Former assistant secretary of defense to lecture at Cornell

MOUNT VERNON — Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, will lecture at 11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 30, at Cornell College.

The title of Korb’s talk is “How to Provide for the Common Defense and Secure the Blessings of Liberty at the Same Time.” The lecture is in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.

Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank headed by President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta, and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information. From 1981 through 1985 he served as assistant secretary of defense, administering about 70 percent of the defense budget. Korb served on active duty for four years as a naval flight officer and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He has written 20 books and more than 100 articles on national security issues, appeared on numerous television news programs and published op-ed pieces in many national newspapers.

Before joining the Center for American Progress, Korb held positions at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the University of Pittsburgh and the Raytheon Company.

Korb’s Cornell lecture is sponsored by the politics department and the Lecture, Artists, Cultural Events Consortium.