Fred C. Iklé

Fred C. Iklé    (deep state operative)
Born	21 August 1924
Died	10 November 2011 (Age 87)
Nationality	US
Member of	Center for Security Policy/National Security Advisory Council, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Le Cercle, Project for the New American Century, RAND/Notable Participants
US/Under Secretary of Defense for Policy  Dates unknown Under Reagan

Fred C. Iklé was US Deep state operative. He was employed as Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Reagan Administation.

Background

From 1964 to 1967, Iklé was Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reagan Administration

According to Frances Fitzgerald, Caspar Weinberger's lack of experience in the portfolio meant that the appointments to the Department of Defense were heavily influenced by Senate Republicans and conservative campaign advisors. Iklé's appointment was one product of this, as were the appointments of John Lehman, Jr. and Richard Perle. All three had been allies in the seventies and involved with the Committee on the Present Danger.

Iklé complained about the CIA's Office of Soviet Analysis after it revised down its estimate of Soviet military spending in 1983.

SDI

In 1985, Iklé told the Senate Armed Services Committee: "The Strategic Defense Initiative is not an optional program, at the margin of the defense effort. It's central, at the very core of our long term policy for reducing the risk of nuclear war." In April 1985, after a Pentagon report raised doubts about the admissibility of SDI under the ABM Treaty, Iklé and Perle hired Philip Kunsberg, a New York lawyer with no experience of arms control, who reached a contrary opinion.

Afghanistan

From early 1985, Iklé was an influential member of the Policy Review Group which controlled US covert action in Afghanistan. At one meeting that spring he suggested that US planes should drop weapons into Afghanistan by parachute.

Someone asked: What if the Russians begin shooting down the U.S. planes and ignite World War III? "Hmmm," Iklé answered, according to Thomas Twetten, a senior officer in the CIA's clandestine service. "World War III. That's not such a bad idea." If he said such a thing , Ikle said later, he must have been kidding. But Twetten remembered "a roomful of dumbstruck people."

Iklé and Michael Pillsbury visited Islamabad on 30 April 1985 to brief ISI chief General Akhtar Abdur Rahman on the planned expansion of US covert action in Afghanistan.

Affiliations

• RAND Corporation
• U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency - Director 1973-1977
• Republican National Committee - Chairman of Advisory Council on International Security, 1977-1978
• Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy - Co-chair 1987
• Center for Strategic and International Studies - Distinguished Scholar
• Defense Policy Board - Member
• Smith Richardson Foundation - Governor
• U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea - Director
• Center for Security Policy - Advisory board member
• CMC Energy Services - chairman
• National Endowment for Democracy - Former director
• National Commission on Terrorism - Commissioner 1999-2000
• Telos Corporation - Former director and chairman
• Zurich Financial Services - Former Director of the Advisory Board

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Colloquium on Analysis and Estimates	30 November 1979	1 December 1979		Spooky 1979 Washington conference
Colloquium on Intelligence Requirements for the 1990s	4 December 1987	5 December 1987		Spooky 1987 conference
Le Cercle/1985 (Washington)	7 January 1985	10 January 1985	US Washington DC	4 day meeting of Le Cercle in Washington exposed after Joel Van der Reijden discovered the attendee list for this conference and published it online in 2011

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