General Victor Clark This is Me

Education

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1. 1. Maya del Mar's Daykeeper Journal: Alex Miller-Mignone

   www.daykeeperjournal.com/aarch - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/31/2004   Last Visited: 6/23/2006

   Clark was born Wesley Kanne in Chicago, but upon his father's death when Clark was a young child, his mother moved the family to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Victor Clark became Wesley's stepfather and gave him his name (interestingly, former President Bill Clinton, born William Jefferson Blythe, was also raised in Little Rock, also receiving the name of his adoptive father).
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   Then General (now Secretary of State) Colin Powell called Clark an officer of "the rarest potential."
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   As a four star General and Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, Clark has had extensive opportunity to flex those Black Hole power muscles; his junior officers evince a loyalty that is rare even in the military, another quality accruing to those with the magnetic pull of the Black Hole Sun.
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   Dean has the edge in Arizona and New Mexico, Clark is polling well in Oklahoma, and even Lieberman could rally in Delaware, although his prospects for a successful bid for the party's nomination seem unlikely even in that case.

2. 2. Meet the men who want to be president

   www.eagletribune.com/news/stor - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/25/2004   Last Visited: 1/25/2004

   Clark takes his surname from his stepfather, Victor Clark, whom his mother married in 1954.
   
   Clark entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1962.
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   On patrol, Clark was shot four times but still managed to command his men who overran the enemy position. In Vietnam, Clark earned a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
   
   After Vietnam, Clark continued his military education and went on to teach at West Point. He later led the Army's National Training Center, where military units go to practice mechanized warfare.
   
   Clark took command of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and in the 1990s conducted three emergency deployments to Kuwait. In 1995, Clark went to the Balkans with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to try to negotiate an end to the war in Bosnia.
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   In 1997, Clark was named supreme allied commander of NATO and soon faced another rising war in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Under Clark, NATO fought its first military campaign, an air war against Serbia aimed at stopping the killing of Muslims in Kosovo. Clark had pressed Washington for more forces, including ground troops to follow up on the air attacks, but was denied. The Clinton administration asked him to retire three months early. Clark says this was an early retirement prompted by political disagreements with elements in the administration.

3. 3. The Buying of the President 2004 - The Center for Public Integrity

   www.bop2004.org/bop2004/candid - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/23/2003   Last Visited: 1/18/2004

   So in the eighth grade, Clark channeled his competitive drive in another direction and started swimming at the Little Rock Boys Club. He attended Joseph Pfeifer Kiwanis Camp, where, under the tutelage of swimming director Jimmy Miller, he developed into a strong swimmer. The Boys Club also taught the youth about leadership, and awakened in Clark an interest in public service.
   
   When he entered Hall High in the 1950s, opposition to a Supreme Court order to desegregate schools led the Little Rock school system to temporarily shut down. Fearing that the schools might not reopen for Clark's sophomore year, his parents sent him away to Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, where he stuck it out for a year before returning home. He reenrolled at Hall High and helped the school's swim team win the state championship by swimming two legs of the four-man individual medley relay. He graduated in 1962.
   
   Despite being offered scholarships to Ivy League schools, Clark had decided during his junior year that the United States Military Academy at West Point and a career in the military best suited his desire to be a public servant. Only one obstacle stood in his way-a congressional appointment. Every cadet entering the academy must receive a nomination from a member of Congress or the Department of the Army.
   
   Clark got no response from his letter to Arkansas Senator J. William Fullbright, but the 16-year-old was undeterred and went to Capitol Hill in search of a sponsor.
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   Failing with the senators, Clark turned to Arkansas representative Dale Alford, then serving his only term in Congress.
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   Clark received the highest score on the test and won the appointment.
   
   At West Point, Clark continued to excel. He finished first in his class as a plebe and went on to graduate first among the class of 1966. After graduation, Clark attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where he earned a masters degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. While there, he went on a speaking tour to explain the U.S. policy in Vietnam, though he had been one of the first members of his West Point class to question the war.
   
