United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
| United States Deputy Secretary of Defense | |
|---|---|
Seal of the Department | |
Flag of the Deputy Secretary | |
| Department of Defense Office of the Secretary | |
| Style | Mister/Madam Deputy Secretary (informal) The Honorable (formal) |
| Status | Chief operating officer |
| Reports to | Secretary |
| Seat | The Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia |
| Appointer | The President with Senate advice and consent |
| Term length | No fixed term |
| Constituting instrument | 10 U.S.C. § 132 |
| Formation | 1949[1] |
| First holder | Stephen Early[1] May 2, 1949 |
| Succession | 1st in SecDef succession |
| Salary | Executive Schedule, level II[2] |
| Website | www.defense.gov |
The United States deputy secretary of defense (DepSecDef) is the second-highest-ranking official in the Department of Defense (DoD). The position was established in 1947 with the National Security Act. The first person to hold this position is Stephen Early.
The deputy secretary is the principal civilian deputy to the secretary of defense, and is appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The deputy secretary, by statute, is designated as the DoD chief management officer and must be a civilian, at least seven years removed from service as a commissioned officer on active-duty at the date of appointment.[3]
Duties
The deputy secretary of defense has full power and authority to act for the secretary of defense and to exercise the powers of the secretary of defense on any and all matters for which the secretary is authorized to act pursuant to statute or executive order.[1] The deputy secretary is first in the line of succession to the secretary of defense.
The basic role of the deputy secretary of defense is to oversee the day-to-day business and lead the internal management processes of the $500-billion-plus Department of Defense budget, that is as its chief operating officer.
The deputy secretary, among the office's many responsibilities, chairs the Senior Level Review Group (SLRG), before 2005 known as Defense Resources Board (DRB), which provides department-wide budgetary allocation recommendations to the Secretary and the President. Traditionally, the deputy secretary has been the civilian official guiding the process of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
The deputy secretary of defense chairs the Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC), which has oversight duties and provides recommendations with respect to changes in status of the Department's Special Access Programs, for either the deputy secretary defense or the secretary of defense to make.
List of deputy secretaries of defense
| No. | Image | Name | Term of office | Serving under | Appointed by | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Began | Ended | Time in office | |||||
| 1 | Stephen Early | May 2, 1949
August 10, 1949[1] |
August 9, 1949[a] | 1 year, 151 days | Louis A. Johnson | Harry S. Truman | |
| 2 | Robert A. Lovett | October 4, 1950 | September 16, 1951 | 316 days | George C. Marshall | ||
| 3 | William Chapman Foster | September 24, 1951 | January 20, 1953 | 1 year, 118 days | Robert A. Lovett | ||
| 4 | Roger M. Kyes | February 2, 1953 | May 1, 1954 | 1 year, 88 days | Charles Erwin Wilson | Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
| 5 | Robert B. Anderson | May 3, 1954 | August 4, 1955 | 1 year, 93 days | |||
| 6 | Reuben B. Robertson Jr. | August 5, 1955 | April 25, 1957 | 1 year, 263 days | |||
| 7 | Donald A. Quarles | May 1, 1957 | May 8, 1959 | 2 years, 7 days | Charles Erwin Wilson
Neil H. McElroy | ||
| 8 | Thomas S. Gates Jr. | June 8, 1959 | December 1, 1959 | 176 days | Neil H. McElroy | ||
| 9 | James H. Douglas Jr. | December 11, 1959 | January 24, 1961 | 1 year, 44 days | Thomas S. Gates Jr. | ||
| 10 | Roswell Gilpatric | January 24, 1961 | January 20, 1964 | 2 years, 361 days | Robert McNamara | John F. Kennedy | |
