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

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

who served as Director of the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

under President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, which culminated a 31-year career in military intelligence, mainly specializing in matters relating to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. After his retirement from the military, he became a

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

policy expert and a university professor and became known for his outspoken criticism of the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

and warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. He died of an apparent heart attack at his vacation home in

Lincoln, Vermont Lincoln is a town in Addison County, Vermont, United States. Lincoln is located at the base of Mount Abraham in the Green Mountains. It was settled by Quakers in the late 18th Century. The population was 1,323 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

Military career

* 1954 Graduated from the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

and was commissioned a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

. * 1954–1960, Served in both the United States and

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. * 1962, Earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and married Anne Weld Curtis. * 1964–1966, Served as part of the

military liaison mission The military liaison missions arose from reciprocal agreements formed between the Western allied nations (the US, the UK, and France) and the USSR shortly after the end of the Second World War. The missions were active from 1946 until 1990. The ...

to the Soviet Union at

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, 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 Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

, served in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, being on the Staff of Plans, Policy, and Programs, and working on the

Vietnamization Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same ti ...

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

military attaché A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Opport ...

at the United States

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

in Moscow. * 1974, Published ''The Soviet Volunteers: Modernization and Bureaucracy in a Public Mass Organization'', ( Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...

, 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 Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

* 1977–1981, Military assistant to

Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński ( , ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), or Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's ...

, the assistant to the president for national security affairs. * 1981–1985, Assistant chief of staff for intelligence, United States Army. * 1984, promoted to

. * 1985–1988, Director of the

Fort Meade Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation located in Maryland, that includes the Defense Information School, the Defense Media Activity, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the N ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Post-military

* 1989, Director of national security studies,

Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporat ...

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

* 1989, Adjunct professor,

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. * Extensive publications; see bibliography below

Biography

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

Potsdam, Germany Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

. Later, he taught courses in Russian history at West Point, New York, and while serving at the United States embassy in Moscow in the early 1970s, he visited all of the republics of the

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. Although constantly trailed by

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

, he nonetheless managed to smuggle out a large portion of

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

's archive, including the author's membership card for the

Writers' Union The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers (russian: Союз писателей СССР, translit=Soyuz Sovetstikh Pisatelei) was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded ...

and Second World War military citations; Solzhenitsyn subsequently paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir "Invisible Allies" (1995)

Upon returning to the United States, he resumed his career at West Point where he taught courses in Soviet politics. Odom regularly stressed the importance of education for military officers. In 1977, he was appointed as the military assistant to

, the hawkish assistant for national security affairs to President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

. Among the primary issues he focused on were American-Soviet relations, including the

SALT Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

nuclear weapons talks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the

Iran hostage crisis On November 4, 1979, 52 United States diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over t ...

, presidential directives on the situation in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

, 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

, the United States' largest intelligence agency, under president

. Odom was a Senior Fellow at the

, where he specialized in military issues, intelligence, and international relations. He was also an adjunct professor at

and

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, 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 2003 invasion the worst strategic blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. He had also been critical of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of international calls, having said "it wouldn't have happened on my watch". Odom was also openly critical of the

Neocon Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...

influence in the decision to go to war: "It's pretty hard to imagine us going into Iraq without the strong lobbying efforts from AIPAC /nowiki>American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee.html" ;"title="American Israel Public Affairs Committee">/nowiki>American Israel Public Affairs Committee">American Israel Public Affairs Committee">/nowiki>American Israel Public Affairs Committee/nowiki> and the neocons, who think they know what's good for Israel more than Israel knows." Odom was a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and the American Philosophical Society. He was also a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Decorations

Bibliography

Books

* ''The Soviet Volunteers: Modernization and Bureaucracy in a Public Mass Organization'' ( Princeton, N.J.:

, 360 pp., 1974) * ''On Internal War: American and Soviet Approaches to Third World Clients and Insurgents'' (

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Du ...

, 1992) * ''Trial After Triumph: East Asia After the Cold War'' (

, 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 (

, 1995). *
The Collapse of the Soviet Military
' (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 1998, ). Won the Marshall Shulman Prize. * ''Fixing Intelligence for a More Secure America'' (

, 2003) * ''America's Inadvertent Empire'', co-authored with Robert Dujarric (

, 2004),

Congressional testimony

* 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' ''

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events. Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the prog ...

'', ABC's ''

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the progra ...

'', the BBC's ''

The World Tonight ''The World Tonight'' is a British current affairs radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10 pm news. It is produced by BBC News and features news, analysis and comment on dome ...

'' * CNN, NBC News * Radio Free Mississippi with Jim Giles on May 6, 2008.
Interview here
*

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

Hugh Hewitt Hugh Hewitt (born February 22, 1956) is an American radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network and an attorney, academic, and author. A conservative, he writes about law, society, politics, and media bias in the United States. Hewitt is ...

on February 15, 2007
Transcript here
Also has published newspaper

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

pieces in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' 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

* "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

* "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 United States and state-sponsored terrorism, using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world." * "The invasion of Iraq may well turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in American history

References

External links

General

Odom papers archive
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

official biography

Staff Bio at ''Hudson Institute''

''SourceWatch'' profile of General Odom

William Odom
''Daily Kos''.
General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq

'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'

* *

Iraq related

– "Hammernews" * Interview
General Odom Calls For U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Iraq
, ''Democracy Now'', May 12, 2004.
What’s wrong with cutting and running?
''

Nieman Watchdog The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is the primary journalism institution at Harvard. It was founded in February 1938 as the result of a $1.4 million bequest by Agnes Wahl Nieman, the widow of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of ...

'', August 3, 2005 * Interview
General Odom: U.S. Should "Cut and Run" From Iraq
, ''Democracy Now'', October 4, 2005.

Victory Is Not an Option
''Washington Post'', Feb 12, 2007

General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq

'The Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL'

'Victory Not an Option in Iraq'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Odom, William Eldridge 1932 births 2008 deaths People from Cookeville, Tennessee United States Military Academy alumni Military personnel from Tennessee Columbia University alumni Directors of the National Security Agency United States Army generals Yale University faculty American anti–Iraq War activists Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army) Recipients of the Legion of Merit United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War Hudson Institute Writers from Tennessee Burials at Arlington National Cemetery