Former US defence secretary James Schlesinger

FORMER US defence secretary James Schlesinger, a hawkish and erudite Republican who served under three presidents, has died at the age of 85.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, where Mr Schlesinger was a trustee, confirmed his death.

The former University of Virginia economics professor built an impressive national security resume as defence secretary for Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and was the nation’s first energy secretary under Democratic president Jimmy Carter.

Earlier he was a top White House budget official, chairman of the A tomic Energy Commission and director of the Central IntelligenceA gency.

Former Senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, who sparred with him as chairman of the Senate A rmed Services Committee, called him “a remarkable public servant”.

In later years, he served on a host of defence and energy-related taskforces and advisory committees and continued to push for more sophisticated nuclear weapons systems. He was a long-time member of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board and was appointed by President George W Bush to the Homeland Security A dvisory Committee.

“He left an astounding mark on A merican security and energy policy,” CSIS said on its website. “A fter leaving government, Dr Schlesinger continued to promote a stronger and more prosperous country through his work at many policy institutions, including CSIS.”

The Harvard-educated Schlesinger gained a reputation as a perceptive thinker on nuclear strategy, advocating a retreat from reliance on mutually assured destruction as a means of avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Becoming defence secretary in 1973 aged 44, Mr Schlesinger was wellliked among military leaders, consulting with them frequently and aggressively lobbying Congress for more money for the armed forces.

His pro-interventionist foreign policy also brought him favour with the newright coalition of the day. He worked to rebuild military morale and revamp nuclear strategy in the turbulent period after the Vietnam War era. He opposed amnesty for draft resisters.

President Ford fired him in 1975 and replaced him with his White House chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld.

But Mr Schlesinger was back in the senior ranks of government roughly two years later, serving first as Mr Carter’s energy “tsar”.

Mr Schlesinger was the first US energy secretary.