Word: les
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...more than 20 years, Congressman and military wonk Les Aspin fantasized about becoming Secretary of Defense. Now, as he sits behind the huge desk in room 3E880, the top office in the Pentagon, Aspin's dream job has become something of a nightmare. His problem is in the timing. Rather than building an empire as his cold-war predecessors did, he has the task of bringing the Pentagon down to size and opening it up to diversity. That means smaller budgets, fewer troops, less new hardware, a streamlined bureaucracy and the possible integration of gays into the service. Making matters...
...Many members of Congress, especially in the liberal wing, believe he betrayed them by supporting such weapons systems as the B-2 and Strategic Defense Initiative. For all his charm, he is a loner, a shy person who finds it distasteful to court constituents. "Don't try to describe Les as a real human being," says an associate with a laugh. His big smile and firm abrazo notwithstanding, he isn't captivated with small talk. Says a friend, "As he whispers in your ear, his thoughts may be 6,000 miles away." A teetotaler with a consuming passion for food...
...conceptually a Congressman, with neither the administrative experience nor the decisiveness necessary at the Pentagon. He laughed out loud hearing himself described in one profile as "Hamlet, the Prince of Indecision." Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina, Aspin's colleague on the Armed Services Committee, declares this as nonsense. "Les is decisive when the time comes." Now it has arrived. He must assemble a staff, help broker a compromise on gays in the service and defend his Administration's historic downsizing of the world's largest military force. A tough job even for someone who always wanted...
Last week the Defense Department struck back. Alameda County, which he ! represents, ranked No. 1 on the list of recommended military closings released by Defense Secretary Les Aspin last week. All five of the naval installations in Dellums' district will close, taking with them about 10,000 jobs and a $400 million payroll. The Alameda Naval Air Station, Alameda Naval Aviation Depot, Oakland Naval Hospital, the Oakland Naval Supply Center and the Naval Public Works Center in San Francisco are critical elements to the area's economy. The dense network of equipment and workers includes three nuclear-carrier berths, repair...
Quartett aims to disturb. Heiner Muller's play, a loose re-interpretation of the novel Les Liasons Dangereuses, toys with notions of gender and desire in a series of icily barbed dialogues. Running approximately an hour in itself, the play is carefully prefaced by a series of Muller fragments, apparently intended to augment the spectacle of soulless debauchery. Unfortunately, these fog-embellished effects are symptomatic of a trendily shallow sensibility which comes uncomfortably close to tipping tight drama over into dull farce. As we were informed that the action took place in a post-World War Three bomb shelter...