Morton Halperin | |
|---|---|
| 20thDirector of Policy Planning | |
| In office September 16, 1998 – January 20, 2001 | |
| President | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | Gregory B. Craig |
| Succeeded by | Richard N. Haass |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1938-06-13)June 13, 1938 (age 86) Brooklyn,New York, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Ina Weinstein (divorced) Carol Pitchersky Diane Orentlicher |
| Children | with Weinstein: David Halperin Gary Halperin Mark Halperin |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) Yale University (PhD) |
| Occupation | Foreign policy analyst |
Morton H. Halperin (born June 13, 1938) is an American analyst who deals with U.S. foreign policy, arms control,civil liberties, and the workings of bureaucracies.
He served in theJohnson,Nixon,Clinton, andObama administrations. He has taught atHarvard University and as a visitor at other universities includingColumbia,George Washington University, andYale.
He has served in a number of roles withthink tanks, including theCenter for American Progress,Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, theCouncil on Foreign Relations, and theTwentieth Century Fund. He was also a senior advisor to theOpen Society Foundations.
Halperin was born to aJewish family on June 13, 1938, inBrooklyn, New York.[1] He graduated fromLafayette High School in Brooklyn and received hisBA inpolitical science fromColumbia University in 1958. Thereafter, he attendedYale University, where he received anMA ininternational relations in 1959 and aPhD in the discipline in 1961.
Halperin has three sons, includingMark Halperin.[2]
In 2005, he married Diane Orentlicher, a professor of international law at theAmerican UniversityWashington College of Law. Orentlicher formerly served as a deputy in the Office of War Crimes in the U.S. Department of State.[3]
Halperin began his career in academia as a research associate at the Harvard Center for International Affairs (1960–66). He was an instructor in government at Harvard (1961-1963) and an assistant professor of government (1964-1966).
From 1966 to 1967, Halperin served as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
At 29-years-old, from 1967 to 1969, he became the youngest ever[4] Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Policy, Planning, and Arms Control).[5]
He joined the National Security Council in 1969 as the director of policy planning.[6] Halperin andHenry Kissinger, Nixon's newNational Security Advisor, had been colleagues at Harvard.
Halperin's appointment was immediately criticized by GeneralEarle G. Wheeler, chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff;FBI directorJ. Edgar Hoover; and SenatorBarry Goldwater.
On May 9, 1969,[7]The New York Times reported that the United States had been bombingCambodia. Kissinger called Hoover to find out who might have leaked this information to the press. Hoover suggested Halperin, and Kissinger agreed that was likely. That day, the FBI began tapping Halperin's phones at Kissinger's direction. The Nixon administration bugged Halperin's home phone, without a warrant, for 21 months[8] starting in 1969.[9]
Halperin also ended up onNixon's Enemies List of 20 people with whom the White House was unhappy because they disagreed in some way with the administration. Halperin was number 8 on the list. Nixon aideCharles Colson, who compiled the list, wrote next to Halperin's name, "a scandal would be helpful here."
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara asked Halperin to oversee the production of the Pentagon Papers.Les Gelb, a member of Halperin's staff, oversaw the staff that actually wrote the study. Halperin was a friend ofDaniel Ellsberg. When Ellsberg was investigated in connection with thePentagon Papers, suspicion fell on Halperin, who some Nixon aides believed had kept classified documents when he left government service. The tapping of Halperin's phone[4] without a warrant was discovered when it came out in Ellsberg's trial.[10]
Despite the continued use of the wiretap well after Halperin left government, Kissinger told reporters on May 13, 1973, that, "I never received any information that cast any doubt on [Halperin's] loyalty and discretion."[11]
Halperin sued in federal court. Halperin won a symbolic $1 judgment in 1977 for the offense, but the judgment was overturned by an appeals court.[12] In 1991, Kissinger apologized to Halperin in a letter and the suit was dropped at Halperin's request in 1992.[13]
After leaving the Nixon administration, Halperin joined the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow from 1969 to 1973 and then became the research director for the Project on Information, National Security and Constitutional Procedures at theTwentieth Century Fund from 1974 to 1975. He was the director for the Project on National Security and Civil Liberties from 1975 to 1977.
From 1977 to 1992, he served as the director of the Center for National Security Studies (jointly sponsored by the Fund for Peace and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation. And from 1992 to 1994, he was a senior associate at theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace.
From 1984 to 1992, Halperin served as director of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) office in Washington.
While at the ACLU, Halperin, along with Jerry Berman, also at the ACLU, worked with President Reagan's CIA Director William Casey to agree on language in theIntelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which has successfully protected journalists publishing the names of covert agents. He also worked on a number of civil rights bills, including an immigration reform bill in 1986, theCivil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, and theAmerican Disabilities Act of 1990.[14] He defended the right ofThe Progressive magazine to publish a description of the design principle of athermonuclear weapon (H-Bomb).
At the start of the Clinton administration, Halperin was appointed as a consultant to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (1993).
In 1994 President Clinton nominated Halperin for the position of assistant secretary of defense for democracy and peacekeeping, and was opposed by the Senate Armed Services Committee which supplied a detailed list of Halperin's activities and stated views which it regarded as incompatible with his appointment.[15] Clinton then named him to be a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy at the National Security Council (1994–1996).
Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright appointed him to the position ofDirector of Policy Planning at theState Department (1998–2001) in Clinton's second term. Halperin focused on several issues of interest to Secretary Albright, including democracy promotion (the Community of Democracies and inauguration of the four priority democracies); nuclear issues; a review of the way that the United States responds to humanitarian disasters overseas; and northeast Asian security. He also was integrally involved in managing the crises in Kosovo and East Timor.[16]
Following his service in theClinton Administration, Halperin joined theCouncil on Foreign Relations (2001-2002) as senior fellow and director, Center for Democracy and Free Markets.
Halperin created the Open Society Foundations' office in Washington, D.C., and oversaw all policy advocacy on U.S. and international issues, including promotion of human rights and support for open societies abroad. He was the director of the Washington office for the Open Society Institute (now theOpen Society Foundations) from 2002 to 2005 and the director of U.S. advocacy from 2005 to 2008. He was the executive director of the Open Society Policy Center from 2002 to 2008.
He also was a senior vice president at theCenter for American Progress from 2003 to 2005 and a senior fellow at CAP from 2003 to 2009.
He was a senior advisor to the Open Society Foundations. He retired in 2002.[17]
President Obama nominated Halperin to serve on the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2012[18] and again in 2015, and he was twice confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He served as director until March 9, 2018.[19]
Halperin is the author and co-author of 25 books, includingBureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy.[20] The first edition ofBureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. He also wroteStrategy and Arms Control (withThomas C. Schelling);Limited War in the Nuclear Age; andContemporary Military Strategy.
Halperin has won numerous awards, including:
In 1985 he won aMacArthur Foundation fellowship.
He was a partial writer ofThe Lawless State, which documents the surveillance techniques and crimes of the U.S. government during the Cold War.
Halperin is the chairman of the Community of Democracies,[21] Civil Society Pillar International Steering Committee and he is chairman of the advisory council of the board of directors of J Street.[22] He also serves on the boards of ONE and ONE Action.[23]
