Walter B. Slocombe is the Secretary, Director, and member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council and a Senior Counsel at the Washington, D.C., law firm Caplin & Drysdale. He has over 50 years’ experience, including many years with the Defense Department, and has developed particular expertise in legal and ethical considerations in information operations.
Walter B. Slocombe is the Secretary, Director, and member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council and a Senior Counsel at the Washington, D.C., law firm Caplin & Drysdale.
Previously, he has served as Senior Advisor for National Security and Defense in the Coalition Provisional Authority for Iraq, and as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Before that, he served in the Defense Department as Principal Deputy Under Secretary, Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Planning, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, and as Director of the DOD Task Force on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). He was also a member of the staff of the National Security Council.
He has been a member of the State Department International Security Advisory Board, the Commission on Intelligence Capabilities Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Defense Policy Board, and he has served various National Academies of Sciences committees.
He has particular expertise in legal and ethical considerations in information operations, and ballistic missile defense.
Slocombe received his education at Princeton University, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and at Harvard Law School.