This post has been updated.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, who helped craft President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy and got in trouble over destroying classified documents, died Wednesday at age 70.
The cause of death was cancer, said a statement by his consulting firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group.
Berger was White House national security adviser from 1997 to 2001, including a period when the Clinton administration carried out airstrikes in Kosovo and against Saddam Hussein’s forces in Iraq. Berger also was deeply involved in the administration’s push for free trade.
He was deputy national security adviser during Clinton’s first term.
In 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to illegally removing classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing some documents down his pants. He cut up some of the documents with scissors, for reasons that remain unclear. He was sentenced to probation and a $50,000 fine. He expressed regret for his actions.
Out of government, he helped found an international consulting firm that in 2009 merged with one run by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
“He cared deeply about where this country was going what we could do to solve problems,” Albright said in a telephone interview. “That was the basis of his life, was to make a difference.”
Berger is survived by his wife, Susan, along with three children and five grandchildren, Albright said.
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Sounds suspicious to me, and were the Clinton’s are involved you know there’s dirt here. Fresh BENGHAZI dirt that is!!!1!!!11!
Did he have a family, a life beyond DC’s cardboard?
See that free trade agreement over there – I helped push that through, but do they call me Sandy the Free Trade Supporter? No. See those bombing campaigns aimed at ruthless dictators, I helped plan those, but do they call me Sandy the Dictator Bomber? Nope. But you stuff ONE bunch of classified documents down your pants and for ever after you’re known as Sandy the Pantstuffer!
That joke never gets old.