‘Top Gun’ muse now No 2 at Pentagon

THE new number two at the Pentagon is the woman who was the inspiration for Tom Cruise’s love interest in the movie Top Gun.

Christine Fox this week became the first woman to be appointed acting US deputy defence secretary by President Barack Obama.

Fox is a former chief programme and budget analyst for the Department of Defence and will serve as its acting deputy secretary while the search is on for a permanent replacement for Ashton Carter.

Chuck Hagel, Fox’s boss as defence secretary, hailed her as “a brilliant defence thinker and proven manager”.

“She helped identify the challenges, choices, and opportunities for reform facing the department during this period of unprecedented budget uncertainty,” Hagel said.

“She will be able to help me shape our priorities from day one because she knows the intricacies of the department’s budget, programmes and global operations better than anyone.”

Fox is perhaps better known for serving as the basis for Tom Cruise’s love interest in the 1986 film Top Gun. A People Magazine profile published shortly before the film was released said Fox, then a mathematician at the Miramar Naval Air Station, in San Diego, was introduced to producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.

After their meeting the duo came up with the character of Charlie, an astrophysicist who instructs Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and the other Top Gun pilots.

The People profile said: “High heels in the hallway. Softer than a sonic boom, less penetrating than an F-14 afterburner, the footsteps of 6-foot Christine Fox, 30, nevertheless carry the impact of a pre-emptive strike.”

Fox this year criticised the automatic budget cuts that were due to hit the Pentagon.

“There should be a national dialogue on what a sensible, sustainable and strategically sound defence budget looks like,” she said. — © The Daily Telegraph, London