He then received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School in 1972 where he was Note and Comment Editor of the Yale Law Journal.[6] In law school, Hadley was a classmate to Hillary Clinton.[5] He commissioned as an Ensign into the U.S. Navy through Yale Naval ROTC in 1972.
During the administration of George H. W. Bush, Hadley was a Pentagon aide to Paul Wolfowitz,[7] serving as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1989 to 1993.[8] In that position, he had responsibility for defense policy toward NATO and Western Europe, on nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defense, and arms control. He also participated in policy issues involving export control and the use of space. Hadley served as Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's representative in talks led by Secretary of State James Baker that resulted in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, START I and START II.
Private sector work
During the years in which the Democratic Clinton administration was in power (1993-2001), Hadley was an administrative partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Shea & Gardner, where he had worked earlier in his career. His professional legal practice focused on business problems of U.S. and foreign corporations particularly as they involve international business, regulatory, and strategy issues. These representations included export controls, foreign investment in U.S. national security companies, and the national security responsibilities of U.S. information technology companies.[6]
He was also a principal in The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international consulting firm. In this, he represented U.S. corporate clients seeking to invest and do business overseas.[6]
Hadley (far left) along with Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and President Bush at a Pentagon meeting in March 2003
He was Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor from January 22, 2001. In 2002, Hadley was a member of the White House Iraq Group. On Sept. 9, 2002, Nicolò Pollari gave the forged Niger-Gate documents directly to Stephen Hadley.[10] He admitted fault in allowing a disputed claim about Iraq's quest for nuclear weapons material from Niger to be included in Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union Address (see Niger uranium forgeries). On July 22, 2003, Hadley offered his resignation to Bush because he had "failed in that responsibility" and that "the high standards the president set were not met." Bush denied Hadley's request. Amid this, The Times of London reported that Hadley was Robert Novak's source for Valerie Plame's name in the CIA leak scandal,[11] but this report proved to be false when Richard Armitage admitted that he was Novak's source.[12]
National Security Advisor
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On January 26, 2005, he replaced Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor, upon Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State. In that capacity he was the principal White House foreign policy advisor to President Bush, directed the National Security Council staff, and ran the interagency national security policy development and execution process.[6]
Hadley conferring with President Bush in 2007
In 2007 Hadley led a public media campaign in an effort to convince the public that the proposed Iraq surge would work.[13]
Hadley was known for avoiding focused public attention.[14] In a 2006 profile, The Washington Post described Hadley as "a modest man in an immodest job. In a town populated by people nursing grandiose views of their own importance and scheming for greater glory, Hadley still thinks of himself as a staff man. He sits at the pinnacle of power, but articulates no sweeping personal vision of the world and has made a point of staying in the shadows."[5]
In his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, former president Jimmy Carter recounts that Hadley, in his capacity as national security adviser (Carter calls him by title rather than by name) personally denied Carter permission to visit Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in early 2005, in the wake of the administration's decision to isolate the regime, due its "differences with Syria concerning U.S. policy in Iraq".[15]
Beginning in 2009, Hadley served as senior adviser for international affairs at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC.[16] On January 24, 2014, he was elected chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace.[17] On September 11, 2018, USIP-based Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, of which Hadley is a member,[17] produced the report "Beyond the Homeland: Protecting America from Extremism in Fragile States,[17] "which warns that the United States urgently needs a new approach to stem the spread of violent extremism and previews a comprehensive preventative strategy that focuses on strengthening resilience against extremism in fragile states."[17] Hadley widely promoted the Interim Report in the media, including with United States Institute of Peace president Nancy Lindborg on the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' podcast "Foreign Podicy" hosted by Clifford May.[17][18]
Hadley is a co-founder and principal, along with Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates and Anja Manuel, in RiceHadleyGates, a strategic consulting firm.[19]
In 2013, Hadley was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.[20]
In March 2013, on the ten year anniversary, Hadley gave his views on what had gone wrong and what had been redeemed in terms of the Iraq War.[21]
Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco, CENTCOM Commander Army General Lloyd Austin, and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley chat at King Khaled International Airport, as they await President Obama's arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on January 27, 2015, to extend condolences to the late King Abdullah and call upon and meet with the new King Salman.
Hadley was initially floated as a potential option for Secretary of Defense in the Trump Administration.[24] In this as well as for other positions, it was thought his process knowledge could be beneficial.[25] Instead, in late 2016 he collaborated with Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on a plan for a new course in America's approach to the Middle East.[26]
This article incorporates text from Stephen Hadley's National Security Council biography, which, as a work of the U.S. government, is in the public domain
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