Word: pentagons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...present basis of the nation's ROTC programs is the Reserve Officer Training Corps Vitalization Act of 1964. The Vitalization Act is a strange mixture of nostalgic patriotism and modern defense planning. Although Congress voted to increase aid to high school ROTC units against Pentagon opposition, most of the bill reflects the changing function of the postwar ROTC. The bill provides for increased scholarship assistance to ROTC cadets planning to enter active service after graduation, as well as $40-$50 monthly allowances to all cadets in the advanced program. It also allows students to enlist in ROTC as late...
Until recently, opposition to ROTC has been concentrated in those institutions--mostly land-grant colleges--where the program is compulsory for all male freshmen and sophomores. Since the Pentagon no longer pushes compulsory ROTC, opposition to it has been highly successful. Compulsory military training on college campuses will probably disappear almost entirely within the next few years...
...route to the final ceremonies next day, McNamara, Johnson and eleven others got stuck in the Pentagon's elevator No. 13 for twelve minutes. Once outside, they learned that a chilling rain had forced the cancellation of an Air Force and Navy flyover. After four 105-mm. howitzers boomed out a 19-gun salute, Johnson told an audience of 1,000 before the columned Potomac River entrance to the Pentagon: "I have heard this place here referred to as the 'puzzle palace.' Bob McNamara may be the only man who ever found the solution to the puzzle...
During his seven-year tenure, McNamara did indeed go a long way toward solving the puzzle of the Pentagon. Most notable were his application of sophisticated managerial techniques to the department's often chaotic budgetary and systems analysis practices, his firm assertion of civilian control, and his emphasis on conventional as well as nuclear forces. On the debit side were his reluctance to concede error and his inability to get along with Congress. "There is a way for a man to say no without offending, and there is a way for a man to say yes without offending," said...
McNamara left the Pentagon in the best shape, managerially speaking, it has ever been in. Inevitably he also left behind a spate of unresolved problems that Clifford must confront even if he is only in office through next January in a caretaker role, as some officials expect. Chief among them...