Get Me Carlucci
A Daughter Recounts Her Father’s Legacy of Service
“Frank Carlucci is living proof to all of us and to the world that ‘only in America’ is more than just an easy cliché: it’s a great ringing truth.” —President Ronald Reagan
Once called “Washington’s ultimate survivor” by The Washington Post, Frank C. Carlucci III served six presidents, traveled the world on behalf of his country, and ultimately rose to prominence as Secretary of Defense. Through every chapter of his extraordinary and varied career, American leaders had a common refrain: “Get me Carlucci!”
Get Me Carlucci combines Carlucci’s own words with interviews from his contemporaries and context from his daughter, Kristin Carlucci Weed, who completes her late father’s story while keeping his “characteristic deadpan humor and tell-it-like-it-is sensibility, no frills and no fuss.”
While Carlucci did not seek the spotlight, his work shaped the world. As a young Foreign Service Officer, he weathered the turmoil and excitement of the Congo Crisis of the 1960s, and as Ambassador to Portugal in the 1970s, he played a crucial role in the country’s transition to democracy. With a dynamic mind and a knack for building relationships, Carlucci then returned to the U.S. to serve in Washington. As Deputy Director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, and eventually Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, he defined American Cold War policy.
Starting with Carlucci’s childhood and early military days, Get Me Carlucci is a unique look at the wide-ranging career of one of the twentieth century’s most important behind-the-scenes actors. “The President thought the world of him,” said Carlucci’s friend and mentee Colin Powell. “I thought the world of him.”
Carlucci’s story is one of service, hard work, and true statesmanship as the grandson of an Italian stonecutter becomes an indispensable voice at the highest levels of American government.
Kristin Carlucci Weed grew up in McLean, Virginia, as the daughter of former Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci. Carlucci Weed attended Duke University and Johns Hopkins University, focusing on international affairs and public policy. After working in policy research in the U.S. and in Europe, she returned to the leafy suburbs of Washington, DC, where she settled with her US Air Force husband in 2020. When she is not driving one of her three children to their activities, she can be found on the tennis court or planning her next globetrotting adventure.
Get Me Carlucci is her first book.
Frank C. Carlucci III was an American politician and diplomat. A graduate of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Carlucci served as Ambassador to Portugal in the tumultuous 1970s and held roles in a number of public offices, including at the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Central Intelligence Agency. As President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989, Carlucci helped define America's Cold War policy. In private enterprise, he was Chairman of The Carlyle Group from 1992 to 2003.
Before his death in 2018, Carlucci completed a draft of his memoir, which serves as the basis for Get Me Carlucci.
