LTG (ret) William Odom, RIP

[RTK]

Passed away on 30MAY08 of an apparent heart attack.

Ran into him at Reagan Airport in October 2006. Though a critic of the war, a great supporter of Soldiers - his son was a BN commander at the time. A great man who I had the pleasure of talking back and forth a number of times over e-mail. Though we disagreed on a number of points, he was always very civil and a great contributor to national security.

Godspeed and good luck, LTG Odom. You will be missed.

[SWJED]

RIP William Odom - Max Boot, Contentions

I was saddened to read of the death of William E. Odom, one of America’s leading soldier-scholars. In recent years he has become known as an outspoken critic of Bush foreign policy and advocate of withdrawal from Iraq. I disagreed with him, and we even debated at least once on the radio. But I never lost my respect or affection for him, formulated initially when, as a graduate student at Yale in 1991-92, I took a class with him on the Russian military. He was a refreshing outpost of pro-military, anti-communist thinking on a campus where neither viewpoint was much encouraged.

Bill Odom spent much of his career as a military intelligence officer specializing in the Soviet Union including serving as a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He went to Columbia to receive an MA and Ph.D. in political science. While there he worked closely with a professor named Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Brzezinski became Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, Odom became his military assistant. He then went on to become a three-star general and director of the National Security Agency in the Reagan administration. He finally retired in 1988 to pursue a career in the twin worlds of academia and think-tankery, which is how I came to know him...

[Tom Odom]

Having the same last name and working in the same field as a guy like LTG Odom had mixed effects. I didn't even know he existed until while on the way to Turkey to take a detachment, I went through my new HQs in DC for orientation. A speedy 7--yes we had them--kept looking at me funny until he ask me, "Sir is the general your Dad?" Odom was the ACSI at the time as I soon learned.

Later as I signed into Khartoum, the DATT looked at me and asked if I was related to General Odom. When I said no, he allowed that was lucky for me. He was a petty SOB and later proved it. He would have proved it sooner, I guess.

Finally my SR in the 5-sided puzzle palace was the director of foreign intel and knew Odom quite well; he loved telling stories about how the general loved setting up pretentious idiots--guess that is why my boss in Khartoum hated him.

I have much appreciated what the general has had to say in the past few years on the wise use of force and the conditions for success. He will be missed.

Tom

[Norfolk]

A few times I had thought of asking if you and the late General were in any way related, Tom. Guess I got the answer, but not in a way that I had hoped.

I never met GEN Odom, although I have read some of his writings and made a special point of watching his TV appearances and taking note of what he had to say. A very impressive, in fact formidable, man and mind. We are rather the worse for his departure.

[Tom Odom]

A few times I had thought of asking if you and the late General were in any way related, Tom. Guess I got the answer, but not in a way that I had hoped.

I never met GEN Odom, although I have read some of his writings and made a special point of watching his TV appearances and taking note of what he had to say. A very impressive, in fact formidable, man and mind. We are rather the worse for his departure.

I would agree with the latter buit could not help on the former...