Beginning in 1985, Mellon served in various
United States Senate staff positions on
Capitol Hill, including a decade as a
professional staffer of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), before joining the
Department of Defense in 1997. In 2003, Mellon returned as a Senate staffer for the SSCI.
United States Special Operations Command As a
legislative assistant to
William Cohen, Mellon participated in drafting the bill that led to the creation of the
United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) in the
National Defense Authorization Act for 1987 (NDAA). Deputy
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence,
William G. Boykin, reported that Mellon encouraged Cohen to take a leading role in the effort. By 1985, Cohen and Mellon were interested in reforming
United States Special Operations Forces (SOF). Cohen was approached by "former special operations people" seeking his help in "helping to rebuild SOF." In 1985,
House of Representatives staffer Ted Lunger approached Mellon to win Senate backing for
Dan Daniel's special operations reform bill. Cohen and Mellon's interest in SOF reform intensified after the October 1985
Senate Committee on Armed Services report
Defense Reorganization: The Need for Change. At a preliminary
conference committee meeting, Mellon and his staff team argued the Daniel bill conflicted with the
Goldwater–Nichols Act, whereas the Senate's Cohen–
Nunn approach still let the Department of Defense craft its own long-term solution. The 1986 reform bill from Cohen's office, largely written by Mellon, relied on ideas from Senate Armed Services Committee staff member Jim Locher. While drafting the bill that would lead to the creation of USSOCOM, Mellon was unaware of an earlier Strategic Services (STRATSERCOM) proposal on the SOF topic. Boykin noted in
The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command that Mellon contributed many of the ideas in the reform bill related to
low-intensity conflicts. In a 1988 interview Mellon recalled that the SOF problem had been unknown to him when he first began drafting the legislation in early 1986. Mellon credited both Locher and
Andrew Krepinevich's work in
The Army and Vietnam.
Department of Defense tenure When Cohen became
United States Secretary of Defense (SecDef) in 1997, Mellon accompanied him to
the Pentagon as part of Cohen's transition team. After the transition, he was appointed Coordinator for Advanced Concepts and Program Integration in the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, focusing on
encryption and
information assurance issues. From November 1997 to June 1998, Mellon served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Policy, providing advice on intelligence matters, and from June 1998 through November 1999 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and Information Operations. In November 1999, Mellon took a noncareer (political) appointment in the
Senior Executive Service as
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence within what was then the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (OASD(C3I)). Over the course of his Pentagon tenure, he served under Presidents
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush, and under SecDef
Donald Rumsfeld.
Return to Capitol Hill In February 2003, Senator
Jay Rockefeller hired Mellon as minority staff director of the
United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). According to
Gizmodo, during his government service he served on a Defense Department committee with oversight of
special access programs (SAPs). In
Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, author and journalist
Fred Kaplan wrote of Mellon's involvement during his Senate career with the
National Security Agency and
J. Michael "Mike" McConnell, former
Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and Mellon's research into the
NSA's budget. In ''Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA'',
Rowan Scarborough wrote that, at the White House's behest, Mellon and his Republican counterpart, William D. Duhnke III, were excluded from briefings on the
NSA warrantless surveillance program. Journalist
Keith Kloor wrote that Mellon "oversaw the Pentagon's most sensitive and closely held 'black' programs." Following the 2003 leak of a
Democratic staff memorandum drafted for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vice-chair Rockefeller that proposed leveraging cooperation, issuing a dissent, or pursuing a Democrats-only investigation to highlight potential administration misuse of
pre-war Iraq intelligence, Republican committee members said the document aimed to discredit the
panel's pending report and demanded Democratic repudiation of its partisan implications. In a November 2003
Wall Street Journal editorial column attacking the leaked memo, the editorial identified Mellon as an aide whose dismissal would be necessary to restore
bipartisan credibility. In a January 2004
Insight on the News piece, writer J. Michael Waller, citing unnamed Senate and Defense sources, claimed that Mellon had set up an "autonomous Democratic staff apparatus" on the committee that pursued probes of senior Pentagon and
State Department officials. In a November 14, 2003
Wall Street Journal letter, Senator
Richard J. Durbin wrote that Rockefeller appointed Mellon, a registered Republican, as minority staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Durbin further noted that Mellon had earlier served the committee as deputy minority staff director for Republican senators William Cohen,
John Chafee, and
John Warner, which he cited as evidence of a bipartisan record. Mellon subsequently left government service.
Ed Henry of
Roll Call called Mellon's credentials "distinguished" and
Military.com called Mellon a "
top expert" in matters of
national security. ==UFO investigations==