News On Turkey
Ambassador Placed in Pentagon's Number 3 Policy-making Job
Edelman, new defense under secretary, was U.S. envoy in Turkey, Finland
10 August 2005
A senior State Department foreign service officer has been appointed as the under secretary of defense for policy, according to a Defense Department announcement.
Eric Edelman, who most recently had been U.S. ambassador to Turkey, replaces Douglas Feith, a political appointee who announced his resignation near the end of January. Edelman was nominated to his new position on May 16. President Bush signed his recess appointment, used when Congress is not in session, on August 9.
The under secretary for policy is considered the Defense Department's third-highest civilian policy-making position, with only the secretary and the deputy secretary above it.
Edelman joined the State Department's foreign service in 1980 and was promoted into its senior ranks in 1992. This is his second assignment to the Defense Department. He was assistant deputy under secretary of defense for Soviet and East European Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1990 to 1993.
Edelman also had a non-State Department job from 2001 to 2003, serving as Vice President Cheney's principal deputy assistant for national security affairs. He took that assignment after having served as the U.S. ambassador to Finland from 1998 to 2001. Before that he was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, from 1994 to 1996.
He has received the Secretary of Defense's award for Distinguished Civilian Service, and has twice received the State Department's Superior Honor Award. He holds a doctorate in U.S. diplomatic history from Yale.
Edelman's biography is available on the Defense Department’s Web Site.