| 11 | Cyrus Vance | January 28, 1964 | June 30, 1967 | 3 years, 153 days | Lyndon B. Johnson | ||
| 12 | Paul Nitze | July 1, 1967 | January 20, 1969 | 1 year, 203 days | Robert McNamara
Clark Clifford | ||
| 13 | David Packard | January 24, 1969 | December 13, 1971 | 2 years, 323 days | Melvin Laird | Richard Nixon | |
| 14 | Kenneth Rush | February 23, 1972 | January 29, 1973 | 341 days | |||
| 15 | Bill Clements | January 30, 1973 | January 20, 1977 | 3 years, 356 days | Elliot Richardson | ||
| 16 | Robert Ellsworth | December 23, 1975[4] | January 10, 1977[4] | 1 year, 18 days | Donald Rumsfeld | Gerald Ford | |
| 17 | Charles Duncan Jr. | January 31, 1977 | July 26, 1979 | 2 years, 176 days | Harold Brown | Jimmy Carter | |
| 18 | W. Graham Claytor Jr. | August 24, 1979 | January 16, 1981 | 1 year, 145 days | |||
| 19 | Frank Carlucci | February 4, 1981 | December 31, 1982 | 1 year, 330 days | Caspar Weinberger | Ronald Reagan | |
| 20 | W. Paul Thayer | January 12, 1983 | January 4, 1984 | 357 days | |||
| 21 | William Howard Taft IV | February 3, 1984 | April 22, 1989 | 5 years, 78 days | Caspar Weinberger | ||
| 22 | Donald J. Atwood Jr. | April 24, 1989 | January 20, 1993 | 3 years, 271 days | Dick Cheney | George H. W. Bush | |
| 23 | William Perry | March 5, 1993 | February 3, 1994 | 335 days | Les Aspin | Bill Clinton | |
| 24 | John M. Deutch | March 11, 1994 | May 10, 1995 | 1 year, 60 days | William Perry | ||
| 25 | John P. White | June 22, 1995 | July 15, 1997 | 2 years, 23 days | William Perry | ||
| 26 | John Hamre | July 29, 1997 | March 31, 2000 | 2 years, 246 days | William Cohen | ||
| 27 | Rudy de Leon | March 31, 2000[5] | March 1, 2001[5] | 335 days | William Cohen | ||
| 28 | Paul Wolfowitz | March 2, 2001[6] | May 13, 2005[6] | 4 years, 72 days | Donald Rumsfeld | George W. Bush | |
| 29 | Gordon R. England | May 13, 2005
January 4, 2006[6] |
January 3, 2006[c]
February 11, 2009[6] |
236 days
1134 |
Donald Rumsfeld | ||
| 30 | William J. Lynn III | February 12, 2009[6] | October 5, 2011[6] | 2 years, 235 days | Robert Gates | Barack Obama | |
| 31 | Ash Carter | October 6, 2011[6] | December 4, 2013[6] | 2 years, 58 days | Leon Panetta | ||
| — | Christine Fox
Acting |
December 5, 2013[6] | May 1, 2014[6] | 149 | Chuck Hagel | ||
| 32 | Robert O. Work | May 1, 2014 | July 14, 2017 | 3 years, 74 days | Chuck Hagel | ||
| 33 | Patrick M. Shanahan | July 19, 2017 | June 23, 2019[7] | 1 year, 339 days | Jim Mattis
Himself (acting) |
Donald Trump | |
| — | David Norquist
Acting |
January 1, 2019 | July 23, 2019 | 203 days | Patrick M. Shanahan (acting)
Mark Esper (acting) Richard V. Spencer (acting) | ||
| — | Richard V. Spencer
Acting |
July 23, 2019 | July 31, 2019 | 8 days | Mark Esper | ||
| 34 | David Norquist | July 31, 2019 | February 8, 2021 | 1 year, 192 days | Mark Esper | ||
| 35 | Kathleen Hicks | February 8, 2021 | January 20, 2025 | 3 years, 347 days | Lloyd Austin | Joe Biden | |
| — | Robert G. Salesses[8]
Acting |
January 28, 2025 | March 17, 2025 | 48 days | Pete Hegseth | Donald Trump | |
| 36 | Stephen Feinberg | March 17, 2025 | Incumbent | 175 days | |||
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Department of Defense Key Officials 1947–2015: p. 15.
- ↑ 5 U.S.C. § 5313.
- ↑ 10 U.S.C. § 132.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Department of Defense Key Officials 1947–2015: p. 16.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Department of Defense Key Officials 1947–2015: p. 17.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 Department of Defense Key Officials 1947–2015: p. 18.
- ↑ "Acting Secretary of Defense will Resign as Deputy Secretary of Defense". United States Department of Defense. June 18, 2019. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
- ↑ https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/key_officials/KeyOfficials-2025-02-05.pdf?ver=u8HG3PRZlHKgsEybATUYAw%3d%3d
Sources
- Department of Defense Key Officials 1947–2015 (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office. 2015.