Tom Reed
Tom Reed is a former Secretary of the Air Force. He has been Director of National Reconnaissance, a special Assistant to President Reagan for national security policy, and a consultant to the Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where much of the country's nuclear weapons research takes place.
Reed graduated first in his class from Cornell University with a degree in engineering and an ROTC commission into the U.S. Air Force. He began his professional career at the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles during the 1950s, the years of Sputnik and the missile gap. He earned his graduate degree from the University of Southern California and then moved on to Lawrence Livermore where he designed two thermonuclear devices fired in the Dominic test series in the Pacific in 1962.
On leaving Livermore, Reed started and ran a successful high-tech company making superconductors. He soon developed an interest in politics, and in 1966 became the northern California chairperson of Ronald Reagan's first gubernatorial race. He served as chief of personnel in the Governor's first administration, and in 1970 assumed full responsibility for Governor Reagan's re-election campaign as the statewide chairperson and campaign director.
In 1973, Reed was recruited to manage intelligence projects at the Pentagon. He became director of information to integrate the developing worldwide military command system, then Secretary of the Air Force. During the Reagan years Reed served as the Special Assistant to the President for national security policy. His principle project there was the design of a national security policy, signed off by the President as National Security Decision Directive 32, which was used as the roadmap for prevailing in the Cold War.
Reed left Washington in 1983 to return to managing his business. He continued to advise on national security issues and still does today. Throughout the Soviet collapse in 1991 Reed served as a consultant to General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also presided over the Policy Committee of the Joint Strategic Planning Staff (in Omaha) to help plan the START I treaty announced in June of 1992 by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin.
Reed, age 69, was born in New York City. Reed's first book, AT THE ABYSS: An Insider's History of the Cold War (Presidio Press/Ballantine Books), delves into thirty tales about the men and women of both sides - presidents and general secretaries, soldiers and scientists, schemers and spooks - who fought and ended the Cold War without a nuclear shot being fired. He resides north of San Francisco with his wife Kay.
Back to the Capital Book Festival