Joseph A. Califano, Jr., is founder and chairman of the board of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been adjunct professor of public health (health policy and management) at Columbia University Medical School (Department of Psychiatry) and School of Public Health. He has extensive experience in both government and private law practice.
He served in the Kennedy administration as general counsel of the army and special assistant to the secretary and deputy secretary of defense. He served as special assistant for domestic affairs to President Lyndon Johnson (1965–69) and secretary of health, education, and welfare in the Carter administration (1977–79. In the intervening years and until 1992, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He founded CASA in 1992 and was its president and chairman for seventeen years. He has served on a number of Fortune 500 company boards and not-for-profit boards. He is the author of twelve books, including How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents (Fireside, 2009); High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What To Do About It (PublicAffairs, 2007); his memoir, Inside—A Public and Private Life (Public Affairs, 2004); Radical Surgery: What’s Next for America’s Health Care (Times Books, 1995); The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (Simon and Schuster, 1991); America’s Health Care Revolution: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Pays? (Random House, 1986); Governing America: An Insiders Report from the White House and the Cabinet (Simon and Schuster, 1981); and The Student Revolution—A Global Confrontation (W. W. Norton and Company, 1970).
He received his BA from The College of the Holy Cross and his LLB from Harvard Law School.