Brown, Harold (1927-2019), served as secretary of defense from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. Brown was the first scientist and expert on nuclear weapons to head the Department of Defense.
Brown was born on Sept. 19, 1927, in New York City. He graduated from high school at the age of 15 and earned a Ph.D. degree in physics from Columbia University at the age of 21.
In 1950, Brown became a research scientist at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1952, the university opened what is now the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a nuclear weapons design center in Livermore, California, and Brown moved to the laboratory. There, he directed work on the Polaris missile and other weapons. Brown became head of the laboratory in 1960.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy named Brown director of defense research and engineering. From 1965 to 1969, Brown served as secretary of the Air Force under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He then became president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Brown helped arrange the 1972 SALT agreement with the Soviet Union to limit nuclear weapons. Brown died on Jan. 4, 2019.
