William E. Odom

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William E. Odom 1983

William Eldridge Odom (born June 23, 1932 in Cookeville , Putnam County , Tennessee , † May 30, 2008 in Lincoln , Vermont ) was a general in the US Army . From 1985 to 1988 he was director of the National Security Agency and a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame .

Life

Odom studied at West Point and Columbia University . He later taught Russian history at West Point. Fluent in Russian , Odom worked for the US National Security Council from 1977 to 1981 , then as Deputy Chief of Staff in the US Army for Intelligence Activities, and from 1985 to 1988 as Director of the NSA ( National Security Agency ). Since 1962, Odom was married to Anne Weld Curtis.

NSA director

Lieutenant General Odom owed his rapid rise to the support of Zbigniew Brzeziński , whom he met at Columbia University. As a director, he enjoyed little sympathy in the NSA and was considered the most ineffective director in the agency's history. Odom was considered strict and humorless and went so far that he described journalists as "spies" and reporters as "unconvicted felons".

Odom was critical of both Congress and other members of the Reagan administration, accusing them of leaking intelligence secrets. The Lieutenant General was particularly annoyed that President Reagan cited three radio messages intercepted by the NSA as evidence of Libya's guilt after the attack on the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin .

Iran-Contra affair

After a clique of Washington officials, including William J. Casey , planned in December 1985 to send rockets to Iran in exchange for the release of the hostages held in Lebanon , Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council turned for help to the NSA. He wanted a range of laptops, a custom-made product called the “KY-40”. At the suggestion of a colleague at the NSA, North was referred to John C. Wobensmith , a senior official with the NSA's Information System Security Directorate .

Odom approved the delivery of the KY-40s to Wobensmith, but when he passed them on to North, he forgot to get a receipt for them. When the Iran-Contra affair scandal hit the public two years later , Wobensmith came under pressure.

Odom believed that Wobensmith was responsible for putting the NSA in the spotlight. He was very upset and worked against Wobensmith, which outraged other NSA members. For example, B. Edwin R. Lindauer Jr., the assistant director of information security and one of the highest-ranking officials in the agency, expressed his regret that dutiful employees had to defend themselves against their own director. Wobensmith spent several weeks volunteering for 30 to 40 hours at the NSA, but still got into isolation.

When Odom got into trouble with Reagan's Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci , he was fired. While Odom praised himself for his enormous influence on the NSA, his successor, Vice Admiral William O. Studeman , regretted the reduced morale in the agency. Odom also tried to impose his favorite projects on Studeman.

Career after the NSA

Odom was a senior scientist at the Hudson Institute , where his main focus was on military issues, intelligence, and international relations. He was also an associate professor at Yale University , where he gave seminar courses in national security policy and Russian policy. In 2005, he publicly noted that US interests would best be served by withdrawing from Iraq.

Awards

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of Military Awards :

Memberships

In 2007 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member History: Lieutenant General William E. Odom. American Philosophical Society, accessed February 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Odom, William E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Odom, William Eldridge (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Army Officer, Director of the NSA
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Cookeville , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 2008
Place of death Lincoln , Vermont