Caspar Weinberger, who served as US defence secretary under President Ronald Reagan, has died in a hospital in Bangor, Maine. He was 88.
Born in San Francisco on 18 August, 1917, he graduated from Harvard law school in 1941 and entered the US army the same year, serving in the Pacific.
He was chairman of the Republican Party in 1962, before becoming chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1970 and serving as deputy director and later director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Between 1973 and 1975, he took on the roles of secretary of health, education and welfare before returning to the private sector to work for the Bechtel Group.
Caspar Weinberger was defence secretary from 1982 to 1987, 'an indefatigable fighter for peace through strength', according to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking tonight of the former Cold War warrior.
Mr Weinberger was a proponent of the US administration's Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, military program, which he saw as an alternative to the mutual assured destruction policy previously held by the US and the Soviet Union.
