THE POLITICIAN AT THE PENTAGON
THE POLITICIAN AT THE PENTAGON
THE Pentagon is a sorely besieged place these days, and Melvin Robert Laird, the tenth U.S. Secretary of Defense, has frequently found himself fighting off attackers who are nearly as tough and persistent as the Viet Cong. One day recently, mulling over reports from Viet Nam, the latest volley of criticism from Capitol Hill, fresh disputes over strategic weapons and new attacks on the ROTC, Laird had had enough. Thumping his desk, he demanded of an aide: "Aren't we ever going to have any good news? Is it always going to be bad?" He topped that with a resigned scholium: "If we do get any good news, the President will announce it."
It is the task of lifelong Politician Melvin Laird to preside over the Pentagon at the most critical and criticized era for the U.S. military in many years. He must manage America's withdrawal from Viet Nam in such a way that an unsatisfactory war does not turn into a debacle. He must find ways to reduce sharply military spending in a time of rising costs at home, continuing challenges to U.S. power abroad, and changing definitions of America's role in the world. He must shake up a Pentagon grown sluggish and wasteful. And he must do it all under the aroused and hostile scrutiny of a Congress and public now convinced that for too long the generals and the admirals have got too much of what they wanted.
Viet Nam, of course, has been the principal and continuing source of public discontent. But other events have conspired to make the military seem incompetent and worse. Pueblo shocked the nation. The much-heralded F-lll fighter-bomber had to be grounded while its defects were investigated. A House subcommittee charged technical failures and deception in a tank development program. A deadly nerve-gas test went awry, killing thousands of sheep, and the Army tried to cover it up. The once vaunted Green Berets are enmeshed in an ugly scandal. All these and more come atop popular anger over high taxes and prices. A new Gallup poll indicated that 52% of the public now regard military spending as too high, while only 8% think that expenditures should be increased. That is a far cry from the "missile-gap" days of 1960, when a mere 18% thought spending excessive and 21% favored a higher defense budget (the balance either thought the amount proper or had no opinion).
A Bothersome Reputation
Last week Laird, who in public invariably gives the relaxed impression that his hair shirt must have a silk lining, was hard at work at his job while most of Washington was on holiday. Conforming to the President's marching orders for the attack on inflation and to the realities of congressional skepticism, he announced new military-budget cutbacks that will eventually amount to $3 billion. The measures were an artful melange of reductions already taken and some for the future, and he accompanied them with the warning that they would cause an "inevitable weakening of our worldwide military posture." That helped placate his officers, put the principal onus on Congress for the cuts if anything should go wrong, and preserve the credit for Richard Nixon if all goes well. At the same press conference, Laird moved to bring to a halt the wrangling over a military-contingency plan that the U.S. signed with Thailand in 1965. "It does not have my approval or the approval of the President," said Laird. That did not quite answer all the questions about the deal in the first place, but it nicely served to make any further complaints on the matter seem slightly academic. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not fully satisfied, plans to pursue the issue in future hearings.
Less visibly, in his Pentagon office 3-E880, where he sits at a desk that once belonged to General Pershing, Laird was preparing his recommendation to Richard Nixon for the second withdrawal of American troops from Viet Nam. The announcement was originally expected this week, but the decision was made more difficult by the upsurge in Communist aggressiveness, which brought U.S. deaths for the most recent week to 244 v. 96 the week before. Ideally, the Administration would like the next announced withdrawal to be larger than the first one of 25,000 last June. That would maintain the sense of momentum in disengagement. If the combat lull had continued, Laird's proposal for perhaps a considerably larger figure would have been easy to justify. Now it was tricky, and he had to calculate the risk on the battlefields, the tolerance of dissent at home, and somehow strike a balance. At week's end the summer White House in San Clemente said that President Nixon would defer his decision on the cutback until he returns to Washington next month.
Why would anyone want Laird's job? Laird certainly did not. In fact, he asserts with feeling that he "wanted no part" of it; he accepted, loyal partisan that he is, only because Nixon had run out of alternative candidates. Politics, particularly the politics of the House of Representatives, where he has served from Wisconsin since 1953, is Laird's passion. He is good at the craft. His ready informality, which encourages even the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior men at the Pentagon to call their boss "Mel," fits the vocation. So do his competitiveness in debate and his skill at cloakroom orchestration. Cartoonists err who portray him as a maniacal Strangelove, fondling a missile as if it were a kitten, or as a bullet-headed robot. His phiz, indeed, is a public-relations problem. The high, balding dome over intense eyes and small features makes him look a bit like Hubert Humphrey, minus H.H.H.'s winning innocence.
