Clark Clifford Clark McAdams Clifford ( December 25 , 1906 – October 10 , 1998 ) was an American lawyer who served United States Presidents Harry S . Truman , John F . Kennedy , Lyndon B . Johnson and Jimmy Carter , serving as United States Secretary of Defense for Johnson . In his later years , Clifford became involved in several controversies . He was a key figure in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal , which led to a grand jury indictment . Early life and career . Clifford was born in Fort Scott , Kansas . He attended college and law school at Washington University in St . Louis , Missouri , and built a solid reputation practicing law in St . Louis between 1928 and 1943 . He served as an officer in the U . S . Navy from 1944 to 1946 , reaching the rank of Captain and serving as assistant naval aide and then naval aide to President Truman , for whom he became a trusted personal adviser and friend . Presidential adviser . Clifford went to Washington , D . C . , first to serve as Assistant to the President ' s Naval Adviser , after the naming of a personal friend from Missouri as the President ' s Naval Adviser . Following his discharge from the Navy , he remained at Truman ' s side as White House Counsel from 1946 to 1950 , as Truman came rapidly to trust and rely upon Clifford . Clifford was a key architect of Truman ' s campaign in 1948 , when Truman pulled off a stunning upset victory over Republican nominee Thomas Dewey . Clifford encouraged Truman to embrace a left - wing populist image in hope of undermining the impact on the race of third - party Progressive candidate Henry A . Wallace , who had served as President Franklin D . Roosevelt ' s Vice - President from 1941 to 1945 . Clifford also believed that a strong pro - civil rights stance , while sure to alienate traditional Southern Democrat s , would not result in a serious challenge to the party ' s supremacy in that region . This prediction was foiled by Strom Thurmond ' s candidacy as a splinter States ' Rights Democrat , but Clifford ' s strategy nonetheless helped win Truman election in his own right and establish the Democratic Party ' s position in the Civil Rights Movement . In his role as presidential adviser , one of his most significant contributions was his successful advocacy , along with David Niles , of prompt 1948 recognition of the new " Jewish state " of Israel , over the strong objections of Secretary of State , General George Marshall . Of similar importance , with the input of senior officials in the Departments of State , War , and Justice , the Joint Chiefs of Staff , and the Central Intelligence Group , and utilizing the expertise of George F . Kennan and Charles Bohlen , was his preparation , along with George Elsey , of the top secret Clifford - Elsey Report for President Truman in 1946 . That report , solicited by the President , which detailed the numerous ways in which the Soviet Union had gone back on its various treaties and understandings with the Western powers , along with Kennan ' s X Article in " Foreign Affairs " , was instrumental in turning U . S . relations toward the Soviet Union in the direction of a harder line . After leaving the government in 1950 , Clifford practiced law in Washington , D . C . , but continued to advise Democratic Party leaders . One of his law clients was Kennedy , then a U . S . Senator , and Clifford tried to assuage Truman ' s suspicion of Kennedy and his father , Joseph P . Kennedy . In 1960 , Clifford was a member of President - elect Kennedy ' s Committee on the Defense Establishment , headed by Stuart Symington . In May 1961 , Kennedy appointed Clifford to the President ' s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board , which he chaired beginning in April 1963 and ending in January 1968 . After Johnson became president in November 1963 following Kennedy ' s assassination , Clifford served frequently as an unofficial White House Counsel and sometimes undertook short - term official duties , including a trip with General Maxwell Taylor in 1967 to Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific . Secretary of Defense . On January 19 , 1968 , Johnson announced his selection of Clifford to succeed Robert McNamara as the U . S . Secretary of Defense . Clifford estimated that , in the year just prior to his appointment , he had spent about half of his time advising the President and the other half working for his law firm . Widely known and respected in Washington and knowledgeable on defense matters , Clifford was generally hailed as a worthy successor to McNamara . Many regarded the new secretary as more of a hawk on Vietnam than McNamara , and thought his selection might presage an escalation of the U . S . military effort there . Clifford attempted to allay such fears when , responding to a query about whether he was a hawk ( favoring aggressive military action ) or a dove ( favoring a peaceful resolution to the Vietnam War ) , he remarked , " I am not conscious of falling under any of those ornithological divisions . " The new Secretary did not change the management system McNamara had installed at The Pentagon , and for the most part assigned internal administration to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H . Nitze . Clifford made no effort to depart from McNamara ' s policies and programs on such matters as nuclear strategy , NATO , and military assistance , but he favored the Sentinel anti - ballistic missile system , to which McNamara had given only lukewarm backing . Clifford wanted to deploy the system , and supported congressional appropriations for it . One important effect of Sentinel construction , he thought , would be to encourage the Soviet Union to enter arms control talks with the U . S . Indeed , before Clifford left office , the Johnson administration made arrangements for negotiations that eventually led to the Anti - Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 . Clifford continued McNamara ' s highly publicized Cost Reduction Program , announcing that over $ 1 . 