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Obituary: Former CIA head and cabinet member James R. Schlesinger, 85, has died from complications of pneumonia:

Mr. Schlesinger specialized in the economics of national security, which helped propel his rise during the Cold War from academia to influential jobs in the federal government, including CIA director, secretary of defense and the nation’s first secretary of energy.

He gained a reputation as someone willing to cut jobs and implement unpopular policies with little regard for what other people thought of him. In 1969, Mr. Schlesinger joined the Nixon White House staff as deputy director of the Bureau of the Budget, where he overcame Pentagon opposition to cut $6 billion from the defense budget during the Vietnam War. Impressed, Nixon named him chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, which ran the nuclear weapons complex and regulated the nuclear power industry.

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