Sandy Berger

Sandy Berger (center) in conversation with US President Bill Clinton and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1999)

Samuel "Sandy" R. Berger (born October 28, 1945 in Millerton , New York , † December 2, 2015 in Washington, DC ) was an American attorney who served between 1997 and 2001 during the second term of US President Bill Clinton was also the US National Security Advisor and was convicted by a court of theft of classified documents in 2005.

Life

Studies, lawyer and election campaign team of the Democrats

After attending school, Berger first studied at Cornell University , graduating in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) and also became a member of the Quill and Dagger alumni association . He completed a subsequent postgraduate study of law at the Law School of Harvard University in 1971 with a Juris Doctor (JD) cum laude .

He then became a speechwriter for George McGovern during his candidacy for the Democratic Party in the 1972 presidential election, and during this time he also met Bill Clinton. He then took up a practice as a lawyer and was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, a law firm based in Washington, DC , between 1973 and 1977

After Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States, he became Deputy Director of Policy Planning in the State Department in 1977 and as such was the closest associate of the then Director of Policy Planning, Anthony Lake , who was his predecessor as National Security Advisor until 1981 . After Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election , Berger resigned from government service and returned as a partner at the Hogan & Hartson law firm.

In 1988 he broke his partnership there to work as a foreign policy advisor to Michael Dukakis , the Democratic candidate in the 1988 presidential election . He then resumed his partnership with the law firm Hogan & Hartson until he joined the Clinton campaign team in the 1992 presidential election and became senior foreign policy advisor.

National Security Advisor and alleged theft of classified documents

After Clinton's election as US President, he became Deputy National Security Advisor in January 1993 and thus again a representative of Anthony Lake, the then National Security Advisor. In March 1997, he finally succeeded Lake in the post of National Security Advisor, serving until the end of Clinton's tenure on January 20, 2001.

Subsequently, he was a member of the National Security Advisory Group, a body that advises the Democratic Group in the US Senate on security issues. In addition, he was once again senior foreign policy advisor on John Kerry's campaign team in the 2004 presidential election .

The building of the National Archives

In July 2004, however, he resigned from these two functions after being accused in the media of stealing classified information. The 9/11 Commission had sought documents from the Clinton administration dealing with counter-terrorism policy, and Clinton had asked Berger to sift through these documents and select those to be submitted to the commission of inquiry. For this purpose, Berger was granted access to documents with a high level of confidentiality in a secure reading room of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 18, September 2 and October 2, 2003.

The Associated Press news agency reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Berger's home and office in the first half of 2004. Berger explained to the press reports that he only left the NARA reading room with his handwritten notes, including "accidentally" taken copies of current secret documents. However, due to the strict rules of NARA, it is not permitted to take “souvenirs” with you. In addition, all of the notes would then have had to be viewed by employees and their removal had to be approved. Although the exact content of the documents examined and extracted by Berger was not disclosed, both Berger and his lawyer admitted that "some documents with confidentiality levels" were found in Berger's leather folder. Both told the press that these and Berger's handwritten notes were immediately handed over to the FBI, and that the whole commotion was solely the result of Berger's "unwanted negligence".

On April 1, 2005, he pleaded guilty to mistreatment of classified documents. A court sentenced him then in September 2005 to 100 hours of community service and a fine of 50,000 US dollars .

He was also one of the signatories of Global Zero , an initiative launched in December 2008 with the goal of complete nuclear disarmament worldwide.

Berger later became a member of the board of directors of the global strategy company Albright Stonebridge Group , most recently chairing it alongside former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Republican US Senator from New Hampshire Warren Rudman .

In addition, Berger was involved in numerous security and foreign policy organizations such as the America Abroad advisory body and the Partnership for a Secure America as well as the American Academy of Diplomacy, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Searchlight Leadership Fund.

Publications

• Dollar harvest. The Story of the Farm Bureau. Heath, Lexington MA 1971.

Web links

Commons : Sandy Berger  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Sandy Berger in the nndb (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sandy Berger, Former National Security Adviser, Dies at 70
2. ↑ THE WASHINGTON POST: Berger Will Plead Guilty To Taking Classified Paper (April 1, 2005)
3. ↑ CNN POLITICS: National Archives: Sandy Berger fined $ 50,000 for taking documents (September 8, 2005) ( Memento of the original of October 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Homepage of Global Zero ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.