Greg Craig

Craig was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 4, 1945. Craig's father, William Gregory Craig (1914–2005), was a Navy officer who served in World War II and after the war served as chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges system (1973–1976), chancellor of the California Community College system (1977–1980), and president of the Monterey Institute (1980–1988). The elder Craig unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Governor of Vermont. The younger considers Vermont his home state; he grew up as one of four boys in Middlebury, Vermont. He spent some of his early years in Palo Alto, California.

Craig attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He then attended Harvard University, graduating with an A.B. in 1967. At Harvard, Craig sang with the Krokodiloes, Harvard's oldest all-male a cappella group. Craig graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a concentration in history. His senior thesis was on Upton Sinclair's campaigns during the Great Depression. Craig was elected chairman of the Harvard Undergraduate Council during his senior year. During his time at Harvard, Craig became familiar with prominent faculty members, including Henry Kissinger. During this period, Craig registered black voters in Mississippi, tutored children in Harlem, and "became Harvard's most widely quoted student leader in opposition to the Vietnam War."

Craig considered claiming conscientious objector status to avoid the Vietnam-era draft, but he eventually submitted himself to the Exeter, New Hampshire, draft board, saying that "I thought it was the only honorable thing to do." Craig received a medical deferment for a shoulder injury. Craig earned a Lionel de Jersey Harvard Fellowship to study at Cambridge University in England, where he received a master's degree in historical studies in 1968.

After returning to United States, Craig attended Yale Law School, where he was a member of the same class as Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham, and David E. Kendall. In the fall of 1971, Craig sublet his apartment in New Haven to Rodham and Clinton for $75 a month. Craig received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1972. After graduating, Craig, along with Kendall, took a job at the law firm of Williams & Connolly.

Craig is married to Derry Noyes. The two were married on July 27, 1974, in New Canaan, Connecticut. Derry is the daughter of Eliot Noyes, the noted industrial designer known for his work on the IBM Selectric typewriter. Derry Craig is a graphic designer. The couple have five children.

Legal and government career from 1972 to 2009

Craig worked mostly at Williams & Connolly from 1972 to 2009, with his tenure there interrupted by periods working as a public defender, on the staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, at the State Department, and at the Clinton White House.

Three years after Craig began at Williams & Connolly, he left to follow his wife to Connecticut, where she obtained a master's degree in fine arts. While in Connecticut, Craig worked as a public defender.

Craig later returned to Williams & Connolly, where he was protege of Joe Califano and Edward Bennett Williams. One of Craig's first big criminal cases at Williams & Connolly was that of multimillionaire D.C. developer Dominic F. Antonelli Jr., the chairman of Parking Management Inc. (PMI), who was charged with bribery and conspiracy in connection with an attempt to secure a D.C. government lease from D.C. official Joseph P. Yeldell, his codefendant. Craig defended Antonelli alongside his Williams & Connolly colleagues Kendall and Williams. Antonelli and Yeldell were convicted by a jury in Washington, but that conviction was vacated on grounds of jury bias, and at a retrial in Philadelphia the two men were acquitted. Craig is an admirer of Edward Bennett Williams, saying that he was "the great lawyer of our generation."

In 1981, Craig was a member of the team that represented John W. Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan; Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Craig worked in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy as his chief defense, national security, and foreign policy aide from 1984 to 1988. Craig also defended Kennedy's nephew William Kennedy Smith on charges of assault; William Kennedy Smith had earlier been acquitted on rape charges in 1991.

Craig also served as chairman of the International Human Rights Law Group (later Global Rights).

In 1996, Craig was offered the post of White House Counsel by Bill Clinton, but Craig declined. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appointed Craig to the post of Director of Policy Planning at the State Department in 1997. Craig served in that post from June 1997 to 1998. As policy planning director, Craig served as a senior advisor to Albright and led the State Department's internal think tank. In October 1997, Albright gave Craig the additional post of Special Coordinator for Tibetan Affairs, in order "to focus attention on China's suppression of Tibet's cultural and religious traditions."

Craig worked in the White House during the Clinton administration from 1998 to 1999, holding the title of Assistant to the President and special counsel. Craig's old friend and law partner Kendall was Clinton's personal attorney. Craig was brought on specifically to coordinate the White House's defense of Clinton during impeachment proceedings against him. Termed the "quarterback" by Clinton, Craig worked from the West Wing and oversaw legal, political, congressional, and public relations aspects of the defense, reporting regularly to Clinton and consulting with John Podesta, the White House chief of staff. However, Craig claimed in an interview with PBS Frontline in July 2000 that Podesta was the one who recruited him and that Podesta told him that the White House needed a "coordinator quarterback." He also stated that he mainly coordinated with Podesta and that "I could name to John ten other lawyers in America that could do the job as well, if not better." Craig also stated that he wanted to remain in the State Department and that when Podesta first asked him to be the lawyer, he told him "Forgive me, John, if I'm not enthusiastic about the idea."

Craig's style was collegial in nature and he earned the respect of other White House staffers, although there was tension with then-White House Counsel Charles Ruff; according to The Washington Post, "each man behaved as if he were the one in charge" and the two had different professional styles. Ruff, Kendall, and Craig were three members of a five-member team of lawyers defending the president; the other two were Cheryl D. Mills and Dale Bumpers.

Craig then returned to private practice at Williams & Connolly as a partner. During the Elián González affair in 2000, Craig represented Juan Miguel Gonzáles, the Cuban father of six-year-old Elián González, in an international child custody dispute involving "the volatile field of Cuban-American relations" which ended with the boy's return to Cuba.

Other high-profile clients represented by Craig while at Williams & Connolly include Richard Helms, the ex-director of Central Intelligence who was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA's role in removing Salvador Allende; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. He reported earning a salary of $1.7 million from the firm in 2008.