FORMER SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE, JOSEPH CALIFANO, JR, TO SPEAK TO Y's MEN JANUARY 12 TH

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, will speak to the Y's Men of Westport /Weston on Thursday, January 12th. Mr. Califano is Adjunct Professor of Public Health (Health Policy and Management) at Columbia University's Medical School (Department of Psychiatry) and School of Public Health and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His topic is “Inside: A Public and Private Life.” The meeting begins at 10AM at the Saugatuck Congregational Church, 245 Post Road East

Mr. Califano is the founding Chairman of the Board and President of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. CASA is an independent non-profit research center affiliated with Columbia University. Founded in 1992, it is now a think/action tank with a staff of more than 75, including 13 Ph.D.s, 20 Masters, and five lawyers. It conducts research and evaluation and mounts demonstration programs involving all substances (alcohol, illegal, prescription and performance-enhancing drugs, nicotine) at more than 100 sites in 45 cities and counties in 22 states.

Mr. Califano was born in Brooklyn in 1931. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from The College of the Holy Cross in 1952, and his LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1955. In law school, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In 1955, he enlisted in the Navy, was commissioned an ensign, served three years in the Office of the Judge Advocate General in Washington, D.C., and was released to inactive duty in 1958, as a lieutenant. He associated with the law firm of Dewey Ballantine in New York City from October 1958, until April 1961.  

In April 1961, Mr. Califano became Special Assistant to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. In 1962, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army and in 1963, was appointed General Counsel of the Army. In 1964, he was selected to serve as the principal legal advisor to the United States Delegation to the Investigating Committee of the Organization of American States on the Panama riots of 1964. He was selected to present the United States case before the International Commission of Jurists during hearings held in Panama dealing with those riots. In recognition of his work as General Counsel of the Department of the Army, he was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the highest civilian award of the Army.

On April 1, 1964, Mr. Califano was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. He had special responsibilities for Department of Defense liaison with the Office of the President of the United States. He also acted as Executive Secretary of the President's Advisory Committee on Supersonic Transport, as the Department of Defense representative on the President's Committee on the Economic Impact of Defense and Disarmament, and as a member of the Federal Radiation Council. In recognition of his work as the Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. Califano was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of the Department of Defense.

Mr. Califano was appointed Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson in July 1965. In this position, he served as LBJ's top domestic aide, developing the President's legislative program as well as helping coordinate economic policies. He also worked on a variety of domestic problems, including labor-management relations, balance of payments, health care, education, environmental and urban issues, and civil rights. He served in this position until January 1969. While in this post, The New York Times called him "The Deputy President for Domestic Affairs.   He was a member of the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter from March 1969 until May 1971 and was a member of the Washington law firm of Williams, Connolly & Califano from 1971 until 1977.

In January 1977, Mr. Califano became Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. He served in that Cabinet post until August 1979. He put the Department through the most complete reorganization in its twenty-five year history; mounted major health promotion and disease prevention programs, including childhood immunization, an anti-smoking campaign, an alcoholism initiative, and issuance of Healthy People, the first Surgeon General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; began the collection of hundreds of millions of dollars of defaulted student loans, and instituted computerized techniques to police welfare, Medicare and Medicaid programs; worked with the Congress to restore the financial integrity of the Social Security system, to contain health care costs, and to restructure Federal aid to elementary, secondary and higher education, and issued regulations to provide equal opportunity to the handicapped and the aged and to provide athletic opportunity to women under Title IX.

In January 1980, Mr. Califano formed the law firm of Califano, Ross & Heineman in Washington, D.C. From 1983 until 1992, he was senior partner and head of the Washington office of Dewey Ballantine. In 1992, he founded The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

Mr. Califano is the author of ten books. In early 1969, he traveled around the world on a study of the "student-youth-and-establishment" problem under a Ford Foundation grant. He wrote about those travels in his book, The Student Revolution: A Global Confrontation , published in 1969 Mr. Califano's second book, A Presidential Nation , was published in 1975. His third, The Media and the Law , was published in 1976 and was co-authored and co-edited with Howard Simons, Managing Editor of The Washington Post . His fourth, The Media and Business , was published in 1978 and was also in collaboration with Mr. Simons.  

His fifth book, Governing America , about his years as Secretary of HEW was published In May 1981, In June, 1982, his sixth, The 1982 Report on Drug Abuse and Alcoholism , was published Mr. Califano's seventh book, America's Health Care Revolution: Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Pays? , was published in 1986. His eighth book, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years , a memoir, was published in 1991 and republished by Texas A & M University Press in 2000. His ninth book, Radical Surgery: What's Next for America's Health Care, was published in January, 1995. His latest book, his memoir, Inside—A Public and Private Life , was published in April 2004. He is currently working on a book on the impact of substance abuse on American society. Mr. Califano has also written articles for The New York Times, The Washington Post , Readers Digest , New Republic , Journal of the American Medical Association , The New England Journal of Medicine , America , The Washington Monthly , and other publications.

Mr. Califano is a director of Viacom Inc. and Willis Group Holdings, Ltd. He is a Trustee of New York Presbyterian Hospital, The Century Foundation, The Urban Institute, The American Ditchley Foundation, The LBJ Foundation and the National Health Museum; Trustee Emeritus of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and a member of the advisory council of the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Founding Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1982 and 1983, he served as Special Counsel to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, to head the investigation of allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct involving Members of Congress and pages. Mr. Califano is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and is a member of the Bars of the District of Columbia and the State of New York.

Mr. Califano has received honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities, including the Universities of Notre Dame, Michigan, Howard and Seton Hall, State University of New York, The College of the Holy Cross, College of New Rochelle, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of The City University of New York, City College of New York, Davis and Elkins College, and Union College.