Word: pentagons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Letup. He became preoccupied with Viet Nam in early 1964. He conducted a private correspondence with Henry Cabot Lodge, an old friend from U.N. days, who was then in his first tour as Ambassador to Saigon. Humphrey picked the brains of Pentagon and State Department experts-he has little time for reading-and became an apostle of Edward Lansdale, a retired Air Force major general and counterguerrilla expert whose controversial theories on pacification are now being tested in Viet...
Merrick works harder than anybody. He starts at 8 a.m. and goes full throttle until after midnight. All day long, he phones, phones, phones. No notes, no memos, no conferences. "He's got a memory like a Pentagon computer," says Schlissel. "Carries it all in his head. Twenty, 30 projects at once. Never forgets a fact, never misses a trick." With his office in his head, Merrick is totally mobile. On an after-dinner impulse, he may dart into the street, grab a cab, race to Kennedy Airport, jump on a jet to London, snap up a property in Manchester...
...spent days priming the press corps for his decision. He assured them that he was anxiously consulting just about everybody in Who's Who to gauge opinion on what he described as the most important decision of his career. "Reliable sources" prepared the nation for drastic steps by the Pentagon. The President then relieved millions of worried Americans by reporting in a press conference speech that no mobilization of the reserves would be necessary...
Most defense experts concede that Robert McNamara's Pentagon functions with the smooth efficiency of a computer. On the other hand, his critics point out, even a computer can make a mistake. By miscalculating the full demands of the Viet Nam war, they contend, the Defense Department has weakened the nation's worldwide commitments and run dangerously short of combat-ready troops. At a press conference aimed at answering his critics, most notably the Senate's Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee Chairman John Stennis and the New York Times, McNamara last week countered with a cool, 30-page review...
...implications made that we have drawn down the forces in Western Europe when we haven't." McNamara lost his temper again when Cowles publications' Washington Correspondent Clark Mollenhoff, a longtime foe, persistently accused him of dodging questions about an adverse report by the Preparedness Subcommittee that the Pentagon has refused to release. The Defense Secretary said bitterly: "I unfortunately haven't been able to dodge all the rocks you have thrown at me for five years...