Word: laird
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Pentagon is a sorely besieged place these days, and Melvin Robert Laird, the tenth U.S. Secretary of Defense, has frequently found himself fighting off attackers who are nearly as tough and persistent as the Viet Cong. One day recently, mulling over reports from Viet Nam, the latest volley of criticism from Capitol Hill, fresh disputes over strategic weapons and new attacks on the ROTC, Laird had had enough. Thumping his desk, he demanded of an aide: "Aren't we ever going to have any good news? Is it always going to be bad?" He topped that with a resigned scholium...
...task of lifelong Politician Melvin Laird to preside over the Pentagon at the most critical and criticized era for the U.S. military in many years. He must manage America's withdrawal from Viet Nam in such a way that an unsatisfactory war does not turn into a debacle. He must find ways to reduce sharply military spending in a time of rising costs at home, continuing challenges to U.S. power abroad, and changing definitions of America's role in the world. He must shake up a Pentagon grown sluggish and wasteful. And he must do it all under the aroused...
...Cover. Cartoon by Patrick Bruce Oliphant, whose work has often appeared in TIME but never before as a cover. In the tracing above, the first figure from the left (1) is Defense Secretary Melvin Laird clutching his hard-won ABM, while a general (2) expresses the Pentagon's pleasure. The cigarette-puffing baker (3) is Congress, serving up half a loaf of surtax. Above and to the right stands a G.I. (4) in the process of dropping his equipment into the arms of South Viet Nam's President Thieu (5). Below, Rumania's President Ceausescu (6) listens...
Defense Secretary Melvin Laird have consistently refused to offer or accept any compromise, insisting that the nation cannot afford to lose time in constructing missiles at the two initial sites. ABM expenditure for research and development would pass the Senate easily; few of those who object to voting deployment money now would oppose further R. & D. work on the complex system. But the Administration wants funds for missile installation included, partly as a bargaining counter in the strategic arms-limitation talks it hopes to begin with the Soviet Union next month...
...site system the Administration has proposed, Laird estimates the price at $10.8 billion. Officials point out that annual review of the need for the program could cut the project off long before that much is spent. ABM critics argue, however, that the final cost will turn out to be much higher. They fear that Safeguard may be only the first segment of a greatly expanded "thick" deployment. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, a former Secretary of the Air Force, has put the cost of such a system as high as $400 billion, although even many of Safeguard's detractors...