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L. Paul Bremer III
| Speaker: | L. Paul Bremer III |
| Date: | March 24, 2006. |
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Bremer was educated at New Canaan Country School and Phillips Academy. He graduated from Yale University in 1963, and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University in 1966. He later continued his education at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, where he earned a Certificate of Political Studies (CEP).
That same year he joined the Foreign Service, which sent him first to Kabul, Afghanistan as a general officer. He was assigned to Blantyre, Malawi, as economic and commercial officer from 1968 to 1971.
During the 1970s, Bremer held various domestic posts with the State Department, including posts as an assistant to Henry Kissinger from 1972-76. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Oslo from 1976-79, returning to the US to take a post of Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State, where he remained from 1979-81. In 1981 he was promoted to Executive Secretary and Special Assistant to Alexander Haig.
Ronald Reagan appointed Bremer as Ambassador to the Netherlands in 1983 and Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism in 1986. Bremer retired from the Foreign Service in 1989 and became managing director at Kissinger and Associates, a worldwide consulting firm founded by Henry Kissinger. A Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, Bremer received the State Department Superior Honor Award, two Presidential Meritorious Service Awards, and the Distinguished Honor Award from the Secretary of State. Before rejoining government in 2003, he was Chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, a risk and insurance services firm which is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., a trustee on the Economic Club of New York, and a board member of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Akzo Nobel NV, the Harvard Business School Club of New York and The Netherlands-America Foundation. He served on the International Advisory Boards of Komatsu Corporation and Chugai Pharmaceuticals.
Bremer was appointed Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in 1999. He also served on the National Academy of Science Commission examining the role of Science and Technology in countering terrorism. Bremer and his wife were the founders of the Lincoln/Douglass Scholarship Foundation, a Washington-based not for profit organization that provides high school scholarships to inner city youths.
On the day Al-Qaeda terrorists crashed two hijacked American commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, Bremer and 1,700 of his employees at Marsh & McLennan had offices in both towers. Bremer's office was in the South Tower. He and his people occupied floors at and above where the second aircraft hit. At the time of his television interview with CNN on September 14, 2001, 450 of his people were unaccounted for; 295 were eventually counted as dead.
In late 2001, along with former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Bremer co-chaired the Heritage Foundation's Homeland Security Task Force, which created a blueprint for the White House's Department of Homeland Security. For two decades Bremer has been a regular at Congressional hearings and is recognized as an expert on terrorism and internal security. Some of Bremer's published work includes "Warfare & Defence Military Science Alliance Response to Nuclear Weapons Proliferation", "The Alliance Response to Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Deterrence, Defense, and Cooperative Options", and "Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism: Report from the National Commission on Terrorism", a New York Times article "What I Really Said About Iraq", and his first book, "My Year In Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope".
Bremer was awarded on December 14, 2004 the Presidential Medal of Freedom,America's highest civil award for "especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." "He was also presented with the Department of Defense award for Distinguished Public Service and the Nixon Library honored him with the "Victory of Freedom Award" for "demonstrating leadership and working towards peace and freedom."
Bremer is married to the former Frances Winfield. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.
*from www.wikipedia.com
