Home Index
Brigadier General
Carl W. Reddel
Permanent Professor 1982–1999
B.S., Drake University
M.A., Syracuse University
Ph.D., Indiana University
Carl Reddel, the Academy’s 41st Permanent Professor, was born in 1937 in Gurley, Nebraska. He attended Drake University, Des Moines, IA, on a track scholarship and earned his Bachelor’s degree in History and Education in 1959. He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to attend Syracuse University and a Ford Foundation Fellowship to complete his Master’s degree in Russian Studies in 1961. He entered the Air Force as a Distinguished Graduate of Officer Training School, Lackland AFB, TX, in 1962. Carl’s first assignment was to Toul-Rosières Air Base, France, where he was Chief of Administrative Services for a mobile communications group. In his off-time, he taught Russian and Soviet History for the University of Maryland and studied at the Université de Nancy. In 1967 he began the first of four assignments to the Academy’s Department of History, 1967–1968, 1971–1976, 1977–1981, and finally, as Permanent Professor and Department Head, 1982–1999. During the first gap, he was in Vietnam (summer 1968) performing a study for Project CHECO (Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Operations) and then attended graduate school at Indiana University, Bloomington (1968–1971); his PhD in Russian History and Soviet Studies was awarded in 1973. His widely traveled career included a tour as the first active duty officer on the official educational exchange with the Soviet Union at Moscow State University (1975); an assignment in Turkey as Executive Officer, Air Force Section, Joint US Mission for Military Aid to Turkey (1976–1977); duty as the Air Force liaison officer to the Western world’s leading Soviet military historian at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1981–1982); and a sabbatical research associateship at the National Air and Space Museum (1994). As a leader in global education and world history, he reestablished and chaired the Academy’s Area Studies Program. Carl is a Russian and Soviet scholar and author of numerous publications and presentations, most recently, “Opening a New Era in Russian Historiography” in the Introduction to Vol. 1 (2014) of the multivolume History of Russia by Sergei M. Soloviev. From 1988 to 1991 he provided outstanding operational service to the nation as Team Chief for the On-Site Inspection Agency, leading missile destruction teams and performing inspections in the Soviet Union to ensure compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Carl was promoted to brigadier general and retired in 1999.
Following retirement, Carl became President and CEO of the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, 1999–2000, and a Fellow in the Center for Public Service at Gettysburg College. Since 2001 he has been Executive Director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, charged by Congress with establishing a national, permanent memorial to the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II and the 34th US President. Construction of the Memorial, located at the base of Capitol Hill on the Mall in Washington, DC, has been underway since November 2017.