2 billion had been saved in fiscal year ( FY ) 1968 as a result of the effort . Faced with a congressionally mandated reduction of expenditures in FY 1969 , Clifford suspended the planned activation of an infantry division and deactivated 50 small ships , 9 naval air squadrons , and 23 Nike - Hercules missile launch sites . By the time Clifford became secretary , Defense Department work on the fiscal year 1969 budget was complete . It amounted in total obligational authority to $ 77 . 7 billion , almost $ 3 billion more than in FY 1968 . The final FY 1970 budget , which Clifford and his staff worked on before they left office after the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency , amounted to $ 75 . 5 billion TOA . Vietnam . Clifford took office committed to rethinking Johnson ' s Vietnam policies , and Vietnam policy consumed most of his time . He had argued against escalation in 1965 in private counsel with the president , but then provided public support for the president ' s position once the decision was made . At his confirmation hearing , he told the Armed Services Committee of the U . S . Senate that the limited objective of the U . S . was to guarantee to the people of South Vietnam the right of self - determination . He opposed ending the U . S . bombing of North Vietnam at the time , but acknowledged that the situation could change . In fact , on March 31 , 1968 , just a month after Clifford arrived at The Pentagon , Johnson , in an effort to get peace talks started , ordered the cessation of bombing north of the 20th parallel , an area comprising almost 80 percent of North Vietnam ' s land area and 90 percent of its population . In the same address , Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection in 1968 , surprising everyone , Clifford included . Soon the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiations , which began in Paris in mid - May 1968 . Later , on October 31 , 1968 , to encourage the success of these talks , the President , with Clifford ' s strong support , ordered an end to all bombing in North Vietnam . Clifford , like McNamara , had to deal with frequent requests for additional troops from military commanders in Vietnam . When he became secretary , the authorized force in Vietnam was 525 , 000 . Soon after moving into his Pentagon office , Clifford persuaded Johnson to deny General William Westmoreland ' s request for an additional 206 , 000 American troops in Vietnam . At the end of March 1968 , however , the president agreed to send 24 , 500 more troops on an emergency basis , raising authorized strength to 549 , 500 , a figure never reached . Even as he oversaw a continued buildup , Clifford preferred to emphasize the points Johnson had made in his March 31 , 1968 address : that the South Vietnamese army could take over a greater share of the fighting , that the administration would place an absolute limit on the number of U . S . troops in Vietnam , and that it would take steps , including the bombing restrictions , to reduce the combat level . Eventually Clifford moved very close , with Johnson ' s tacit support , to the views McNamara held on Vietnam just before he left office — no further increases in U . S . troop levels , support for the bombing halt , and gradual disengagement from the conflict . By this time Clifford clearly disagreed with Secretary of State Dean Rusk , who believed , according to " The Washington Post , " " that the war was being won by the allies " and that it " would be won if America had the will to win it . " He later recalled how he turned against the war : " I found out that we couldn ’ t win the war with the limitations that we had , which I thought were correct limitations , and I thought all we were going to do was just waste the lives of our men and our treasure out in the jungles of North and South Vietnam . " After he left office , Clifford , in the July 1969 issue of " Foreign Affairs , " made his views very clear : " Nothing we might do could be so beneficial . . . as to begin to withdraw our combat troops . Moreover . . . we cannot realistically expect to achieve anything more through our military force , and the time has come to begin to disengage . That was my final conclusion as I left the Pentagon . . . " Clifford received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Johnson on the President ' s last day in office , January 20 , 1969 . Although the Johnson Administration ended under the cloud of the Vietnam War , Clifford concluded his short term