Chuck Hagel

Charles Timothy Hagel ( HAY-gəl; born October 4, 1946) is an American politician and Army veteran who served as the 24th United States secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015 in the administration of Barack Obama. He previously served as chairman of the president's Intelligence Advisory Board from 2009 to 2013 and as a United States senator representing Nebraska from 1997 to 2009.

A recipient of two Purple Hearts while an infantry squad leader in the Vietnam War, Hagel returned home to start careers in business and politics. He co-founded Vanguard Cellular, the primary source of his personal wealth, and served as president of the McCarthy Group, an investment banking firm, and CEO of American Information Systems Inc., a computerized voting machine manufacturer. A member of the Republican Party, Hagel was first elected to the United States Senate in 1996. He was reelected in 2002, but did not run in 2008.

On January 7, 2013, President Barack Obama nominated Hagel to serve as Secretary of Defense. On February 12, 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Hagel's nomination by a vote of 14–11. On February 14, 2013, Senate Republicans did not vote with Democrats so there were not 60 votes needed to end the debate on Hagel's nomination and proceed to a final vote, citing the need for further review. It was the first time that a nominee for Secretary of Defense was filibustered, although candidates for other cabinet offices had been filibustered before. On February 26, 2013, the Senate voted for cloture on Hagel's nomination and confirmed him by a vote of 58–41. He took office on February 27, 2013, as his predecessor, Leon Panetta, stepped down.

Hagel previously served as a professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, chairman of the Atlantic Council, and co-chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Before his appointment as Secretary of Defense, Hagel served on a number of boards of directors, including that of Chevron Corporation.

Hagel was born in North Platte, Nebraska, a son of Charles Dean Hagel, and his wife Elizabeth (Betty) Dunn. His father was of German heritage, while his mother was of Irish and Polish ancestry. Growing up, Hagel lived across Nebraska; in Ainsworth, Rushville, Scottsbluff, Terrytown, York and Columbus. Hagel was the oldest of four brothers. His father, a veteran of World War II, died suddenly on Christmas morning, 1962, at the age of 39, when Hagel was 16. He graduated from St. Bonaventure High School (now Scotus Central Catholic High School) in Columbus, Nebraska, in 1964, attended Brown Institute for radio and TV through 1966, and earned a BGS degree with a concentration in history from the University of Nebraska Omaha in 1971.

Hagel volunteered to be drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War, rejecting a draft board recommendation that he go to college instead. He served in the United States Army infantry in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. As a sergeant (E-5), he served as an infantry squad leader in the 9th Infantry Division. Hagel served in the same infantry squad as his younger brother Tom, and they are thought to be the only American brothers to have done so during the war. They also saved each other's lives on separate occasions. Hagel received the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, two Purple Hearts, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

After his discharge, he worked as a radio newscaster and talk show host in Omaha from 1969 to 1971 while finishing college on Veterans Administration (VA) assistance under the GI Bill.

In 1971, Hagel was hired as a staffer for Congressman John Y. McCollister (R-NE), serving until 1977. For the next four years, he worked as a lobbyist for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and in 1980, he served as an organizer for the successful presidential campaign of former California governor Ronald Reagan.

After Reagan's inauguration as president, Hagel was named deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. In 1982, however, he resigned over a disagreement with VA Administrator Robert P. Nimmo, who was intent on cutting funding for VA programs. Nimmo had referred to veterans groups as "greedy", and to Agent Orange as not much worse than a "little teenage acne."

After leaving government employment, Hagel co-founded Vanguard Cellular, a mobile phone service carrier that made him a multi-millionaire. While working with Vanguard, he served as president and chief executive officer of the United Service Organizations and the Private Sector Council, as deputy director and chief operating officer of the 1990 G7 Summit, and on the board of directors or advisory committee of the American Red Cross, the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, Bread for the World, and the Ripon Society. He also served as Chairman of the Agent Orange Settlement Fund and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Although he was pressured by some to run for Governor of Virginia, where he had lived for 20 years, in 1992 Hagel moved back to Nebraska to become president of the McCarthy Group, LLC, an investment banking firm. He also served as a chairman and was CEO of American Information Systems Inc. (AIS), later known as Election Systems & Software, a computerized voting machine manufacturer jointly owned by McCarthy Group, LLC and the Omaha World-Herald company. On March 15, 1995, Hagel resigned from the board of AIS as he intended to run for office. Michael McCarthy, the parent company's founder, was Hagel's campaign treasurer. Until at least 2003, he retained between $1 million and $5 million in stock in Election Systems & Software's parent company, the McCarthy Group.

