Word: nixon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Less visibly, in his Pentagon office 3-E880, where he sits at a desk that once belonged to General Pershing, Laird was preparing his recommendation to Richard Nixon for the second withdrawal of American troops from Viet Nam. The announcement was originally expected this week, but the decision was made more difficult by the upsurge in Communist aggressiveness, which brought U.S. deaths for the most recent week to 244 v. 96 the week before. Ideally, the Administration would like the next announced withdrawal to be larger than the first one of 25,000 last June. That would maintain the sense...
...would anyone want Laird's job? Laird certainly did not. In fact, he asserts with feeling that he "wanted no part" of it; he accepted, loyal partisan that he is, only because Nixon had run out of alternative candidates. Politics, particularly the politics of the House of Representatives, where he has served from Wisconsin since 1953, is Laird's passion. He is good at the craft. His ready informality, which encourages even the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior men at the Pentagon to call their boss "Mel," fits the vocation. So do his competitiveness in debate...
...Like the Nixon Administration overall, Laird marches under no grand ensign. After seven months, the White House still has no catch phrase to match New Frontier or Great Society. Laird's Pentagon has no strategy label comparable to "flexible response" in Robert McNamara's day or even the "bigger bang for a buck" of Charles E. Wilson's time. Like Nixon himself, Laird seems unencumbered by?some would say unequipped with?any particularly abiding philosophy. He is the only Secretary of Defense to come from Congress. Half his life ? he will be 47 next week ? was spent...
...Nixon and Laird, the two partisans with well-earned reputations for maneuvering factions and votes and no experience at all in managing armies or industries, have launched much-needed studies of the nation's fundamental strategic goals and the military means needed to achieve them. David Packard, whom Laird drafted from the chairmanship of the Hewlett-Packard Co., to be Deputy Defense Secretary, heads one study group. Before many hard decisions...
...eventual pullback from Europe. Technical developments in military transportation, such as the C-5A aircraft and fast supply vessels, give the U.S. increased capability for keeping a larger part of its forces at home while still being able to react quickly to an overseas emergency. When President Nixon talks about maintaining the U.S. as a Pacific power, most strategists translate that to mean air and sea rather than ground forces...