Stephen Jaffe / Getty Images
Stephen Jaffe / Getty Images
loading...

Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger is dead at the age of 85.  The "Washington Post" reports Schlesinger passed away today at a Baltimore hospital after a battle with pneumonia. 

Schlesinger served as Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.  He later became the nation's first Secretary of Energy under President Jimmy Carter.

Schlesinger also headed up the CIA under President Richard Nixon for a brief time in 1973.  In recent years, he was a trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

More From WBSM-AM/AM 1420