Chapman B. Cox

Chapman Beecher Cox (born 1940) was United States Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) in the first term of the Reagan Administration and General Counsel of the United States Department of Defense during Reagan's second term.

Biography
Cox was born in Ohio; his father was a Nazarene minister. Growing up, he attended public schools in Indiana, Colorado, and California. He attended the University of Southern California, graduating with a B.A. in 1962; and Harvard Law School, graduating with a J.D. in 1965.

Cox joined the United States Marine Corps as an officer in 1965, seeing duty in the Vietnam War. Upon leaving the Marine Corps in 1968. Between 1968 and 1981, he practiced law in California and Colorado. During this period, he became managing partner of Sherman & Howard; taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado School of Law; and was a member of the Board of Governors of the Colorado Bar Association.

In 1983, President of the United States Ronald Reagan nominated Cox as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) and he held this office from June 1983 to June 1984. In 1984, President Reagan named Cox General Counsel of the United States Department of Defense.

With the ending of the Reagan Administration, Cox became president and chief executive officer of the United Service Organizations.

In the early 2000s, he joined Lockheed Martin IMS (later sold to Affiliated Computer Services) as a Senior Vice President.

Long a practicing Christian, Cox is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). On leaving IMS, Cox became vice chairman of the Alliance Defense Fund, later becoming Chairman of its Board of Governors. The Alliance Defense Fund is a conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation."