Walter B. Slocombe


Walter Becker Slocombe is a former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and was the Senior Advisor for Security and Defence to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.
A lawyer and career federal official, Slocombe joined the staff of the National Security Council in 1969. Prior to that, he worked as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Slocombe currently sits on the Board of Directors at the , is a four-time recipient of an award for Distinguished Public Service and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He currently practices law with the Washington firm of Caplin & Drysdale.

Education

Slocombe received a B.A. from Princeton University in 1963, where he received the Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an undergraduate. Slocombe was also a Rhodes scholar, studying at the University of Oxford from 1963–1965. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1968 and was admitted to the bar in 1970.

U.S. Government service