William Robert Van Cleave was a prominent national security expert and leading Cold Warrior, recognized for his hawkish advocacy on defense and foreign policy. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1953 to 1957 and earned a B.A. in Political Science from California State College, Long Beach, followed by graduate studies and a teaching assistant position in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Van Cleave was a founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger and served as senior defense advisor to Ronald Reagan during the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns, as well as a former advisor to President Reagan. He founded and headed the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies (DSS) program at Missouri State University, where he was an Emeritus Professor; the program later relocated to Fairfax, Virginia. Additionally, he held positions as Senior Research Fellow in National Security Affairs at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, served on the Board of Trustees of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and was involved with organizations including the advisory council of the Center for Security Policy, the board of the American Center for Democracy, the National Institute for Public Policy, and the American Enterprise Institute. He also directed strategic studies at the University of Southern California.