There is nothing innocent about Melvin Laird. The sleek, expensive wardrobe, the thin cigar, the grim scowl when offering some dire pronouncement, the somehow roguish smile when lighthearted, make him easy to caricature, easy to suspect of ulterior motives. As a Congressman, he could be sly in good causes and in partisan ones. When he overthrew Charles Halleck as House minority leader, he managed to create the impression that he and Gerald Ford had split the rebel forces. Actually, they were united, and the putative split was a ploy. Once, just after Minority Leader Ford and his eminence grise. Laird, gave a critical talk on Viet Nam policy, advocating more bombing and naval action, Laird said to a friend: "Jerry really believes that bombing baloney." Now his reputation for sleight of tongue has become a bit of a bother.
Despite his not having wanted the secretaryship, he is enjoying himself after seven months on the job. The work is hard and less pleasant than a congressional leader's, but the power is great. "I like to be picked on," he says. "It doesn't bother me." There is more dignity in his presence now, though he can still be ol' "Bom"--a childhood nickname, taken from "Bambino," that his oldest friends remember--standing there beside the backyard barbecue pit, swathed in an apron and holding a Manhattan on the rocks as he contemplates his prized swimming pool. That scene is increasingly rare. Though he still manages to swim before breakfast and before going to bed, almost all his waking hours are spent before congressional committees, at press conferences, or in one of the endless Pentagon meetings.
Whatever he is doing, he is well aware that he is a man leaning into stiffer gales of controversy and challenge than any of his nine predecessors. For all his problems, Laird is remaining remarkably vertical. He has made tactical errors in hard-selling his views, but the Administration won the Senate vote on the antiballistic-missile program, an issue on which he staked his personal prestige. Two of the most antimilitary Democratic Senators, Gaylord Nelson and William Proxmire, praise the Republican Secretary's toughness and intelligence. "Most important," says Proxmire, "is that he does not stand in awe of the military."
Laird carries a hawkish reputation, based partly on a book published seven years ago, A House Divided: America's Strategy Gap, which laid out an explicit better-dead-than-Red line. He still boosts the brass, as in his speech last week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Skirting the invidious "militaryindustrial complex," usage, he said: "The military-industrial-labor team is a tremendous asset to our nation and a fundamental source of our national strength." Meanwhile he is actively engaged in putting the "team" on a slenderizing diet and preventing contractors from abusing the bidding process that has inflated military costs in the past.
Like the Nixon Administration overall, Laird marches under no grand ensign. After seven months, the White House still has no catch phrase to match New Frontier or Great Society. Laird's Pentagon has no strategy label comparable to "flexible response" in Robert McNamara's day or even the "bigger bang for a buck" of Charles E. Wilson's time. Like Nixon himself, Laird seems unencumbered by--some would say unequipped with--any particularly abiding philosophy. He is the only Secretary of Defense to come from Congress. Half his life -- he will be 47 next week -- was spent as a state or federal legislator,* and he had no other career until last January. "I'm a politician," he has frequently said, "and proud of it. That's all I've ever been." While reviewing an honor guard, he occasionally flusters a properly stiff soldier by sticking out his hand and announcing, can didate-style: "I'm Mel Laird."
Yet Nixon and Laird, the two partisans with well-earned reputations for maneuvering factions and votes and no experience at all in managing armies or industries, have launched much-needed studies of the nation's fundamental strategic goals and the military means needed to achieve them. David Packard, whom Laird drafted from the chairmanship of the Hewlett-Packard Co., to be Deputy Defense Secretary, heads one study group. Before many hard decisions are made about force levels and weapons systems, says Packard, "the future role of the U.S. in world affairs must be decided." The inquiries are deeper than anything undertaken in the '60s and should produce blueprints for a military machine of the '70s.
Though the studies' conclusions are not in yet -- some will be in hand next month, others not until next year -- Laird has already begun to move in new directions. His substantive approach on most issues has been cautious. As al ways with Laird, political instinct is his radar, calculation his principal weapon.
