Frank Charles Carlucci III (born October 18 1930) was a government official in the United States associated with the Republican Party who was United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 until 1989.

Carlucci was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton University in 1952, and attended Harvard University in 1954-55. He was a naval officer from 1952-54. He joined the Foreign Service, working for the State Department from 1956 until 1969. In 1961 he participated in a CIA mission to Congo, in which he used his athletic ability to rescue US citizens from mobs, but was also reportedly involved in the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

During the early 1970s he became a protégé of Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger. He was undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare when Weinberger was secretary during the Nixon administration. Carlucci became Ambassador to Portugal, and served in this position from 1974 until 1977. Carlucci was deputy defense secretary from 1981 until 1986, national security advisor from 1986 until 1987, and defense secretary in 1987, following the resignation of Weinberger, his nomination by President Ronald Reagan and his confirmation in the Senate by a vote of 91 to 1. He was reportedly less hard-line in policies toward the Soviet Union than Weinberger.

Carlucci is Chairman emeritus of the Carlyle Group. He also has business interests in the following companies: General Dynamics, Westinghouse, Ashland Oil , Neurogen , CB Commercial Real Estate , Nortel, BDM International , Quaker Oats, and Kaman.

Carlucci is a former director of Wackenhut.

Carlucci worked with Harold Okimoto , a high ranking member of the Yakuza, for many years.

Carlucci is affiliated with the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, the neo-conservative thinktank.

Carlucci is a member of the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation.

Carlucci was Deputy Director of the CIA from 1978-1981, under CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who succeeded George Herbert Walker Bush.

Carlucci is an Advisory board member of G2 Satellite Solutions .

Carlucci is Chairman Emeritus of Nortel Networks.

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
John Poindexter | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |National Security Advisor
1986–1987 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Colin Powell

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Caspar W. Weinberger | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |United States Secretary of Defense
1987–1989 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Dick Cheney