Harvard expert nominated for key Pentagon post

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- President Obama late this afternoon nominated Harvard professor Ashton B. Carter, a leading authority on arms control, to take on a surprising new role, according to top administration officials -- as the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer.

The choice of Carter to run the office that oversees hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons and research -- and the focus of intense lobbying by defense firms, retired generals, and members of Congress -- has been rumored for weeks. And word of his pending nomination has already sparked concern within the defense industry and some of the Pentagon bureaucracy.

But that may be exactly what Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates want.

Unlike most of his predecessors selected to be under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Carter has no professional ties to America's arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent his career in government procurement. Instead, from his perch at Harvard's Kennedy School, Carter has been criticizing the Pentagon for buying too many armaments it doesn't need, decrying what he calls a lack of discipline and "failure to take account of cost growth in weapons systems and defense services."

A trained scientist with a doctorate in theoretical physics and a degree in Medieval history, Carter's advocates say the long-time Harvard professor and national security specialist is being chosen because his combination of technical expertise and knowledge of defense strategy will be needed to make what Gates calls "difficult choices" about which weapons programs to invest in and which ones to terminate.

"He is not being brought in to help the defense industry thrive," said Loren Thompson, president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank. "He is being brought in to decide what we need and what we can do without."

At a "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House today, Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee last year, highlighted serious cost overruns in the Pentagon budget as part of cutting the federal deficit, and said "tough decisions" on procurement need to be made as the country also pays for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"This is going to be one of our highest priorities," Obama replied.

Almost immediately after rumors surfaced that Carter was being considered for the high-profile job, Pentagon contractors and military procurement officials began waging a whisper campaign to raise doubts about the choice.

Some of them contend that Carter requires a special waiver from Obama in order to hold the post, citing an obscure law that asserts the candidate should have acquisition experience. (By contrast, the White House had to grant an ethics waiver to allow William Lynn III to become Gates's deputy because he was so close to the industry, having been a lobbyist for Waltham-based Raytheon.)

One former Pentagon acquisition chief and industry executive said he believes such experience is crucial to doing an effective job. "Having been in a factory and understanding the development process is what we were looking for," said the former official, who asked not to be identified because he was criticizing a presidential appointee.

But former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who drew up the original qualifications for the post as a member of the so-called Packard Commission in the 1980s, believes the language is being misused by those opposed to Carter's nomination and who fear he will buck the status quo.

The intent, he said, was to ensure the job wasn't filled by a political ally of the president with little or no experience in military matters, said Perry, who hired Carter for a top Pentagon policy position in the 1990s.

"Having held that job and supervised two different people who had that job I think I am pretty qualified to say who is qualified," Perry said in an interview. "My judgment is that a waiver is not required for Ash."