Man in the Gray Suit: Schlesinger Leads Unassuming Political Life

James R. Schlesinger '50 said his most humorous White House memory came in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter met with his cabinet--of which Schlesinger was a member--and asked them all to resign.

In an ironic twist, Robert Straus-Hupe, an American ambassador and political advisor, arrived late to the meeting. He entered the room and joked, "What you oughta do Mr. President is ask for everybody's resignation."

Schlesinger said he and Straus-Hupe laughed, the rest of the room sat in silence.

And while laughter may have seemed out of place for the occasion, Schlesinger rarely fit the typical political model. His political service spanned from the Nixon to the Carter administrations, as he crossed party lines in his public service.

He argued for the importance of bi-partisanship, an ideal he followed before it had become a Beltway buzzword. He seemed more like a professor than politician during Congressional hearings. And he was attacked for speaking his mind and not simply playing games of political networking.

"[He] isn't the world's greatest backslapper," said Robert Fri, then acting head of the Energy Research and Development Administration, in The Wall Street Journal in 1977. "I don't think he has a high capacity to suffer fools gladly."

While political pundits accused him of being politically and personally aloof, Schlesinger has stayed the political course, never searching for the media spotlight and serving his life in the political sphere in the unassuming role of a public servant for the common good.

Apt Administrator

Since his 1969 appointment by President Richard Nixon as assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget, Schlesinger has led a laundry-list of governmental agencies and private organizations.

He has served as Secretary of Defense, the chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), director of strategic studies at the RAND Corporation and a professor of economics at the University of Virginia.

Schlesinger now works for the MITRE Corporation, a federally funded research program connected with the Department of Defense.

He also works part-time as a consultant at Lehman Brothers of Wall Street. "That pays the bills," Schlesinger says, as he noted the freedom that comes with the job.

Eliot House Academic

Twenty-seven years after his graduation from Harvard, The Wall Street Journal described Schlesinger as "a Harvard Ph.D. rated by some as the most brilliant student in his college class."

Schlesinger was a member of Phi Beta Kappa in his senior year and graduated summa cum laude--"in the days before grade inflation," he said.

He lived in the Eliot House of John Finley '24, "a rather elegant master," Schlesinger says. "[The House] had more of a social tone than it does now."

Schlesinger participated in extracurriculars when he was not working for his grades, but athletics never took Schlesinger away from his studies--he considered varsity football, but decided that it was too time consuming.

And while he does not recall many of the individuals from his class, one woman sticks out in his mind--Rachel L. Mellinger '52. Schlesinger married Mellinger in 1954.

"This year [1995] my wife and I celebrated our 40th anniversary, with special thanks to the institution that brought us together," Schlesinger wrote in his 45th reunion book.

The boy who began his childhood in the suburbs of New York City and who spent most of it in the city itself soon had had eight children of his own--one of whom would attend Harvard.

A Path to Academia?

Schlesinger did not beat a path to employment inside the Beltway after his graduation--if anything, he prepared himself to remain firmly entrenched in academia.

After receiving a Sheldon Prize Fellowship for his summa cum laude status, he traveled through Europe, Africa and beyond.

He returned and earned both a M.A. in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1956 from Harvard, and he also served as a tutor in his undergraduate house, Eliot, for three years.

Schlesinger then went on to work for the RAND Corporation--a California based research institution founded in 1948 which studies national security and public welfare--and decided then to enter government.

"The whole concept of public service was in much higher repute, particularly after World War II," Schlesinger says.

And Schlesinger has always seemed to hold the public service ideal above mere partisan politics, serving under both Republican and Democratic administrators.

"It taught me that you have to have the public with you," he says. "[It is] essential to be non-partisan. I've been able to work across party lines [because of it]."

And Schlesinger, who always held a pipe between his teeth, insisted he has never been a politician. He works in government, not politics, he says, and laments Washington's current vitriolic atmosphere.

"The federal government [of today] has a much higher level of partisanship [and is] much more notably bitter. That is regrettable--democracy must operate on the basis of consensus," Schlesinger says.

Under the Gun

Schlesinger says his biggest challenges during his stint in public service included the Watergate scandal and the war in Vietnam.

Schlesinger's role in the Watergate affair was significant--from February to July of 1973, Schlesinger was director of the CIA.

The CIA was charged with being involved with the affair.

Schlesinger denied having knowledge of the break-in to the Democratic party offices and said he was outraged by the act. The event led Schlesinger to call for reports of any activities that went against the charter of the CIA.

As a result, the Office of the Inspector General provided Schlesinger with a 693-page report of "potential flap activities" that became known as the "family jewels."