as Secretary of Defense with his reputation actually enhanced . He got along well with the U . S . Congress , and this helped him to secure approval of at least some of his proposals . He settled into his duties quickly and efficiently , and capably managed the initial de - escalation of U . S . involvement in Vietnam ; indeed , he apparently strongly influenced Johnson in favor of a de - escalation strategy . As he left office to return to his law practice in Washington , Clifford expressed the hope and expectation that international tensions would abate , citing the shift in the Vietnam confrontation from the battlefield to the conference table , and the evident willingness of the Soviet Union to discuss limitations on strategic nuclear weapons . Special presidential emissary to India . Clifford ' s legal practice and lobbying work made him wealthy , and he was considered one of Washington ' s " superlawyers " due to the reach of his influence and seemingly limitless connections . Clifford ' s office overlooked the White House , emphasizing his long experience in the capital . Clifford was renowned for his seemingly effortless charm , style , tact and discretion . In 1980 , President Carter appointed him as special presidential emissary to India . Clifford made waves by threatening the newly established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran with war for its intransigence in negotiating the release of the hostages seized from the U . S . embassy in Tehran . He also referred to President Ronald Reagan as an " amiable dunce " at a Washington dinner party . Bank of Credit and Commerce International . In 1991 , Clifford ' s memoirs " Counsel to the President " ( co - authored with Richard Holbrooke , later U . S . Ambassador to the United Nations ) were published just as his name was implicated in the unfolding Bank of Credit and Commerce International ( BCCI ) scandal . The scandal focused on the criminal conduct of the international bank and its control of financial institutions nationwide . The bank was found by regulators in the U . S . and the United Kingdom to be involved in money laundering , bribery , support of terrorism , arms trafficking , the sale of nuclear technologies , the commission and facilitation of tax evasion , smuggling , illegal immigration , and the illicit purchases of banks and real estate . The bank was found to have at least $ 13 billion in unaccounted funds . From 1982 to 1991 , Clifford served as chairman of First American Bankshares , which grew to become the largest bank in Washington , D . C . The bank was nominally owned by a group of Arab investors , but in order to assuage fears from the Federal Reserve , Clifford had assembled a board of distinguished American citizens to exercise day - to - day control . In 1991 , Robert M . Morgenthau , the District Attorney for New York County ( coterminous with the borough of Manhattan ) , disclosed that his office had found evidence that BCCI secretly owned First American . Morgenthau convened a grand jury to determine whether Clifford and his partner , Robert A . Altman , had deliberately misled federal regulators when the two men assured them that BCCI would have no outside control . An audit by Price Waterhouse revealed that contrary to agreements between First American ' s nominal investors and the Federal Reserve , many of the investors had borrowed heavily from BCCI . Even more seriously , they had pledged their First American stock as collateral . When they missed interest payments , BCCI took control of the shares . It was later estimated that in this manner , BCCI had ended up with 60 percent or more of First American ' s stock . There had long been suspicions that First American ' s investors were actually nominees for BCCI . However , the audit was solid confirmation that BCCI secretly — and illegally — owned First American . Clifford ' s predicament worsened when it was disclosed he had made about $ 6 million in profits from bank stock that he had bought with an unsecured loan from BCCI . The grand jury handed up indictments , and the U . S . Justice Department opened its own investigation . Clifford ' s assets in New York City , where he kept most of his investments , were frozen . Clifford insisted that he had no knowledge of illegal activity at First American , and insisted that he himself had been deceived about the extent of BCCI ' s involvement . A " Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate , " prepared by U . S . Senators John Kerry and Hank Brown , noted that a key strategy of " BCCI ' s successful secret acquisitions of U . S . banks in the face of regulatory suspicion was its aggressive use of a series of prominent Americans , " Clifford among them . Clifford , who prided himself on decades of meticulously ethical conduct , summed his predicament up when he sadly told a reporter from " The New York Times " , " I have a choice of either seeming stupid or venal . " Personal life . In 1931 , he and Margery " Marny " Kimball were married . She died in 2000 . Death . Not long after a final , frail appearance in the 1997 PBS television documentary " Truman " , Clifford died from natural causes in 1998 at age 91 . He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery , in Arlington , Virginia .