William Cohen - WikiHQ

William Sebastian Cohen (born August 28, 1940) is an American attorney, author, and politician from Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (1979–1997), and as Secretary of Defense (1997–2001) under President Bill Clinton.

Described as "a Republican moderate from Maine" and "something of a maverick centrist" by David Halberstam, Cohen had very good working relations with President Clinton and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and an "almost ideal" collaboration with the Joint Chiefs of Staff; however he often clashed with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, whom he saw as "a grandstander, too outspoken on policy matters, and too eager to use military force." the two owned the Bangor Rye Bread Co.

Pursuant to his father's wishes, Cohen was raised Jewish, attended a synagogue, and also attended Hebrew School in preparation for his bar mitzvah, but he decided not to follow through with his bar mitzvah when he was informed that he would have to convert formally to Judaism, and he began to practice Christianity.

After graduating from Bangor High School in 1958, Cohen attended Bowdoin College, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin in 1962. While a student at Bowdoin, Cohen was initiated as a brother of the Kappa chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.

While in high school and college, Cohen was a basketball player and was named to the Maine all-state high school and college basketball team, and at Bowdoin was inducted into the New England All-Star Hall of Fame. Cohen attended law school at the Boston University School of Law, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws degree cum laude in 1965.

Legal, academic, and early political career

He became an assistant county attorney for Penobscot County (1968–1970). In 1968 he became an instructor at Husson College in Bangor, and later was an instructor in business administration at the University of Maine (1968–1972).

Cohen served as the vice president of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association (1970–1972) and as a member of the Bangor School Board (1971–1972). He became a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in 1972, and in 1975 was named as one of the U.S. Jaycee's "ten outstanding young men."

Cohen was elected to the Bangor City Council (1969–1972) and served as Bangor Mayor in 1971–1972.

House of Representatives and Senate

thumb|left|upright|Senator William Cohen early in his political career

In the 1972 election, Cohen won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Maine's 2nd congressional district, succeeding Democrat William Hathaway, who was elected to the US Senate. Cohen defeated Democratic State Senator Elmer H. Violette of Van Buren.

During his first term in Congress, Cohen was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, where he participated in the 1974 impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon. He was one of the first Republicans on the committee to support impeaching Nixon. During this time, Time magazine named him one of "America's 200 Future Leaders". In July 1974, he said,

thumb|right|Cohen with [[President of the United States|President Ronald Reagan and then-Senator Joe Biden in 1984]]

After three terms in the House, Cohen was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978, defeating incumbent William Hathaway in his first bid for reelection. Cohen was reelected in 1984 and 1990, serving a total of 18 years in the Senate (1979–1997). In 1990, he defeated Democrat Neil Rolde. Cohen developed a reputation as a moderate Republican with liberal views on social issues and has been described as "a career-long maverick with a reputation for fashioning compromise out of discord."

In 1994 Cohen investigated the federal government's process for acquiring information technology, and his report, Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted Buying Federal Computer Systems, generated much discussion. He chose not to run for another Senate term in 1996; Susan Collins, who had worked for Cohen, was elected to succeed him.

While in the Senate, Cohen served on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee (1979–1997) and was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee 1983–1991 and again 1995–1997, serving as Vice Chairman from 1987 to 1991. He also participated in the drafting of several notable laws related to defense matters, including the Competition in Contracting Act (1984), the Montgomery G.I. Bill Act (1984), the Goldwater–Nichols Act (1986), the Intelligence Oversight Reform Act (1991), the Federal Acquisition Reform Act (1996), the Nunn–Cohen Act Amendment creating the United States Special Operations Command, and the Information Technology Management Reform Act, also known as the Clinger–Cohen Act (1996). Cohen voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override President Reagan's veto). Cohen voted in favor of the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Secretary of Defense

On December 5, 1996, President Bill Clinton announced his selection of Cohen as Secretary of Defense, saying that he was the "right person" to build on the achievements of retiring secretary William Perry "to secure the bipartisan support America's armed forces must have and clearly deserve." As Secretary of Defense Cohen played a large role in directing the United States military actions in Iraq and Kosovo, including the dismissal of Wesley Clark from his post as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Both Operation Desert Fox in Iraq and Operation Allied Force in Kosovo were launched just months after al-Qaeda carried out the United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya in 1998.

Confirmation

thumb|upright|Cohen and President [[Bill Clinton at The Pentagon, September 1997]]

During his confirmation hearings, Cohen said he thought he might differ with Clinton on specific national security issues on occasion. He implicitly criticized the Clinton administration for lacking a clear strategy for leaving Bosnia and stated that he thought U.S. troops should definitely be out by mid-1998. He also asserted that he would resist further budget cuts, retain the two regional conflicts strategy, and support spending increases for advanced weapons, even if it necessitated further cuts in military personnel. Cohen questioned whether savings from base closings and acquisition reform could provide enough money for procurement of new weapons and equipment that the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought necessary in the next few years. He supported the expansion of NATO and looked on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as the most serious problem the United States faced.

After confirmation by a unanimous Senate vote, Cohen was sworn in as the 20th Secretary of Defense on January 24, 1997. During his tenure as Defense Secretary, Cohen also had to address various other social issues, including: the role of women in combat as well as in other military jobs, racism, and sexual harassment.

Recent years

thumb|left|Cohen and his wife, author [[Janet Langhart, August 2006]]

After leaving the Pentagon in 2001, Cohen founded The Cohen Group, a business consulting firm, with three Pentagon officials, Bob Tyrer, Jim Bodner, and H.K. Park. Cohen was presented with the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service by the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution on March 7, 2002, in New York City.

