James R. Schlesinger, Willful Cabinet Official

James R. Schlesinger, a tough Cold War strategist who served as secretary of defense under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford and became the nation’s first secretary of energy under President Jimmy Carter, died in Baltimore on Thursday. He was 85. Mr. Schlesinger died at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center of complications of pneumonia, said his daughter Ann Schlesinger. A brilliant, often abrasive Harvard-educated economist, Mr. Schlesinger went to Washington in 1969 as an obscure White House budget official. Over the next decade he became chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, director of Central Intelligence, a cabinet officer for three presidents (two of whom fired him), a thorn to congressional leaders and one of the nation’s most controversial public officials.

Arrogant. Smoked a pipe, looked over his half glasses, spoke as if trying to explain simple matters to the decidedly unsophisticated he had the duty to speak to.

Beyond strategic theories, he dealt with a series of crises, including the 1973 Middle East war, when Arab nations attacked Israel, prompting an American airlift of matériel to Israel; an invasion of Cyprus by Turkish forces, leading to a congressionally mandated arms embargo of Turkey, a NATO partner; and the Mayaguez episode, in which Cambodian forces seized an unarmed American freighter, prompting rescue and retaliation operations that saved 39 freighter crewmen but cost the lives of 41 American servicemen.

I remember the episode, but forgot that so many lives were lost.

In August 1974, with the Watergate scandal boiling over, Mr. Schlesinger, as he confirmed years later, worried that Nixon might be unstable and instructed the military not to react to White House orders, particularly on nuclear arms, unless cleared by him or Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. He also drew up plans to deploy troops in Washington in the event of any problems with a peaceful succession.

Imagine that: do not listen to orders the President might issue.

As Nixon resigned, Ford took over and, for stability, retained the cabinet, including Mr. Schlesinger. Ford and Mr. Schlesinger were soon at loggerheads. Ford favored “leniency” for 50,000 draft evaders after the Vietnam War. Mr. Schlesinger, like Nixon, had opposed amnesty. Unlike Mr. Schlesinger, Ford was willing to compromise on defense budgets, and he recoiled at Mr. Schlesinger’s harsh criticisms of congressional leaders. These were not grave policy disputes, but the two were personally incompatible.

That was him: he knew better than the President.