He said the course was a "tricky" one and that it was difficult "to preserve the agency under those circumstances."

Soon after being replaced as director of the CIA, Nixon appointed Schlesinger as secretary of defense in July of 1973.

In 1973, Schlesinger said he would recommend U.S. bombing if the North Vietnamese launched an attack on their South Vietnamese neighbors.

Two years later, they did begin an offensive. But the U.S. could do little to help because the South Vietnamese army had collapsed.

The invasion of Cambodia in 1975 also took place during Schlesinger's reign as secretary of defense.

Throughout his tenure, Schlesinger pushed for a larger Department of Defense budget and military action in Southeast Asia in order to reverse the downward trend in U.S. military strength and maintain a force that was at least equivalent to that of the Soviet Union.

He said his hands were tied because he could not use military force and that this made it "a tricky, tricky thing getting people out of Southeast Asia."

Schlesinger's beliefs were opposite those of his classmate Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger '50--a man who favored negotiation over the deployment of forces.

Despite his professed bipartisanship, Schlesinger continued to push for a larger Department of Defense budget and argue with those who opposed it in Congress.

Some have suggested that his opinions, his lack of personal rapport, which has been noted by many, and President Ford's willingness to compromise led to the failure of Schlesinger's push for increased military spending. In November of 1975, the differences between Ford and Schlesinger finally resulted in his departure.

Critical Mass

Earlier in the decade, from 1971 to 1973, Schlesinger served as chair of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and he would return to energy concerns after his dismissal from the Ford administration.

Eventually the energy crisis sparked the creation of the Energy Department during the Carter administration.

According to Schlesinger, both the Democrat and Republican parties called for the creation of a Department of Energy, and then President Jimmy Carter endorsed it. Schlesinger was then given the charge to form the department.

Schlesinger called for the consolidation of the government offices that handled energy and tried to bring together scientific and environmental knowledge in developing an approach to the crisis.

And Schlesinger seemed very optimistic about the future of atomic energy at the time.

"By 1990, our estimate rises to almost 50 percent of total power," Schlesinger said.

Needless to say, Schlesinger's predictions were off the mark. And his time in White House administrations seemed to be drawing to an end as a "dump Schlesinger" movement appeared in 1979.

"[Schlesinger] is the kind of presidential appointee who has a highly resistible appeal to the pragmatic politicians on Capitol Hill, who must measure what should be done against the practicalities of what can be done," wrote Jack Anderson in a unfavorable column in The Washington Post in 1979.

After Carter faced continued criticism and Schlesinger alienated supporters, Carter fired Schlesinger along with the rest of his cabinet later in the year.

Looking Backwards

Schlesinger's connection with Harvard did not end after he received his Ph.D. He has served as an Overseer for the University and remained involved in alumni affairs.

While Schlesinger found this position "interesting," he does not see Harvard as the perfect institution--he recently criticized the administration's stance on ROTC.

"To penalize a handful of undergraduates who choose to join ROTC--as a way of expressing the faculty's frustration in not being able to determine national policy--strikes me as ignoble; it will not go down as Harvard's finest hour," he wrote in 1995.

Schlesinger seemed to feel this mistaken position of the faculty concerning ROTC was symptomatic of Harvard's disconnection with the real world.

"I fear that Harvard (along with other universities) is increasingly divorced from the beliefs and concerns of the American society in which she is placed and in whose history she has played so distinguished a role," he added.

If Schlesinger seems to disapprove of today's Harvard, he feels quite differently about the Harvard of 1950. He fondly remembers his days at Harvard and the lessons that he learned while he was there.

"I am struck by how large a role the Harvard of our college years played in shaping the standards and instinctive responses that have guided (and protected) me throughout the years," Schlesinger wrote in 1995.

An Unassuming Role

While Harvard played an instrumental role in shaping Schlesinger's political and moral consciousness, it was only in the public sphere he was able to practice what he preached.

And while he was not a high-profile figure and had no desire to be a political celebrity, he did not shy away from actively voicing his beliefs, even at personal expense.

His direct, which some termed arrogant, nature had its consequences--his adamant convictions can be directly attributed to his two dismissals from presidential administrations.

But Schlesinger looks fondly on his governmental career. And fittingly, his most memorable moment does not revolve around some personal success or battle, but rather a relatively ignominious moment in American history.

He says he most poignantly remembers President Nixon's personal farewell address in August of 1974 when he resigned from the presidency.

"[Nixon gave] an emotional and dramatic speech in the White House," Schlesinger said.

Memorable not for Nixon's indiscretions, but for its respect for the higher calling of public service, it was a lesson Schlesinger built his life in the public sphere around--the public good always comes before personal gain.