Officers

BOARD OF TRUSTEES
The USACC Board of Trustees is a group of Americans and Azerbaijanis interested in promoting friendship, cooperation and commerce between the American people and the people of Azerbaijan. The Board of Trustees offers its recommendations to the USACC Board of Directors on all matters related to the Chambers programs and activities.

Richard Perle

Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC, 1987 - present

At AEI, Mr. Perle conducts a seminar for news executives, bureau chiefs and editorial writers. He also leads a monthly study group of former senior government officials to monitor and comment on current administration security and foreign policy. Mr. Perle is director of AEI's Commission on Future defenses, project which is exploring the idea that a radical restructuring of American military forces is essential to ensure an effective future defense establishment. He was a chairman of a Council on Foreign Relations study group on non-lethal options in overseas contingencies. The Council's report was published in the spring of 1995. Mr. Perle is called upon frequently to advise members of Congress and to testify at congressional policy hearings. He writes frequently for the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Evening Standard (London), Times Literary Supplement, Jerusalem Post, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio and television in the U.S. and abroad commenting on matters of security and foreign policy and is the author of Hard Line, a political novel.

Consultant to the Secretary of Defense

Consultant to several U.S. and multinational companies

United States Department of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, 1981 - 1987

At his office at the Pentagon, Secretary Perle had responsibility for theater and strategic nuclear weapons policy, trade and technology exports, European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) policy, and negotiations between the United States and its western allies and the Soviet Union.

He served as chairman of a number of U.S. Government inter-agency groups including those concerning arms control, the Strategic Defense Initiative, nuclear testing, chemical weapons, and conventional forces. He was a member of a Senior Arms Control Group, the administration's steering group for arms control policy.

United States Senate Staff, 1969-1980
The Office of Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson
Senate Committee on Government Operations
Committee on Armed Services, Arms Control Subcommittee

While on the Senate Staff, Mr. Perle prepared hearings and publications, drafted legislation and Senate reports, managed legislative strategy and coordinated and wrote speeches for a number of senators. He drafted the Jackson-Vannik Amendment which conditioned trade concessions for the Soviet Union on a liberalization of emigration. He organized the hearings and overall strategy on the SALT I and SALT II treaties in support of senators who opposed, or sought to modify, those agreements.

Before joining the Senate Staff, Mr. Perle served as a consultant to a number of U.S. and overseas companies.

Education
University of Southern California, B.A. International Relations, 1964
Princeton University, M.A. Politics, 1967
London School of Economics, Honors Examinations, 1962-1963

Princeton University
Ford Foundation
Overseas Research Council
American council of Learned Societies
American-Scandinavian Society

Mr. Perle has lectured at many colleges and universities including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, the University of Chicago, the University of California, Georgetown, Amherst, Dartmouth, Tulane, Rice, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oxford University.

Mr. Perle lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland with his wife Leslie and son Jonathan. He enjoys travel, writing, cooking and classical music.