Monday, December 13, 2010

Obama Said to Consider Yale President Levin for NEC Post

President Barack Obama interviewed Yale University President Richard Levin last week for a top economic post, possibly head of the National Economic Council or chairman of his outside advisory board, according to three people familiar with the matter, reports Bloomberg.

Levin is among the top three candidates to replace NEC Director Lawrence Summers, who plans to return to Harvard University at the end of the year, according to an administration official. Obama also is considering Roger Altman, the founder of Evercore Partners Inc., and Gene Sperling, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, for the job.

Levin, 63, has been president of Yale for the last 17 years.

On February 6, 2004, Levin was appointed to the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent panel convened to investigate U.S. intelligence surrounding the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Regarding Iraq, the Commission concluded that the Intelligence Community was wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that this constituted a major intelligence failure.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of American Express which appears to have close ties to the CIA and where Henry Kissinger once served on the board.

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