Morton Halperin

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On May 9, 1969, [7] The New York Times reported that the United States had been bombing Cambodia. 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 on Nixon'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 aide Charles 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 of Daniel Ellsberg. When Ellsberg was investigated in connection with the Pentagon 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]

Positions between government service

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 the Twentieth 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 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

From 1984 to 1992, Halperin served as director of the American 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 the Intelligence 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, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, and the American Disabilities Act of 1990. [14] He defended the right of The Progressive magazine to publish a description of the design principle of a thermonuclear weapon (H-Bomb).

Clinton administration

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 State Madeleine Albright appointed him to the position of Director of Policy Planning at the State 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]

Post-Clinton administration

Following his service in the Clinton Administration, Halperin joined the Council 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 the Open 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 the Center 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]

Obama administration

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]

Publications

Halperin is the author and co-author of 25 books, including Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. [20] The first edition of Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. He also wrote Strategy and Arms Control (with Thomas C. Schelling); Limited War in the Nuclear Age; and Contemporary Military Strategy.

Selected articles

  • Review of SPOOKS: The Haunting of America—The Private Use of Secret Agents, by Jim Hougan. The New York Times (November 26, 1978), p. SM 212.
  • "Guaranteeing Democracy". Foreign Policy , no. 91 (Summer 1993), pp. 105–122. doi : 10.2307/1149062. JSTOR   1149062.

Awards

Halperin has won numerous awards, including:

In 1985 he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

He was a partial writer of The Lawless State , which documents the surveillance techniques and crimes of the U.S. government during the Cold War.

Boards

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]

References

  1. Loftus, John (1992). The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People. St. Martin's. p. 314. ISBN   9780312156480.
  2. "Ina W. Halperin Wed To Dr. Joseph L. Young". The New York Times. March 20, 1988.
  3. "Faculty". American University Washington College of Law. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Blumenfeld, Laura (November 19, 1993). "All That's Left of the Cold War". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved October 2, 2017.
  5. Schmitt, Eric (1994). "Pentagon Nominee Withdraws Name". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  6. Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (2007). "Kissinger's Appearance Revives Memories of Vietnam Era". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  7. "Raids in Cambodia By U.S. Unprotested; Cambodia Raids Go Unprotested" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  8. Halperin, Morton H. (July 8, 2008). "Opinion | The Wiretapping Bill Protects Our Security and Our Basic Rights". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  9. Halperin, Morton H. (July 16, 2006). "Bush is no Nixon -- he's worse". Los Angeles Times. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  10. "The Outrage of Wiretaps" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  11. Apple, R. W. Jr. (May 13, 1973). "Kissinger Hints He Saw Results of the Wiretap on Halperin in Pentagon Papers". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  12. United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. - 606 F.2d 1192, http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/606/1192/441367/
  13. Tolchin, Martin (November 13, 1992). "Kissinger Issues Wiretap Apology". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 2, 2017.
  14. http://pando.com/2015/02/07/how-the-aclu-ron-paul-and-a-former-eff-director-helped-jail-a-cia-whistleblower/ http://pando.com/2015/02/07/how-the-aclu-ron-paul-and-a-former-eff-director-helped-jail-a-cia-whistleblower/, Mark Ames, pandodaily, February 7, 2015
  15. https://fas.org/irp/congress/1994_cr/s940715-halperin.htm [ bare URL ]
  16. "01. The Department of State Leadership". 2001-2009.state.gov. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  17. "Morton Halperin". Archived from the original on October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2017.
  18. "President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts". whitehouse.gov. December 6, 2012. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  19. "Board of Directors". Millennium Challenge Corporation. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  20. "Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy". Brookings Institution. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  21. "Opinion | Tillerson leaves the Community of Democracies in the dark". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
  22. "Morton H. Halperin". J Street. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  23. "Morton H. Halperin". ONE.org US. Retrieved November 30, 2023.

Further reading

Morton Halperin
20th Director of Policy Planning
In office
September 16, 1998 January 20, 2001