On January 5, 2006, he participated in a meeting at the White House of former Secretaries of Defense and State to discuss United States foreign policy with Bush administration officials.

Cohen has written several books, including mysteries, poetry, and (with George Mitchell) an analysis of the Iran–Contra affair. He is a chairman emeritus of the US–Taiwan Business Council. The Washington Post ran an article entitled "From Public Life to Private Business" about Cohen's abrupt transition to the business of Washington lobbying within "weeks of leaving office." (May 28, 2006). It discussed the affairs of the Cohen Group in greater detail and, while alleging no specific impropriety, took a generally negative view of the former senator and secretary of defense.

On August 21, 2006, Cohen's novel, Dragon Fire, was released. The plot revolves around a secretary of defense who contends with a potential nuclear threat from a foreign country. In December 2006, he released a memoir with his wife, author Janet Langhart, entitled Love in Black and White, a memoir about race, religion, and the love couple shares over similar life circumstances and backgrounds. He then appeared on The Daily Show (August 22, 2006) and on Fox & Friends First (August 25, 2006), where he said to host Brian Kilmeade, "I think there should be a commitment to universal service. I think that only a few people are really committed to this war against terrorism.... We ought to have a real call to national service to commit ourselves to some form of public service...to put us on a war footing mentality."

thumb|right|200px|Cohen with then-Defense Secretary [[Jim Mattis in February 2017]]

BBC News hired Cohen as a world affairs analyst in May 2016. Cohen appears in this capacity on BBC World News America and other broadcasts.

Cohen and Madeleine Albright co-chaired a "Genocide Prevention Task Force". Their appointment was criticized by Harut Sassounian and by the Armenian National Committee of America.

Cohen serves as an advisory board member for the Partnership for a Secure America and is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One. In addition, he serves as a board member of the U.S.-China Business Council, having served as vice-chairman between 2011 and 2013, and the U.S.-India Business Council.

During the 2016 presidential election, Cohen joined many other prominent Republican former elected officials in breaking with party ranks to oppose the candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump. He endorsed Democratic nominee former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. In the 2020 election, Cohen again announced his support for the Democratic presidential candidate, endorsing Joe Biden. However, he also endorsed incumbent Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins (who was once a member of his own Senate staff) for re-election.

Cohen, along with all of the living former secretaries of defense, ten in total, published a Washington Post op-ed piece in January 2021 telling President Trump not to involve the military in determining the outcome of the 2020 elections.

In July 2022, Cohen helped found a group of U.S. business and policy leaders who share the goal of constructively engaging with China in order to improve U.S.-China relations.

Personal life

In 1987, Cohen filed for divorce from his first wife, Diana Dunn, with whom he has two sons, Kevin and Christopher. On February 14, 1996, Cohen and Janet Langhart were married. Langhart is a former model, Boston television personality, and BET correspondent. She was known as the "First Lady of the Pentagon" during Cohen's tenure as secretary.

Cohen served as best man in then-Senate Naval Liaison John McCain's second wedding (Gary Hart was a groomsman). McCain later became his Senate colleague.

According to The New York Times, Cohen was considered a loner in Congress.

He is a Unitarian Universalist. At one point in 2007, he considered reconciling with Judaism and agreed to once again attend a synagogue. While Cohen waited, an elderly man with a slide-action rifle attacked the facility, fatally shooting a security guard—Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns—before the attacker himself was wounded by the other guards. Cohen and Langhart were not injured, and appeared on CNN that afternoon to tell what they had seen and respond to the shooter's racist beliefs. The man was James W. von Brunn, 88, of Annapolis, a longtime "hard-core" white supremacist whose Internet writings contain extensive criticism against Jews and African Americans. He was charged in federal court with first-degree murder and was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts, including hate-crime charges. Langhart's play had been promoted in The Washington Post the week before, and was being presented in honor of the eightieth anniversary of Anne Frank's birth.

Honors

50px Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan (2018)

Recent publications

July 7, 2009, "On Common Ground", Forbes magazine
June 8, 2009, "Smart Power Is Soft Power", Politico
June 3, 2009, "Nuclear Cooperation with U.A.E. in Our Interest", The Hill
May 28, 2009, "Obama's chance to cement ties with India", Financial Times
May 28, 2009, "No Time to Cut Missile Defense", The Washington Times
April 23, 2009, "The World Depends on U.S.-China Cooperation", The Wall Street Journal
September 30, 2008, "The India Nuclear Deal: The Merits", Forbes magazine
December 30, 2007, "Changing Our Direction", www.nationalinterest.org
August 12, 2007, "What Is This Man Thinking?", The Washington Post
February 5, 2007, "Perfect Partners", Asian Wall Street Journal
July 17, 2007, "Commentary: North Korea's Declaration of Independence", CNN

References

External links

Official biography via the Department of Defense
Thursday October 2009 Audio interview about government terrorism, individual liberty and foreign war policies. University of Illinois in-depth radio programs on Focus 580
Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted Buying Federal Computer Systems. Investigative report of Senator William S. Cohen.- dead link
Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted Buying Federal Computer Systems. Investigative report of Senator William S. Cohen.
William Cohen to Co-Chair Genocide Prevention Task Force
Biography from the William S. Cohen Archive, University of Maine Fogler Library
Voting record maintained by the Washington Post
Genocide Deniers Set Course for Genocide Prevention