In 1996, Hagel ran for the open US Senate seat created by the retirement of Democrat J. James Exon. Hagel's opponent was Ben Nelson, then the sitting governor of Nebraska. Hagel won and became the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. Six years later, in 2002, Hagel overwhelmingly won re-election with over 83% of the vote, the largest margin of victory in any statewide race in Nebraska history.

According to David Boaz, of the Cato Institute, during the Bush administration, Hagel maintained a "traditionally Republican" voting record, receiving "a lifetime rating of 84 percent from the American Conservative Union and consistent A and B grades from the National Taxpayers Union." On the Issues describes Hagel as a "libertarian-leaning conservative." According to Boaz, among his most notable votes, Hagel:

Voted against the Medicare prescription drug bill;

Hagel co-sponsored the failed Kosovo Resolution, authorizing the use of U.S. military force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hagel voted in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 23, authorizing "necessary and appropriate U.S. Military force" in Afghanistan against those who planned or aided the September 11 attacks. During his tenure in the Senate, Hagel continued his support for NATO involvement, and funding in the War in Afghanistan. In a 2009 The Washington Post op-ed after being nominated as Chairman of President Obama's Intelligence advisory board, Hagel said that "We cannot view U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan through a lens that sees only 'winning' or 'losing,' Iraq and Afghanistan are not America's to win or lose." And that "We can help them buy time or develop, but we cannot control their fates." In 2011, after he left office, Hagel stated that President Obama needs to start "looking for the exit in Afghanistan", and that "We need to start winding this down."

In Hagel's 2008 book, America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers (with Peter Kaminsky), he suggests that the United States should adopt independent leadership and possibly another political party. He also believes that the Iraq War is one of the five biggest blunders in U.S. history. Hagel is critical of George W. Bush's foreign policy, calling it "reckless." He has been a major critic of the war since it started, and has stated that the United States should learn from its mistakes in the Vietnam War. He considered Bush's foreign policy a "ping pong game with American lives."

Following Hagel's retirement from the Senate, in February 2009 he accepted a position as Distinguished Professor in National Governance at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He was chairman of the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank; co-chairman of President Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board; a member of the Defense Department's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee and the Energy Departments Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future; a member of The Washington Center's board of directors; and a member of the Public Broadcasting Service's board of directors. In the private sector, he served on the board of directors of Chevron Corporation, Deutsche Bank's Americas Advisory Board, and the advisory board of Corsair Capital, and was a director of the Zurich Holding Company of America and a senior advisor to McCarthy Capital Corporation. In October 2012, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asked Hagel to chair an advisory committee for the Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration. While a senator, Hagel co-sponsored the bill creating the commemoration committee.

Hagel identifies with Ronald Reagan's nuclear disarmament policies and was an initial signatory to the Global Zero campaign which advocates the international elimination of nuclear weaponry. He also served on the board of the Ploughshares Fund, which pursues the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and seeks to prevent their use.

In 2010, Hagel endorsed Democratic Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak in his run for the United States Senate. In 2012 he endorsed Democrat Bob Kerrey in the race for an open U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska.

President Obama nominated Hagel to succeed Leon Panetta and serve as his second term Secretary of Defense on January 7, 2013. Hagel, who became, upon confirmation, the first former enlisted combat soldier to hold the office of Secretary of Defense, was interviewed by the Senate Armed Services Committee during a seven-and-a-half-hour hearing on January 31, 2013.