Viet Nam Scenario
It was this instinct that two years ago began to urge Laird away from a hard-line position on Viet Nam. Though he is hardly the sole proprietor of the Administration's disengagement policy, he is a senior and active partner in it. He claims credit for the term "Vietnami-zation of the war," a coinage hardly calculated to win the philologist vote. The object now, he believes, is to get as many Americans out of Viet Nam as possible without causing a sudden deterioration of the allies' position.
The policy is set at the National Security Council level, where Laird is only one member of five. Though it is up to the Defense Department to make it work, to propose the numbers and units to be taken out, Laird's role in this is more than a mechanic's. He is acutely concerned with the continuing inter action of the war and the domestic mood. During an interview with TIME last week, he repeatedly expressed con- cern over "what we're going to have on the campuses this fall." (Laird and his wife Barbara have three children:
John, 21, married this summer, is a junior at Wisconsin State University and is eligible for the draft; Allison is 18, David, 14.) To keep the momentum of Vietnamization going, Laird envisages reviews every three or four months as to further manpower reductions. This must be done not only to satisfy antiwar sentiment at home but also to ensure that the South Vietnamese understand fully the U.S. intention to turn the war effort over to them.
All along, however, the Administration has stipulated three criteria for reductions, any one of which would suffice: progress at the Paris peace talks, a diminution in the level of combat and improvement in the performance of South Viet Nam's military forces. What happens if none of these occurs to a significant degree? Will the domestic mood force near-total U.S. withdrawal anyway? Not necessarily, Laird said. During the interview, he sketched a possible scenario whereby the U.S. force could be cut in half, to about 250,000 men, and kept in South Viet Nam for an extended period. While emohasizing that this is not a desired policy from the U.S. standpoint, Laird implied that it could become a fall-back position if the Communists continue to balk at an agreement and refuse to reduce their war effort unequivocally.
The Money Question
A key feature of this outline, if it were ever implemented, is that the American troops kept in Viet Nam would be all volunteers, rather than the present mix of draftees and regulars. Further, they would be used only in a support capacity. They would supply the South Vietnamese with air and artillery cover and an assortment of logistical services. The G.I.s would not engage in close combat on the ground unless directly attacked. The reduction in numbers and the change in function would presumably result in a dramatic fall-off of American casualties. That, together with the freeing of draftees from service in Viet Nam, could reduce political pressure on the Administration and help quiet dissent in general.
In Laird's view, the most combustible element in the campus tinderbox, because of Viet Nam, is the draft. Nixon revived proposals for reforming it, but since his message to Congress in May nothing has come of the recommendations to put induction on a random basis and limit the individual's liability to a single year. This month the Defense Department assumed responsibility for promoting the changes, a task previously assigned to the Selective Service System under General Lewis Hershey, 75.
To get Congress moving on draft reform, Laird proposes that "pressure from the people be brought to bear." A presidential speech is one possibility. The goal is to persuade young people, both on campuses and in ghettos, that draft procedures are as equitable as possible. The Administration's ultimate aim is to abolish the draft and rely entirely on volunteers. Even if the Administration fails to get congressional approval of major changes in the draft, the very effort, if made vigorously and publicly, is worth political points.
Laird's announcement last week of spending cuts of "up to $3 billion" together with the $1.1 billion trimmed earlier, would produce a defense budget of $77 billion for the fiscal year that began July 1, instead of the $81.1 billion originally contemplated at the change of Administrations. Uniformed personnel now numbering 3,430,000, would be reduced by 100,000. The civilian roster of 1,430,000 would go down by 50,000. Army and Air Force training and maintenance operations outside of Viet Nam will be cut. The Navy's 970 shins in active commission will be reduced by about 100. Among the victims are two of the older aircraft carriers, the Kearsarge and the Bennington, which are both now on antisubmarine patrol duty, and the battleship New Jersey, the only dreadnought in service anywhere in the world. The New Jersey was taken out of storage and refitted last year at the cost of $22.2 million for duty off Viet Nam. Laird will save $14 million a year by retiring her again. An unspecified number of military installations will also be closed.
Part of the Pentagon's budget problem consists of cost overruns--higher-than-anticipated final bills for new weapons. Laird, keenly aware of this problem, is acting to solve it, but he chose not to mention that fact in connection with the need for economies. To have done so would have been poor public relations. Laird's whole approach to the cuts is a case study of the way he works. By naming specific areas for reductions, he might be able to head off congressional vetoes of programs still more precious to the Pentagon. By scattering announcements, he creates the impression of more reductions than are in fact taking place. The cancellation of the manned orbital laboratory system, the halt in procurement of the Cheyenne helicopter and the deactivation of the 9th Infantry Division, for example, had been announced previously but were mentioned again in last week's totals. Some of the savings come as a direct result of the troop reduction in Viet Nam.
