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James Daniel Howard (born August 24, 1943) was Special Assistant to President of the United States Ronald Reagan from July 1986 to February 1988, United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs from February 1988 to May 1989 and Under Secretary of the Navy from 1989 to 1993.
Howard was born August 24, 1943, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving in Japan from 1961 to 1965. Upon leaving the Marines, he enrolled at the University of Chattanooga, receiving a B.A. in 1969. After college, Howard moved to Denver to work as a field representative for the American Red Cross. He later returned to school, enrolling at the University of Tennessee and receiving an M.A. in 1972. He then moved to Washington, D.C. to become a Foreign Service Officer trainee.
Howard's first posting as a member of the United States Foreign Service was in Japan, where he was a language trainee in Yokohama 1974–1975, and then served as director of the American Center in Sapporo from 1975 to 1977. From 1977 to 1980, he was the press attaché of the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo. In 1981–82, he was a cultural affairs officer of the American embassy in Warsaw. During that period martial law was declared in Poland. Howard was detained by the Communist government authorities three times and was ultimately declared persona non grata and expelled in May, 1982. He then went to Cyprus where he was a public affairs officer at the American embassy in Nicosia. He was involved in the evacuation of Americans from nearby Beirut in the wake of the 1983 embassy bombing, the bombing of the embassy annex, and of the bombing of the Marine Barracks. His last two weeks in Cyprus were spent attempting to resolve the TWA Flight 847 hijacking. Howard returned to the United States in 1985 to serve as a public affairs adviser to the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the United States Department of State. He received the State Department's Superior Honor Award for his work on the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986.
In 1986, President of the United States Ronald Reagan named Howard a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the White House where he worked directly for National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci and his deputy, General Colin Powell. Howard focussed on arms control issues and remained through the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in January 1988. He also dealt with many issues associated with the Iran–Contra affair.
On December 21, 1987, President Reagan nominated Howard to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) and Howard would hold this post from February 1988 through May 1989. He worked for Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and dealt with the aftermath of the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S.S. Vincennes and the explosion of a gun mount on the U.S.S. Iowa. He again supported Secretary Carlucci in direct negotiations designed to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union including a historic first visit by a U.S. Secretary of Defense to Moscow and Sevastopol in 1988. He received the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award.
On July 31, 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated Howard as Under Secretary of the Navy. After confirmation by the United States Senate, Howard entered office on August 7, 1989. Howard's time as Under Secretary was dominated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent catastrophic drop in the defense budget, the 1991 Gulf War and the post-war Tailhook scandal.
He took over as Acting Secretary of the Navy in June, 1992 when Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Garrett III was forced to resign by President Bush in the wake of that scandal. Howard immediately ordered a Navy and Marine Corps-wide "standdown" for training designed to prevent sexual harassment. Defense Comptroller Sean O'Keefe replaced him as Acting Secretary the following month. The Department of Defense Inspector General issued a blistering report in September 1992 in which he concluded that Under Secretary Howard, the Naval Inspector General, the Judge Advocate General and the Director of Naval Investigative Service (NIS) had failed to conduct an adequate investigation into allegations of misconduct; had been overly focused on lower ranking personnel; and had been more concerned with protecting the reputation of the United States Navy than with getting to the bottom of the allegations. [1] It was widely speculated that O'Keefe would have Howard (and the Navy IG) resign at the same time that Judge Advocate General Rear Admiral John E. Gordon and NIS Director Rear Admiral Duvall M. Williams, Jr. were ousted for their attempts to turn the Tailhook investigation into a whitewash, but, in a move that drew surprise, O'Keefe announced that he continued to have "complete confidence" in Under Secretary Howard saying that he was much more "sinned against than sinned." [1] As such, Howard served out the rest of the Bush administration and left office on January 20, 1993. Howard retired from the Foreign Service in June, 1993 with the rank of Minister-Counselor and received the Meritorious Honor Award for career achievements.
John Marlan Poindexter is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran–Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. During the George W. Bush administration, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office. He is the father of NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Alan G. Poindexter.
