Word: pentagon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...combination of his youth and self-assurance grated on the graying generals and admirals. A Pentagon official remembers Brown as "looking like a kid. He was a child prodigy with a tremendous mind. He did all his calculations in his head and was always way ahead of everyone in a discussion. He wasn't really arrogant, but he was impatient, got bored and showed...
When Brown returned to the Pentagon this January, he was no longer a kid but still a whiz?and a mellower fellow to boot. He works as intensely as ever and expects others to do the same. Now if his time is being wasted by a subordinate, he ends the conversation?but a little more gracefully. Says a senior assistant: "It seems amazing to me that he is so good with people. That's an extraordinary personality development...
...Brown, dealing with the Pentagon's people is the hardest part of his job "because there are so many of them [about 2.1 million military and 1 million civilian employees] and because the institution they constitute is not easy to change. The toughness of the structure is a strength. It will run even if nobody's hand is on the tiller, though it might go where you don't want it to go. But it's a weakness if you want to change the institution...
...tightness of his grip on the Pentagon tiller is most evident in his dealings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and its outspoken and sometimes ill-spoken chairman, Air Force General George Brown (no kin). Says Secretary Brown: "I've known the chairman for 16 years; there are generals who were captains when I first met them. That gives me a certain personal rapport." But the brass finds him a hard man to persuade. Says an aide: "He's not just an umpire in the building. He reaches down into the process and shapes policy at all levels...
...Capitol Hill, House Speaker Tip O'Neill rapped Brown's knuckles last month for lobbying too hard against a proposed $4 billion cut in Carter's defense budget request of $120.4 billion for fiscal 1978. But aside from that, Brown has turned out to be an excellent Pentagon advocate on the Hill, neither talking down to Senators and Representatives nor overwhelming them with facts, as McNamara used to do. Among other things, he moved quickly to reassure Congressmen in the face of warnings that the Soviet Union was rapidly achieving military superiority over the U.S. This might be Brown...