Our national security is no less essential now, a decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, than it has ever been. It has also become, if anything, more complex and contentious as we engage in one new challenge after another. Few people are more able to assess what national security requires than Frank Carlucci, who has guarded that security from his service in the Navy through a very distinguished career in public service and business.

Mr. Carlucci was Secretary of Defense and National Security Adviser in the Second Reagan Administration. Before that he served as Deputy Secretary of Defense and Deputy Director of the CIA and was Ambassador to Portugal when that country made its transition to a democracy after a long military regime under President Salazar. In addition to his public service in the areas of national security, intelligence and foreign policy, Mr. Carlucci has served as Under Secretary of Health Education and Welfare and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and was the first Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, appointed by President Nixon.

Mr. Carlucci has also had a successful and distinguished career in business. From 1993 to 2003 he was Chairman of The Carlyle Group, a successful private investment company that invested heavily in the defense industry after he joined it in 1989. In the mid-1980s he was Chairman and CEO of Sears World Trade, a trading company subsidiary of Sears Roebuck.

Mr. Carlucci is Chairman Emeritus of Carlyle and the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Neurogen Corporation, and on the boards of directors of SunResorts, Ltd., Encysive Pharmaceuticals (formerly Texas Biotechnology Corporation) and United Defense.

Among the many awards he has received are the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Defense Department Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the James Forrestal Award, the George C. Marshall Award and the State Department Superior Service Award.

Mr. Carlucci graduated from Princeton College and attended Harvard Business School. He is married with three grown children.