Stanford professor and former Secretary of Defense William J Perry has stepped into the limelight to support Democratic candidate John Kerry in his bid for the presidency.

Perry, who served as a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet from 1994 to 1997, is a professor of management science and engineering and a senior fellow at the Stanford’s Institute for International Studies.

Despite his years as member of the Clinton cabinet, Perry has never been very outspoken in politics. His support of Kerry marks his first-ever public endorsement of a political candidate. Perry told the Mercury News that he is “seriously, seriously concerned about the direction that George Bush is taking our country.”

“I felt it was time for me to get off the sidelines and become a part of the political process,’’ Perry added, speaking to Mercury News correspondent Jim Puzzanghera.

Perry also voiced his concern at the Democratic Convention in Boston on July 22, telling the crowd, “I have never been as worried about the management of our country’s security as I am today.”

Prof. Perry, who introduced Kerry when the candidate visited the Stanford campus in December of last year, has been critical of the Bush administration in the past.

In March, he elaborated on his positions in a Newsweek-sponsored panel on National Security. While he agreed with many of the priorities of the Republican administration’s foreign policy, he also expressed his opinion that the execution of those priorities had been poor, particularly in the area of nuclear disarmament.

“The problem of loose nukes is worse off by far than it needs to be,” he said at the time. He went on to criticize the Bush administration for alienating other countries in their handling of international issues, especially America’s war in Iraq.

“We cannot rebuild Iraq alone. We cannot prevent nuclear proliferation alone. We cannot stop terrorism alone,” he told the convention audience.

“We must isolate the terrorists — not the United States,” he added.