Word: vessey
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Thursday, after Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Vessey, told a House committee that only 500 Marines would be moved offshore from Beirut by the end of February, the sense of congressional bewilderment and hostility rose even higher. When Secretary of State George Shultz appeared before the same committee to testify on the Lebanese political situation, Republican Congressman William S. Broomfield of Michigan warned, "We are wondering whether or not our policy [in Lebanon] is dramatically changing." Emerging from private briefings by Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth...
Chiefs of Staff opened up in 1982, Long was reported to be a contender, but the job eventually went to Army General John W. Vessey...
...criticize the "peacekeeping" role of the Marines. Said he: "The people in the Mideast have been fighting since the days of Abraham. Asking our Marines to stop the fighting there is like trying to change the course of Niagara Falls with a bucket." Hopkins said that General John Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had testified before his committee that all five chiefs oppose the current use of the Marines...
...August, National Security Adviser Clark convened a special meeting of top officials: the new Secretary of State, George Shultz, Arms Control and Disarmament Director Rostow, Defense Secretary Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey and General John W Vessey Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Each of these men brought one aide. Absent, however, were the two officials who had been most influential in formulating arms-control policy: Perle and Burt. Perle was combining a vacation with a stay at the Aspen Institute arms-control workshop in Colorado. Burt, who had been nominated to replace Eagleburger as Assistant Secretary of State...
Nevertheless, the chiefs went into "the Tank," their inner sanctum in the Pentagon, to decide on a joint position. They split: Vessey and Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Gabriel leaned in favor of the plan, while Army Chief of Staff Edward C. Meyer, whose service had responsibility for the Pershing II and who therefore had a proprietary interest in seeing it continued, leaned against it, along with Chief of Naval Operations James Watkins. The chiefs' equivocal report never reached the President, who had asked...