
Harold Brown
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Education
- PhD in physics - Columbia University
- Degree in mathematics - Ohio University
Overview
Harold Brown was an American nuclear physicist who served as United States Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981, under President Jimmy Carter. Previously, in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations, he held the posts of Director of Defense Research and Engineering (1961–1965) and United States Secretary of the Air Force (1965–1969).
A child prodigy, Brown graduated from the Bronx High School of Science at age 15, and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University at age 21. As Secretary of Defense, he set the groundwork for the Camp David Accords, took part in strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union , and supported, unsuccessfully, ratification of the SALT II treaty.
Early Life
Brown was born September 19, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Abraham, a lawyer who had fought in World War I, and Gertrude (Cohen) Brown, a diamond merchant's bookkeeper. His parents were secular Jews and strong supporters of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. From a very young age Brown was drawn to mathematics and physics; he enrolled as a student at the Bronx High School of Science, from which he graduated at age 15 with a grade average of 99.5. He then immediately entered Columbia University, earning an A.B. summa cum laude at 17 years of age, as well as the Green Memorial Prize for the best academic record. He continued as a graduate student at Columbia, and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics in 1949 when he was 21.
After a short period of teaching and postdoctoral research, Brown became a research scientist at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, he played a role in the construction of the Polaris missile[5] and the development of plutonium. In 1952, he joined the staff of the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore and became its director in 1960, succeeding Edward Teller, of whom he was a protégé. At Livermore, Brown led a team of six other physicists, all older than he was, who used some of the first computers, along with mathematics and engineering, to reduce the size of thermonuclear warheads for strategic military use. Brown and his team helped make Livermore's reputation by designing nuclear warheads small and light enough to be placed on the Navy's nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). During the 1950s he served as a member of, or consultant to, several federal scientific bodies and as senior science adviser at the 1958-1959 Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests.
Brown worked under United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as Director of Defense Research and Engineering from 1961 to 1965, and then as United States Secretary of the Air Force from October 1965 to February 1969, first under McNamara and then under Clark Clifford.
From 1969 to 1977, he was President of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Career
- United States - Former Secretary of Defense