“The General’s Conscience” From The Washington Post, 12/07 © 1996 Washington Post Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited. Photograph of Dangerous Military Activities Agreement signing ceremony by permission of R. William Smullen. All other interior images - George Lee Butler. All rights reserved - used with permission. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opin- ions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book. Uncommon Cause - Volume I A Life at Odds with Convention The Formative Years All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2016 General George Lee Butler, United States Air Force, Retired v10.0 Cover Illustration © 2016 Victor Guiza/Outskirts Press, Inc. All rights reserved - used with permission. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quota- tions embodied in critical articles and reviews. Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com ISBN: 978-1-4787-0965-7 Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. The Road Not Taken Robert Frost For my children, Brett and Lisa, Who deserve to know their father better and For my wife, Dorene, Who knows me all too well About the Author General Lee Butler is retired from careers in military service, business and a public foundation. He and his wife, Dorene, live in Laguna Beach, California. He served from 1991 to 1994 as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Strategic Command and its predecessor organization, Strategic Air Command. In these positions, he was responsible for employment of the nation’s nuclear bombers and land- and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, develop- ing nuclear weapon target plans, and advising the President on responses to nuclear attack on the United States. Lee’s military career spanned five decades, encompassing a wide variety of command and staff assignments. He is a rated pilot, navigator and parachut- ist with over 3,000 hours of flying time in a dozen types of aircraft. He was born in 1939 at Fort Benning, Georgia, grew up in an Army family, graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1961, served as an instructor pilot, and then attended the Institut d’Études Politiques, in Paris, France, as an Olmsted Scholar, earning a master’s degree in International Affairs. Following gradua- tion in 1967, he served one year in Vietnam, first in combat as an F-4C pilot and then as aide-de-camp to General George Brown, the theater air war com- mander, who later became Air Force Chief of Staff, and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On returning to the United States, Lee served three years on the faculty of the Political Science Department of the Air Force Academy as an instructor, then as an assistant professor of Political Science. During this period, he also served in the Executive Office of the President of the United States as a special assistant to the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, responsible for helping to manage President Nixon’s 1971-72 Economic Stabilization Program. His subsequent assignments included 1) flying cargo aircraft, 2) an initial Pentagon tour, 3) an initial tour in Strategic Air Command (SAC), 4) a second Pentagon tour, in the office of the Air Force Chief of Staff, 5) consecutive as- signments as commander of SAC heavy bomber wings, 6) a third Pentagon tour, as Director of Air Force Operations, 7) and then Director of Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5) on the Joint Staff. His early Washington tours included responsibilities for strategic arms i control negotiations, Congressional interaction, weapons systems acquisi- tion and direction of operational forces. While on the Joint Staff, from 1987 to 1991, he was engaged in the historic events leading to the end of the Cold War, serving under Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J. Crowe and General Colin L. Powell. In January, 1991, he was promoted to his fourth star and named commander of the Air Force’s strategic nuclear forces. His awards and medals include the Bronze Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, and the Distinguished Service Medals of the Air Force and the Department of Defense, as well as awards from the governments of France and Germany. Lee retired from active military service in 1994. He then joined Peter Kiewit Sons, Inc., a privately-held Fortune 500 company based in Omaha, Nebraska, as President of Kiewit Energy Group, with responsibilities for projects in the United States and South Asia. Following the divestiture of the Group’s energy holdings in 1998, Lee left Kiewit. Remaining in Omaha, he and his wife Dorene subsequently formed the Second Chance Foundation, a public non-profit entity dedicated to promoting responsible reduction of the residual dangers posed by nuclear weapons in the aftermath of the Cold War. The couple also established the Dorene and Lee Butler Family Foundation to support their philanthropy. Lee was for many years a director of the George and Carol Olmsted Foundation. He was also a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the United States National Academy of Science’s Committee on International Security and Arms Control, the 1996 Canberra Commission, the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission, and numerous civic boards in Omaha. ii A Wife for All Seasons Dorene Sue Nunley met Cadet Lee Butler in March of 1961 when he was a senior at the Air Force Academy and she was a junior at Los Angeles State College. They married on August 25, 1962, moved thirty times in thirty-eight years, and finally settled in Laguna Beach, California, in early 2000. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Dorene lived in several towns in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico before her family moved permanently to Norwalk, California. She worked at Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland to finance her studies at California’s Cerritos Junior College and at Los Angeles State College (now California State University Los Angeles). As a devoted wife and mother, Dorene rose to the challenge of Lee’s fre- quent reassignments, schools and training programs, relocating time and again to such varied locations as Arizona, Alabama, France, Colorado, California (three times), New York, Texas (three times), Washington, D.C. (four times), and Nebraska (twice). Dorene has been an active proponent of the military family from her earli- est days as an Air Force wife. Later in Lee’s career, she served as a co-facilitator of the coordinating committee for the first Air Force Family Conference and as a member of the landmark Spouse Issues Group that brought family policy to the forefront of Air Force priorities. That achievement led to the establishment of Family Support Centers, now a fixture on Air Force bases. She subsequently served on Secretary of Defense William Perry’s Task Force for Military Family Issues. Her years of experience as a volunteer honed the skills she brought to two businesses: The Dorene Butler Agency, which engaged speakers and work- shop leaders for corporate conventions, and civic and social organizations; and Hospitality America, which offered innovative programs for spouses of con- ventioneers. Dorene was also employed in public relations for a department store and as a recruiter for an international personnel placement firm. Her active involvement in the Omaha Community Playhouse during the Butlers’ first Nebraska assignment earned two “Volunteer of the Year” awards. She and her husband were also recognized by the Salvation Army with their “Others” award. She was a trustee at the Joslyn Museum, a member of the iii National Military Family Association, active in the Military Impacted Schools Association, and was on the advisory board for the Salvation Army and the Durham Western Heritage Museum. She was Omaha’s representative to “The President’s Summit for America’s Future.” Dorene resumed her active volun- teer life in her present hometown of Laguna Beach, California, serving on the boards of the Boys and Girls Club and the Senior Center. Dorene and Lee have a son, Brett, and a daughter, Lisa. Brett graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1985, served four years as an of- ficer in the Air Force, and then attended Harvard Business School. He is mar- ried to the former Patti Blake. Their blended family includes Madison, Jake, Katie, and Colleen, all out of school and into the real world. Brett began his business career with Procter and Gamble, worked in global product marketing for IDEXX Laboratories, and served for sixteen years in a variety of sales, strat- egy and marketing positions for the printer company Lexmark International in Lexington, KY. Patti was the driving force behind a family candle-making busi- ness, Woodford Wicks, following a career in private and public business. They have now relocated to Northern California where Brett is building a Baptist ministry. Lisa is a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles and Samuel Merritt Nursing School. Following a stint in the business world, she married fellow Californian Michael Herring, also a UCLA alumnus. Mike has been em- ployed in a number of companies, most recently as an executive vice president of Adobe Systems, and now as chief financial officer for Pandora, Inc., head- quartered in Oakland, California.