Word: laird
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many in Washington, the most likely candidate is former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott called him "my No. 1 choice," and Rockefeller also appears to have the public backing of one of Ford's closest political confidants, former Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, who told one reporter last week: "Ford and Rockefeller will form a winning combination for the Republican Party." There were some who suspected that Laird floated Rockefeller's name in order to have it quickly shot down to enhance Laird's own chances for the nomination. That suspicion...
...prospects, Melvin Laird is probably Ford's sentimental favorite for Vice President. Not only have the two been close friends for 20 years but they also teamed up in 1965 in the intraparty coup against Charles A. Halleck that installed Ford as Republican leader in the House. But Laird's nomination might be viewed as cronyism. Moreover, both Laird and Ford are much alike ideologically. Nonetheless, the betting is that Laird will play a key role in the Ford Administration, either in some formal White House role or as the President's foremost political adviser...
...President was not Gerald Ford but Connally. To contemplate the indictment of the Vice President, or even merely the suspicion of charges aired, in the same week that articles of impeachment were voted against the President is a scenario that almost shatters the mind. By the best accounts, Melvin Laird played a key role in persuading Nixon that Connally was too recently a Republican convert and too ambitious for the presidency to win Congress's approval as Vice President. From the vantage of hindsight, thanks, Mel. We didn't need that...
Richardson was director of the Pentagon in 1973 when the Nixon administration began six months of merciless bombing in Cambodia. His appointment as successor to Melvin Laird was announced before the carpet-bombing of Hanoi which began in December 1972. Richardson did not refuse that December to become Secretary of Defense. At no time did he make any public statement to protest the terror. He did not resign in February rather than help direct the indiscriminate bombing of Cambodian homes, farms and villages. If Richardson secretly opposed such devastation, he lacked the courage to act on his conviction...
Fulbright fought the escalation of the war by calling Administration officials before his committee. Then, while the TV cameras and the nation watched, Fulbright would question his man unmercifully with his soft but resonant Southern voice. When Defense Secretary Melvin Laird testified in 1969 that the Nixon Administration was planning to modernize the Vietnamese army and thus reduce U.S. involvement in the war, Fulbright scoffed: "I have heard this before. It is an old broken record ... You've got to do something radical to change this war or we're going down the drain...