Long-Range Plans
From the standpoint of orthodox military thinking, almost any diminution of forces or equipment amounts to a weakening. Moreover, cutting training operations will obviously affect readiness. The question, however, is whether the force level or degree of preparedness can be reduced without damaging real security requirements. Laird did not address himself to that issue except by implication. If indeed the country's security interests are being put in jeopardy by any of the steps taken, however reluctantly, by the Pentagon, then Congress or the Administration or both should be called to account. It appears, to the contrary, that Laird was merely being the shrewd tactician.
Although the Administration's studies have yet to produce specific guidance for the next decade, Laird and others in the Administration believe that the American defense establishment of the future will be significantly smaller than it is today--and even somewhat below the pre-Viet Nam level as the war burden lessens. While the fiscal problem and Congress' attitude force Laird to cut more and earlier than he otherwise might, some of the reductions seem--despite his protests--to fit into his long-term intentions. In appearing to be dragged into making economies, of course, Laird also maintains his credentials with the uniformed chiefs and with the congressional old guard that is still promilitary. Robert McNamara, by contrast, positively gloried in every dime saved and every pet project vivisected. Laird is too much a man of the Washington world to make enemies unnecessarily.
As Laird's long-range plans start to come into focus, both for the overall design of the military apparatus and the internal operations of the Pentagon, a number of contrasts with the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations are becoming evident. Some represent reactions to changing conditions or the culmination of trends begun years ago. Others are conscious departures.
Bad News
It has been apparent for years that forward deployment of large American ground forces in Asia and Europe would eventually be reduced, if not eliminated entirely. Viet Nam, North Korea's pugnacity, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and other bad news have deferred this realignment but not canceled it. Laird acknowledges that the American Seventh Army is in West Germany, for instance, more to meet political needs than strictly military ones. Although he places little credence in talk of detente with the Russians,* he does not rule out an eventual pullback from Europe. Technical developments in military transportation, such as the C-5A aircraft and fast supply vessels, give the U.S. increased capability for keeping a larger part of its forces at home while still being able to react quickly to an overseas emergency. When President Nixon talks about maintaining the U.S. as a Pacific power, most strategists translate that to mean air and sea rather than ground forces.
The prospect, then, is for the Army and Marines to shrink proportionally more than the Air Force and the Navy. While McNamara emphasized a balance of forces and strengthened conventional elements as well as nuclear components of the arsenal, Laird is likely to encourage at least a partial return to the approach of the Eisenhower years. The stress then was on developing strategic nuclear weapons--long-range bombers, missiles, Polaris submarines.
Laird, however, is not likely to be content with merely maintaining the present generation of big-bang weapons. He favors, for instance, giving the Air Force funds to buy a new long-range bomber, the Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft (AMSA), which McNamara repeatedly vetoed. He strongly supports vigorous research and development efforts for new weapons and frequently expresses his fear that the Russians are threatening to overtake the U.S. not only in deployed weapons but in technology for future arms. This thinking, shared of course by the military chiefs and by his senior scientific adviser, John Foster Jr., accounts for Laird's advocacy of the Safeguard ABM and the MIRV program for the Minuteman and Poseidon missiles. He anticipates that the next big arena for military breakthroughs will be the oceans. That is a very long-range possibility, but Laird is eager to explore all frontiers.
Foster, a physicist who served McNamara and Clifford as Director of Defense Research and Engineering and has kept that job under Laird, echoes and amplifies Laird's basic theme. The Russians, Foster says, have been increasing their technical efforts by 10% a year in terms of investment while the U.S. has been going up just 4%, or "not quite enough to cover the inflation rate for technology." Last week Foster warned: "Since secrecy usually hides much of the capability of the Soviet Union, we in fact rely heavily on technology to ensure us against disastrous surprises. We must have broad technological superiority over any potential enemy. Not parity--superiority."
If a technology gap is indeed developing, Laird means to plug it. While the overall defense budget is scheduled to decrease compared with last year's, the Administration is requesting a 7% increase in R & D, bringing the total to $8.8 billion. Maintaining the ability to produce new weapons does not necessarily mean actually developing them. Since Laird took office, the Defense Department has contracted for the creation of only one major new system, the S-3A, a carrier-based antisubmarine patrol plane. He would, of course, like to go ahead with certain others.