   Shortly thereafter he found himself in Vietnam, where he served with the 1st infantry division staff in Lai Kae before being transferred to a field command. Soon after, Clark was shot four times while out on patrol, but managed to direct a counterattack and successfully lead the platoon to safety. For his injuries he received a purple heart, and for his valor, a silver star.
   
   The severity of the injuries landed Clark an extended stay in the hospital and a ticket out of Vietnam; he needed months of care and a year of rehabilitation to recover from his wounds. When he had recovered, Clark accepted a teaching position at West Point; he was soon promoted to major and assigned to the staff of the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe, then Alexander Haig, who went on to become Ronald Reagan's first secretary of state.
   
   Clark quickly ascended through the military ranks, taking command of a tank battalion at Fort Carson, and then the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, in the late 1980s. In 1994 he accepted a position with the Joint Chiefs of Staff as director of strategic plans and policy, an appointment that garnered the general his third star and further contacts necessary to finish his ascent.
   
   As military aide to Chief Negotiator Richard Holbrooke, Clark helped plan and implement the military side of the Dayton Peace talks that brokered an end to the war in Bosnia. This feat earned the general his fourth star, and helped position him for his next assignment-commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command, Panama, where he assumed responsibility for all U.S. forces in the region. Just over a year later Clark reached the pinnacle of his military career when President Clinton nominated him as NATO's senior military officer as supreme allied commander of Europe.
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   Both promotions came at the behest of high level officials and may have earned Clark the ire of some within the ranks. Defense Secretary William Perry overrode the Army's recommendation and secured Clark the appointment to Commander in Chief of U.S. Southern Command, Panama.
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   John Shalikashvili overrode the Army again to ensure Clark became the Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe.
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   Whatever the case, Clark led NATO to victory in its first military encounter by holding together the quarrelsome 19-member alliance throughout the 78 days of bombing that drove Slobodan Milosevic and the Serb forces out of Kosovo.
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   In January 2000, Clark left his job at NATO; that summer, the four star general retired from the military.
   
   After more than three decades of military service, the General transitioned to civilian life, accepting a consulting position with Arkansas-based Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment banking companies off Wall Street. A year later, the retired general pondered running for governor of Arkansas. A few months after that, the first "Draft Clark" movement emerged, in which supporters tried to persuade Clark to challenge Arkansas Republican Senator Tim Hutchinson in the 2002 midterm elections.
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   Neither opportunity provided the allure necessary for Clark to relinquish his position as a military analyst at CNN or the lucrative lobbying and consultant contracts he procured as a business executive. That is, not until the presidential election provided him with the platform to challenge the unilateral foreign policy of the Bush administration.
   
   Two weeks after declaring his intention to run for president, Clark was still registered to represent a high tech contractor, Acxiom Corporation, giving him the rare distinction of seeking the White House while registered as a lobbyist. Shortly after Clark announced his candidacy, a company spokesman said the general no longer lobbied for Acxiom, but, according to the Senate Office of Public Records, Clark had not filed any termination papers.
   
   Clark has been lobbying for the firm since January 2, 2002; Acxiom has paid more than $830,000 for Clark to advance its agenda and meet with government officials. Clark also serves on the company's board of directors.
   
   According to federal disclosure records, Clark lobbied directly on "information transfers, airline security and homeland security issues," for Acxiom, which sought funding to do controversial informational background checks on passengers for airlines. Privacy advocates have criticized the program, called the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II, because of concerns that the data collected would be an overly invasive violation of individuals' rights to privacy. The public outcry has been so strong that there is a bi-partisan effort to create more oversight for the program to protect privacy interests if CAPPS II is implemented.
   
   Clark lobbied the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Transportation for the company. Clark also reported, on his lobbyist disclosure forms, that he promoted Acxiom to the Senate and the executive office of the president. According an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report, he even met personally with Vice President Richard Cheney.
   
   He also made a pitch for the kind of tracking that the company's wares can perform while acting as a commentator on CNN. On January 6, 2002, four days after filing as a lobbyist for Acxiom, Clark told an interviewer, in response to worries that private planes could be used for terrorist attacks, "We've been worried about general aviation security for some time.