In December 2012, nine former United States ambassadors, including five former ambassadors to Israel, wrote a letter in support of nominating Hagel. Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni and nine other retired senior military officers signed a separate letter of support. Robert Gates and Colin Powell also endorsed Hagel for the nomination, with Powell calling him "that kind of independent and bold leader who thinks in and out of the box" who can "deal with the strategic and resource challenges [the Department of Defense] will be facing over the next several years." Rabbi Aryeh Azriel, the senior rabbi at Temple Israel in Omaha, Nebraska since 1988, wrote in a CNN article that "[Hagel's] record shows strong support for Israel" and that Hagel understands "the Israeli people and their desire to live in peace and security." He added that "Recent efforts to smear Chuck ... ultimately that hurts the long-term security of the state of Israel."

Defenses of Hagel have included opinion pieces by writers Amy Davidson, Thomas Friedman, and Robert Wright, with Wright objecting to what he called "McCarthyite" smears against Hagel. Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of the liberal lobby group J Street, said: "The notion that Chuck Hagel is anti-Israel is ludicrous. The notion that he is anti-Semitic is slanderous." Harvard University Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of a 2007 book critical of the Israeli lobby wrote in Foreign Policy that "The real meaning of the Hagel affair is what it says about the climate inside Washington. Simply put, the question is whether supine and reflexive support for all things Israeli remains a prerequisite for important policy positions here in the Land of the Free."

Commentators at The American Conservative and Pat Buchanan endorsed Hagel. Hagel's nomination received support from Antiwar.com founder Justin Raimondo and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute; Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, expressed the hope that Hagel's confirmation might "loosen the neoconservative stranglehold on the GOP."

During his Senate hearing opening statement Hagel said that he endorsed use of American military power, supported Israel and supported using special operations forces and unmanned combat aerial vehicles ("drones") on terrorist groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa. He stated "I believe, and always have, that America must engage—not retreat—in the world". During the hearing he explained his 2001 and 2002 votes against unilateral American sanctions on Iran as being for strategic reasons. He said he supported President Obama's drawing down troops in Afghanistan and said he would do "everything possible under current law" to support gay and women service members equal benefits and combat roles.

Since 2018, both Hagel and the University of Nebraska Omaha have held the Chuck Hagel Symposium in Public Service. Also held with the University of Nebraska Omaha, since 2019 Hagel has participated in the "Chuck Hagel Forum in Global Leadership", a forum that explores current global issues, with the inaugural forum hosting both Hagel and former Vice President Joe Biden. The forum is hosted in partnership with the Atlantic Council.

In 2019 Hagel funded the annual Hagel Lecture at the University of Chicago Project for Security and Threats, and on 17 October 2019 gave a keynote speech at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg to address: "How healthy is the ocean’s constitution? 25 Years of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea".

In 2020, Hagel, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term, and "To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."

Hagel, along with more than 100 Republican former national security officials, signed a letter in November 2020 that stated that the delay of the presidential transition imperiled the security of the nation. The 9/11 Commission finding that the shortened transition to the administration of George W. Bush during the disputed 2000 presidential election "hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees" was mentioned in the statement.

Hagel, along with all other former secretaries of defense, nine in total, published a Washington Post op-ed piece in January 2021 telling President Trump not to involve the military in determining the outcome of the 2020 elections.

In 2001, Hagel was awarded the Horatio Alger Award for Distinguished Americans. He was also granted the title of Nebraska Admiral by Nebraska's governor, an honorary title, considering Nebraska is a landlocked state.

On June 7, 2001, Hagel gave the commencement address for North Central College and was given an honorary L.L.D. He was the keynote speaker at the College of William & Mary's Charter Day in 2007, at which he was awarded an honorary degree of Public Service. On March 3, 2008, he led a town meeting on domestic and foreign policy issues at the University of Maryland, at which the Center for American Politics and Citizenship (CAPC) gave him the Millard Tydings Award for Courage and Leadership in American Politics. Hagel served as the 2010 Clifford P. Case Professor of Public Affairs at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics, speaking at public programs in New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey.

Hagel was also the featured speaker at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Chemistry Council at Colorado Springs.