Edward Warner, a retired Air Force officer who became a high-level federal official on defense issues, died Nov. 14, 2014, of idiopathetic pulmonary fibrosis (IDF) and cancer. He was 73.
Warner graduated from the Naval Academy in 1962 and served in the Air Force. While on active duty, he earned a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton in 1975. Before he retired in 1982, his wide-ranging assignments included heading a staff group for the Air Force chief of staff at the Pentagon.
Joining the Rand Corp., he was a senior defense analyst working on Soviet defense policy. In 1993, Warner was appointed an assistant secretary of defense, and served for seven-plus years in the post-Cold War era. From 2001 to 2009, he was a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton working with the Defense Department. In 2009, he rejoined the government as deputy head of the U.S. delegation to the START arms-reduction talks.
Recently, Warner was U.S. deputy commissioner of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, meeting periodically in Geneva with Russia. He also taught graduate-level seminars at Columbia University, George Washington University, Princeton, and at the University of Washington when he moved to the state in 2012.
Warner is survived by Pam, his wife of 47 years; two daughters; and four grandsons .
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.