December 2, 2014
President Obama (click here) is likely to nominate Ashton Carter as his next secretary of defense, CNN, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The New York Times are reporting.
Carter served as the No. 2 defense official under Leon Panetta, and while he's relatively unknown to the public, he's regarded as having a great intellect.
NPR has not independently confirmed Carter's nomination.
In a profile, the AP reports that Carter "has bachelor's degrees in physics and medieval history from Yale University and received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar."...
