William Eldridge Odom

William Eldridge Odom (June 23, 1932 – May 30, 2008) was a

• 1954 Graduated from the
  second lieutenant
  .
• 1954–1960, Served in both the United States and West Germany.
• 1962, Earned a master's degree from Columbia University, and married Anne Weld Curtis.
• 1964–1966, Served as part of the
  military liaison mission to the Soviet Union at Potsdam
  , East Germany.
• 1966–1969, Taught at West Point as an assistant professor of government.
• 1970, Completed a
  PhD
  at Columbia.
• 1970–1971, At this point a lieutenant colonel, served in Vietnam, being on the Staff of Plans, Policy, and Programs, and working on the Vietnamization phase of the war.
• 1971–1972, Odom was a visiting scholar at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs at Columbia.
• 1972–1974, U.S. assistant
  embassy
  in Moscow.
• 1974, Published The 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 to Major General
• 1977–1981, Military assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the assistant to the president for national security affairs.
• 1981–1985, Assistant chief of staff for intelligence, United States Army.
• 1984, promoted to lieutenant general.
• 1985–1988, Director of the
  Fort Meade, Maryland

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

Biography

Early in his military career, he observed Soviet military activities while serving as a

In 2003, he revealed how the question of the 1967 USS Liberty 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 Admiral Bobby 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 to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish assistant for national security affairs to President Jimmy Carter. Among the primary issues he focused on were American-Soviet relations, including the SALT nuclear weapons talks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran hostage crisis, presidential directives on the situation in the Persian Gulf, terrorism and hijackings, 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 the National Security Agency, the United States' largest intelligence agency, under president Ronald Reagan.

Odom was a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he specialized in military issues, intelligence, and international relations. He was also an adjunct professor at Yale University and Georgetown 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 the

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

Decorations

Bibliography

Books

• 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 (
  Marshall Shulman Prize
  .
• Fixing Intelligence for a More Secure America (Yale University Press, 2003)
• America's Inadvertent Empire, co-authored with Robert Dujarric (
  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.

Television and radio appearances

• Major news shows such as PBS'
  Nightline, the BBC's The World Tonight
• CNN, NBC News
• Radio Free Mississippi with Jim Giles on May 6, 2008. Interview here.
• C-SPAN^[8]
• Hugh Hewitt on February 15, 2007. Transcript here Archived 2007-03-08 at the Wayback Machine.

Also has published newspaper op-ed pieces in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and others.

Quotes

• "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 and using 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]

References

External links

General

• Odom papers archive at the Library of Congress
• official biography
• Staff Bio at Hudson Institute Archived 2007-05-03 at the Wayback Machine
• SourceWatch profile of General Odom
• William Odom, Daily Kos.
• General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq Archived 2007-04-30 at the Wayback Machine
• 'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'
• Review of America's Inadvertent Empire in Foreign Affairs
• Appearances on C-SPAN

Iraq related

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