Word: packards
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Some executives agree. Hewlett-Packard and McDonnell Douglas, for example, do not ask job applicants or employees to take drug tests. Says Hewlett- Packard Spokesman Gene Endicott: "It's an invasion of the employee's privacy...
...happened to Ronald Reagan the other day right in the Cabinet Room and on a live microphone. He wanted to talk about reorganizing the Pentagon's procurement system. Reporters kept yelling questions about the Philippines. As the session was breaking up he turned to David Packard, his Pentagon commission chairman, and muttered it: "Sons of bitches...
Even toned down, the 23-page Packard commission report is in spots bluntly critical of the way the Pentagon and Congress shape defense budgets. "There is no rational system," the report states, for reaching "coherent and enduring agreement on national military strategy." With some exceptions, "weapons systems take too long and cost too much to produce." Fraud and dishonesty are not principally to blame, says the report; rather, "the truly costly problems are those of overcomplicated organization and rigid procedure...
...supposed to advise the President and Secretary of Defense on military needs. Under the existing system, the Chiefs are torn between looking out for their own services and shaping a coherent national-defense strategy, while the Chairman has an impressive title but no staff or real authority. The Packard commission would make him the President's principal uniformed adviser in fact as well as name, and put the JCS staff of 1,200 officers and civilians under his authority. Most important, the Chairman would be charged with arbitrating disputes among the individual service Chiefs...
This call for reforming the JCS is perhaps the most significant, and will no doubt be the most controversial, of the Packard commission's recommendations. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger has testified before Congress that the Chiefs resolve differences by "log rolling and back scratching." Retired Army General David Jones, a former Chairman of the JCS, has stated, "The corporate advice provided by the JCS is not crisp, timely, very useful or very influential." At budget-writing time, the Joint Chiefs usually present a wish list to the Secretary of Defense and fight for every dime. More often than...