Frank Charles Carlucci III was an American politician who served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He was the first Italian American to serve in that position.
Sean Charles O'Keefe is a university professor at Syracuse University Maxwell School, former chairman of Airbus Group, Inc., former Secretary of the Navy, former Administrator of NASA, and former chancellor of Louisiana State University (LSU). He is a former member of the board of directors of DuPont.
John Francis Lehman Jr. is an American private equity investor and writer who was secretary of the Navy (1981–1987) during the Reagan administration in which he promoted the creation of a 600-ship navy.
Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane was an American Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985. Within the Reagan administration, McFarlane was a leading architect of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a project intended to defend the US from Soviet ballistic missile attacks. He resigned as National Security Adviser in late 1985 because of disagreements with other administration figures but remained involved in negotiations with Iran and with Hezbollah.
The 600-ship Navy was a strategic plan of the United States Navy during the 1980s to rebuild its fleet after cutbacks that followed the end of the Vietnam War. The plan, which originated with Republican leaders, was an important campaign plank of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, who advocated a larger military and strategic confrontation with the Soviet Union.
The United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is the primary investigative law enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of the Navy. Its primary function is to investigate major criminal activities involving the Navy and Marine Corps. However, its broad mandate includes national security, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyberwarfare, and the protection of U.S. naval assets worldwide. NCIS is the successor organization to the former Naval Investigative Service (NIS), which was established by the Office of Naval Intelligence after the Second World War. One-half of NCIS personnel are civilian, with the other half being US government investigators — 1811 series special agents. NCIS agents are armed federal law enforcement investigators, who frequently coordinate with other U.S. government agencies and have a presence in more than 41 countries and on U.S. Navy vessels. NCIS special agents are supported by analysts and other experts skilled in disciplines such as forensics, surveillance, surveillance countermeasures, computer investigations, physical security, and polygraph examinations.
Jonathan Trumbull Howe is a retired four-star United States Navy admiral, and was the Special Representative for Somalia to United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali from March 9, 1993, succeeding Ismat Kittani from Iraq, until his resignation in February 1994. During his time in Somalia he oversaw UNOSOM II operations including the 'Bloody Monday' raid which killed dozens and was a decisive turning point in the UNSOM II mission.
The Tailhook scandal was a military scandal in which United States (U.S.) Navy and U.S. Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and seven men, or otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada. The events took place at the 35th Annual Tailhook Association Symposium from September 5 to 8, 1991. The event was subsequently abbreviated as "Tailhook '91" in media accounts.
The presidency of Ronald Reagan was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president of the United States.
Henry Lawrence Garrett III served as the 68th Secretary of the Navy from May 15, 1989, to June 26, 1992, in the administration of George H. W. Bush. Before leading the Department of the Navy, he served as General Counsel of the Department of Defense.
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Richard Lee Armitage is an American former diplomat and government official. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Armitage served as a U.S. Navy officer in three combat tours of duty in the Vietnam War as a riverine warfare advisor. After leaving active duty, he served in a number of civil-service roles under Republican administrations. He worked as an aide to Senator Bob Dole before serving in various posts in the Defense Department and State Department.
Barbara Spyridon Pope was United States Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1989 to 1993. She came to prominence during the Tailhook scandal for her opposition to the initial investigation conducted by Rear Admiral Duvall M. Williams, Jr., which she felt was a whitewash.
Seymour Weiss was an American diplomat and a high-ranking official at the United States Department of State. He specialized in the fields of nuclear strategy and arms control.
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Roman Popadiuk is an American diplomat of Ukrainian descent. Popadiuk served as the first United States Ambassador to Ukraine under George H. W. Bush, from 1992 to 1993. From 2015 until 2017, he was a principal at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP's subsidiary Morgan Lewis Consulting, and prior to 2015 he was the principal at Bingham Consulting. Since late 2018 Popadiuk has been the president of the Diplomacy Center Foundation which oversees the development of the National Museum of American Diplomacy.
The presidential transition of George H. W. Bush began when then-Vice President Bush won the United States 1988 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 1989.
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