of theU.S. Military Liaison Mission to the Group, Soviet Forces Germany atPotsdam, East Germany.
• 1966–1969, Taught at West Point as an assistant professor of government.
• 1970, Completed aPhD at Columbia.
• 1970–1971, At this point alieutenant colonel, served inVietnam, being on the Staff of Plans, Policy, and Programs, and working on theVietnamization phase of the war.
• 1971–1972, Odom was a visiting scholar at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs at Columbia.
• 1972–1974, U.S. assistantmilitary attaché at the United Statesembassy in Moscow.
• 1974, PublishedThe 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 toMajor General
• 1977–1981, Military assistant toZbigniew Brzezinski, the assistant to the president for national security affairs.
• 1981–1985, Assistant chief of staff for intelligence, United States Army.
• 1984, promoted tolieutenant general.
• 1985–1988, Director of theNational Security Agency,Fort Meade,Maryland

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

Early in his military career, he observed Soviet military activities while serving as amilitary liaison inPotsdam,East 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 theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics. Although constantly trailed byKGB, he nonetheless managed to smuggle out a large portion ofAlexander Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for theWriters' Union and Second World War military citations; Solzhenitsyn subsequently paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir "Invisible Allies" (1995).^[2]

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 2003, he revealed how the question of the 1967USSLiberty incident’s deliberateness “just wasn’t a disputed issue” within the NSA.^[3] Along with NSA Deputy Director for Operations Oliver Kirby, U.S. Air Force Major General John E. Morrison (Kirby’s successor), and AdmiralBobby Ray Inman, he said he was unaware of any agency official at any time who dissented from the “deliberate” conclusion.

In 1977, he was appointed as the military assistant toZbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish assistant for national security affairs to PresidentJimmy Carter. Among the primary issues he focused on were American-Soviet relations, including theSALT nuclear weapons talks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, theIran hostage crisis, presidential directives on the situation in thePersian Gulf, terrorism andhijackings, 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 theNational Security Agency, the United States' largest intelligence agency, under presidentRonald Reagan.

Odom was a Senior Fellow at theHudson Institute, where he specialized in military issues, intelligence, and international relations. He was also an adjunct professor atYale University andGeorgetown University, where he taught seminar courses in U.S. National Security Policy and Russian Politics. He earned a national reputation as an expert on the Soviet military.

Since 2005, he had argued that U.S. interests would be best served by an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, having called the2003 U.S. invasion the worst strategic blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. He had also been critical of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of international calls, having said "it wouldn't have happened on my watch".^[4] Odom was also openly critical of theneo­conser­vative influence in the decision to go to war: "It's pretty hard to imagine us going into Iraq without the strong lobbying efforts from theAIPAC and the [neo­conser­vatives], who think they know what's good for Israel more than Israel knows."^[5]

Odom was a member of theMilitary Intelligence Hall of Fame and theAmerican Philosophical Society.^[6] He was also a member of the advisory council of theVictims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[7]

• 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,ISBN 0-300-08271-1). Won theMarshall 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 0-300-10069-8

• June 21, 2002,"Testimony before the Senate Government Affairs Committee on creating a Department of Homeland Security", online version retrieved May 30, 2016.
• January 18, 2007,"Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee", online version retrieved May 30, 2016.
• April 2, 2008,"Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq", online version retrieved May 30, 2016.

• Major news shows such as PBS'The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC'sNightline, the BBC'sThe World Tonight
• CNN, NBC News
• Radio Free Mississippi with Jim Giles on May 6, 2008.Interview hereArchived 2014-08-26 at theWayback Machine.
• C-SPAN^[8]
• Hugh Hewitt on February 15, 2007.Transcript hereArchived 2007-03-08 at theWayback Machine.

Also has published newspaperop-ed pieces inThe New York Times,The Wall Street Journal,The Washington Post and others.

• "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.^[9]
• "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.^[10]
• "As many critics have pointed out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists andusing terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes [sic] the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world."^[11][12]
• "The invasion of Iraq may well turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in American history.^[13]

• Odom papers archive at theLibrary of Congress
• official biography
• Staff Bio atHudson InstituteArchived 2007-05-03 at theWayback Machine
• SourceWatch profile of General Odom
• William Odom,Daily Kos.
• General says Bush 'AWOL' on IraqArchived 2007-04-30 at theWayback Machine
• 'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'
• Review of America's Inadvertent Empire in Foreign Affairs
• Appearances onC-SPAN

• NSA Director Odom Dissects Iraq BlundersArchived 2018-11-04 at theWayback Machine – "Hammernews"
• Interview.General Odom Calls For U.S. Troop Withdrawal From IraqArchived 2005-12-29 at theWayback Machine,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 IraqArchived 2005-12-29 at theWayback Machine,Democracy Now, October 4, 2005.
• General William Odom Supports the U.S. Empire
• [1]Archived 2020-03-01 at theWayback Machine
• Victory Is Not an OptionWashington 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'
• 'Victory Not an Option in Iraq'

• 1932 births
• 2008 deaths
• People from Cookeville, Tennessee
• United States Military Academy alumni
• Military personnel from Tennessee
• Columbia University alumni
• Directors of the National Security Agency
• United States Army generals
• Yale University faculty
• American anti–Iraq War activists
• Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)
• Recipients of the Legion of Merit
• United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War
• Hudson Institute
• Writers from Tennessee
• Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
• Members of the American Philosophical Society

• People appearing on C-SPAN
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