Dov S. Zakheim is Corporate Vice President of System Planning Corporation (SPC), a high technology, research, analysis, and manufacturing firm based in Arlington, Virginia. He is also Chief Executive Officer of SPC International Corporation, a subsidiary of SPC that specializes in political, military and economic consulting, and international sales and analysis. In addition, Dr. Zakheim serves as Consultant to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He is an Adjunct Scholar of the Heritage Foundation, and a Senior Associate of the Center for International and Strategic Studies.
From 1985 until March 1987, Dr. Zakheim was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Planning and Resources. In that capacity, he played an active role in the Department's system acquisition and strategic planning processes. Dr. Zakheim also guided Department of Defense policy in a number of international economic fora including the US-USSR Commercial Commission; the Caribbean Basin Initiative; and the Canadian-US Free Trade Agreement. He also successfully negotiated numerous arms cooperation agreements with various US allies.
Dr. Zakheim. also served the Reagan Administration in a variety of other senior Department of Defense posts from 1981 through 1985. He had previously been Principal Analyst with the National Security and International Affairs Division of the Congressional Budget Office.
A graduate of Columbia University, New York, where he earned his B.A., Surnma Cum Laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Dr. Zakheim also studied at the London School of Economics. Dr. Zakheim earned his doctorate in economics and politics at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, a Columbia College Kellett Fellow, and a post-doctoral Research Fellow. He has served as Adjunct Professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University and at Columbia University. He is currently Presidential Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Dr. Zakheim served for two terms as a Presidential appointee to the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. In 1997 he was appointed by Secretary of Defense Cohen to the Task Force on Defense Reform. In May 1999 Secretary Cohen named him to the first Board of Visitors of the Department of Defense Overseas Regional Schools.
Dr. Zakheim writes, lectures, and provides radio and television commentary on national defense and foreign policy issues both domestically and internationally, including appearances on major US network news telecasts, McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, Larry King Live, BBC Arab and World Service. and Israeli, Swedish, and Japanese television. He is an editorial board member of Israel Affairs and of The Round Table (the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs), and serves on review panels for the Wilson Center for International Scholars, the United States Institute of Peace, and the U.S. Naval Institute. He is the author of Flight of the Lavi: Inside a US.-Israeli Crisis (Brassey's, 1996), Congress and National Security in the Post Cold War Era (The Nixon Center, 1998), and numerous articles and chapters in books. Dr. Zakheim is also a trustee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute; serves on the Board of Directors of Search for Common Ground, and of Friends of the Jewish Chapel of the United States Naval Academy; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and other professional organizations. Dr. Zakheim is a member of the advisory boards of the Center for Security Policy, the Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East, and the American Jewish Committee.Dr. Zakheim is the recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal (1986), the Bronze Palm to the DoD Distinguished Public Service Medal (1987) and of the Congressional Budget Office Director's Award for Outstanding Service (1979), and the SPC Director's Award for Outstanding Service (1997).