Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the U.S. Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Clark served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000, commanding Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War. In 2003, Clark launched his candidacy for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After winning only the Oklahoma state primary, he withdrew from the race in February 2004, endorsing and campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Clark leads a political action committee, "WesPAC", which he formed after the 2004 primaries and used to support Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. Clark was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008, but, on September 15, 2007, endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton. After Clinton dropped out of the presidential race, Clark endorsed the then-presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. Clark has his own consulting firm, Wesley K. Clark and Associates, and is chairman and CEO of Enverra, a licensed boutique investment bank. He has worked with over 100 private and public companies on energy, security, and financial services. Clark is engaged in business in North America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. Between July 2012 and November 2015, he was an honorary special advisor to Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta on economic and security matters. Early life and education Clark's father's family was Jewish; his paternal grandparents, Jacob Kanne and Ida Goldman, immigrated to the United States from Belarus/the Russian Empire, in response to the Pale of Settlement and anti-Jewish violence from Russian pogroms. Clark's father, Benjamin Jacob Kanne, graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law and served in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an ensign during World War I, although he never participated in combat. Kanne, living in Chicago, became involved with ward politics in the 1920s as a prosecutor and served in local offices. He served as a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention that nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt as the party's presidential candidate (though