Reply #34: Gus Weiss "wired into the intelligence community...mystical secrets"

[Minstrel Boy]

Links to stories about his death on my blog here: http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/suicide-dont-fall-for-it.html

Nashville native Gus Weiss, adviser to 4 presidents, dies

Gus Weiss, a Nashville native who advised four presidents, served on the National Security Council for 16 years and won numerous awards for his foreign policy and intelligence-gathering skills, has died. He was 72.

Mr. Weiss died Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The circumstances surrounding his death could not be confirmed last night.

Friends of Mr. Weiss expressed shock at his death....

"He was wired into the intelligence community, and there were a lot of mystical secrets we weren't privy to," said Harris Gilbert, a Nashville attorney who had been friends with Mr. Weiss since childhood. "He was very interested in diplomatic strategy and was very, very opposed to the Iraq war. It was the first military action he ever opposed, but he believed we shouldn't go to war in the Middle East without knowing what we were getting into."

Gus W. Weiss, 72; White House Adviser

Gus W. Weiss, 72, a former White House policy adviser on technology, intelligence and economic affairs, died Nov. 25 of a fall from the Watergate East residential building in the District. The DC medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

A spokesman for the D.C. police said that officers found his body at a service entrance to the apartment cooperative. Dr. Weiss lived in the building....

Much of his government work centered on national security, intelligence organizations and concerns over technology transfers to communist countries. As an adviser to the Central Intelligence Agency, he served on the Pentagon's Defense Science Board and the Signals Intelligence Committee of the U.S. Intelligence Board.

During the Carter administration, Dr. Weiss was assistant for space policy to the secretary of defense.