Frank Carlucci Frank Charles Carlucci III ( born October 18 , 1930 ) served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan . Prior to that , Carlucci served in a variety of senior - level governmental positions , including Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Richard Nixon administration , Deputy Director of the CIA in the Jimmy Carter administration , and Deputy Secretary of Defense and National Security Adviser in the Reagan administration . Early life and career . Carlucci was born in Scranton , Pennsylvania , the son of Roxanne ( née Bacon ) and Frank Charles Carlucci , Jr . , an insurance broker . His father was of Italian and Swiss descent . He graduated from Wyoming Seminary in 1948 and Princeton University in 1952 , where he roomed with Donald Rumsfeld , and attended Harvard Business School for an MBA in 1954 - 55 . He was a Naval officer from 1952 - 54 . He joined the Foreign Service , working for the State Department from 1956 until 1969 . In 1961 he participated in a CIA mission to Congo . According to James Schlesinger , following the death of Patrice Lumumba , the new Prime Minister of the Congo , Cyrille Adoula , began a meeting with President John F . Kennedy with the question " Ou est Carlucci ? " ( Where is Carlucci ? ) , who first responded " Who the hell is Carlucci ? ' " and then sent Dean Rusk to find him . In the year 2000 , a film called " Lumumba " portrayed him as being involved during his service in Congo in the murder of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba . Carlucci furiously denied the charges , and successfully went to court to prevent being named in the film when it was released in the United States . Administration . During the early 1970s Donald Rumsfeld became Mr . Carlucci ' s protégé as Mr . Carlucci showed him the ropes . In 1969 , when President Nixon persuaded Rumsfeld to leave his congressional seat to become director of the Office of Economic Opportunity ( OEO ) , the agency created by R . Sargent Shriver to fight President Johnson ' s War on Poverty , Rumsfeld had Carlucci transferred to OEO from the State Department to head up the Community Action Program . Carlucci was Undersecretary of Health , Education and Welfare when Caspar Weinberger was secretary during the Nixon administration . Carlucci became Ambassador to Portugal , and served in this position from 1974 until 1977 . He is still very fondly remembered in Portugal among the winners of the November 25 Coup d ' État . Carlucci was Deputy Director of the CIA from 1978 – 1981 , under CIA Director Stansfield Turner . Carlucci was deputy defense secretary from 1981 until 1983 , national security advisor from 1986 until 1987 , and defense secretary in 1987 , following the resignation of Weinberger , his nomination by President Ronald Reagan and his confirmation in the Senate by a vote of 91 to 1 . He was reportedly less hard - line in policies toward the Soviet Union than Weinberger . He served as Secretary of Defense until the end of the Reagan administration on January 20 , 1989 . On January 5 , 2006 , he participated in a meeting at the White House of former Secretaries of Defense and State to discuss United States foreign policy with Bush administration officials . Post - Administration work . Business . Carlucci served as chairman of the Carlyle Group from 1992 – 2003 , and chairman emeritus until 2005 . He also has business interests in the following companies : General Dynamics , Westinghouse , Ashland Oil , Neurogen , CB Commercial Real Estate , Nortel , BDM International , Quaker Oats , and Kaman . Carlucci is Chairman of Envion USA , and former director of Wackenhut . He is a co - founder and senior member of the Frontier Group , a private equity investment firm co - founded by David Robb ( formerly with The Carlyle Group ) and to which Sanford McDonnell and Norm Augustine are senior advisors . Frontier Group is the principal investor in Utopia Residences ( http : / / www . utopiaresidences . com ) , which has ordered the Utopia ocean liner [ see " A Cruise That Never Ends " . http : / / www . forbes . com / 2009 / 12 / 01 / asia - biggest - cruise - ship - lifestyle - travel - samsung . html ? feed = rss _ asia . Retrieved 2009 - 12 - 21 . ] . Carlucci is an Advisory board member of G2 Satellite Solutions and the Chairman Emeritus of Nortel Networks . Organizations . He is affiliated with the Project for the New American Century , or PNAC , a conservative thinktank . He formerly sat on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Policy Council . He is Chairman Emeritus of the US - Taiwan Business Council . Carlucci is a member of the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and founding co - chair of the Advisory Board for RAND ' s Center for Middle East Public Policy . He is also a member of the Honorary Board of the Drug Policy Alliance , a group which advocates drug legalization . Controversy . Involvement during The Congo Crisis . Patrice Lumumba , the first prime minister of independent Congo , was assassinated in January 1961 during The Congo Crisis . During that time , Carlucci was the second secretary at the US embassy in the Congo and , covertly , a CIA agent . His participation in Lumumba ' s assassination is implied with the release of US government documents revealing that President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the CIA to murder Lumumba . Minutes of an August 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles to " eliminate " the Congolese leader . The official note taker , Robert H . Johnson , testified to this before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975 . During a broadcast on HBO of the film Lumumba , directed by Raoul Peck , the name of Carlucci was bleeped and removed from the credits due to the ex - CIA official ' s lawsuit threat . Carlucci ’ s lawyers threatened Peck and distribution company Zeitgeist Films with legal action if the name of the former US official was not bleeped out of a scene that shows American Ambassador Clare Timberlake and Carlucci , along with Belgian and Congolese officials , plotting Lumumba ’ s assassination .