Carlucci, Frank Charles (1930- )

US politician. A former diplomat and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he was national security adviser 1986-87 and defence secretary 1987-89 under President Ronald Reagan, supporting Soviet-US arms reduction.

Educated at Princeton and Harvard universities, Carlucci, after fighting in the Korean War, was a career diplomat during the later 1950s and 1960s. He returned to the USA in 1969 to work under presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter, his posts including US ambassador to Portugal and deputy director of the CIA. An apolitical Atlanticist, Carlucci found himself out of step with the hawks (pro-war advisers) in the Reagan administration, and left to work in industry after barely a year as deputy secretary of defence. In December 1986, after the Irangate scandal, he replaced John Poindexter as national security adviser.