Caspar Weinberger
American politician (1917-2006)
Caspar Willard Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman who served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades as a Republican, most notably as Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987. During the Iran–Contra investigation, he was indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing government investigations but was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush before facing trial.
Weinberger was a member of the California State Assembly from 1953 to 1959. He also served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He later became vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation.
Weinberger's tenure as Secretary of Defense was marked by his hard line against the Soviet Union, in disagreement with the State Department. He promoted the Strategic Defense Initiative, an orbital weapons program. Weinberger was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and an honorary British knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. In 1993, he became Chairman of Forbes magazine.
Early life
Weinberger was born on August 18, 1917, in San Francisco, the younger of two sons of Herman Weinberger (1886–1944), an attorney, and Cerise Carpenter Weinberger (née Hampson; 1886–1975), a music teacher. His father was of Jewish descent from Bohemia of Austria-Hungary, while his maternal grandparents were of Christian descent from Wisconsin.
“Caspar Weinberger” enters the record as american politician (1917-2006). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Caspar, Weinberger and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Caspar Weinberger” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Caspar, Weinberger and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q434142. VIAF identifies the subject as 109398845. The Library of Congress control number is n50020964. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2006, 1981 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Caspar Weinberger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.