Within the Pentagon, Laird is a far more popular figure than either of his two immediate predecessors. He has al ways had a good deal of rapport with the generals and admirals and has always shared many of their views. While in the House, he was a member of the Appropriations subcommittee for defense affairs. A conscientious legislator who did his homework, Laird became one of the most knowledgeable defense experts in the House. He also became personally acquainted with most of the senior military leaders.
One of McNamara's biggest achievements was to impose firm civilian rule on the generals. Another was to demand --and get--a degree of coordination among the services' missions and programs that had been unheard of before his time. While a Congressman, Laird --LIFE was a sometime critic of McNamara, but he admired McNamara's strong leadership, if not all of his specific decisions and methods, and still keeps in touch with McNamara through occasional dinners. Laird himself is too tough a personality and too conscious of the uses of power to revert to the pre-Mc-Namara system of letting the generals loose to spend their allotted funds as they see fit, regardless of duplication or waste. What he has done, however, both in human relationships and organizational changes, is to restore some of the military's personal prestige and official prerogatives in the decision-making process.
Downgraded Whiz Kids
"It is simply foolhardy," says Laird, "not to make maximum use of the great talent, wisdom and experience available through the Joint Chiefs of Staff and within the services." Before his press conference last week, Laird thoroughly briefed General Earle Wheeler, J.C.S. chairman, on what was to be announced. The first thing the Secretary did after the conference was to give Wheeler a full rundown of the question-and-answer segment. Says the general: "The tenor of doing business in the Pentagon has changed, and it is a productive change."
Other alterations go far beyond tenor. Laird has put one of his oldest personal friends, Assistant Secretary for Administration Robert Froehlke, in a coordinator's role over the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency to ensure that they com- plement each other rather than work at cross purposes. He has set up a Domestic Action Council within the Pentagon to contribute to Government antipoverty efforts. He has downgraded the Office of International Security Affairs, one of McNamara's favorite shops, which acted as a little State Department within the Pentagon. Now it is more concerned with performing studies for the National Security Council.
Another McNamara favorite that has lost influence is Systems Analysis, the home of the young civilian experts known as McNamara's whiz kids. To the uniformed chiefs, the decline of Systems Analysis was the ultimate symbol of the military's renewed prestige. The office was viewed in that light because Mc-Namara gave it the responsibility for the first and most important review of goals and plans originated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the course of that review, Systems Analysis was often able to originate policy. Under Laird's table of organization, the three military services will get first crack at revising and refining the Joint Chiefs' plan. The new arrangement has the effect of increasing the responsibility of the three civilian service Secretaries, Stanley Resor of the Army, John Chafee of the Navy and Robert Seamans Jr. of the Air Force. Laird feels that McNamara cen- tralized too many functions in his own office and that responsibility should be spread more evenly throughout the department. One of Laird's biggest challenges is to make the Pentagon more efficient in weapons procurement. To aid in this, he is giving the individual services more authority in managing programs. But Laird also demands that they take more responsibility both in making original estimates realistic and in monitoring development closely to ensure that specifications and deadlines are being met and that costs are staying close to the budget.
Strong Men
The office of the Secretary of Defense seems to be somewhat slowed under Laird. He is inevitably one of the most influential men in the Cabinet, both because of the importance of his department and because of Nixon's respect for his abilities. Gaylord Nelson recalls Nixon's once telling him: "Mel is one of the ablest men I've ever seen in government." Unlike some Cabinet officers, Laird has ready access to the Oval Office. Nonetheless, Washington has grown accustomed to McNamara's performance as super-Secretary, particularly in the three years following John Kennedy's death. McNamara seemed to be setting foreign policy and performing a variety of other services for Lyndon Johnson. Clifford, in his brief tenure, was not quite so versatile, but he did have a special relationship with Johnson, and was ultimately the leading mover in reversing Johnson's position on the war.
Nixon runs a more orderly, traditional organization. By restoring the National Security Council to its former eminence, Nixon has, in effect, minimized the star system. Laird has less opportunity, and probably less ambition, to venture into foreign policy than McNamara or Clifford. As a Cabinet member, and one well versed in domestic affairs and politics, Laird, of course, has his say in fields beyond the military. But again, Nixon has no shortage of strong men in these areas. If Laird is to earn good marks because of his work in the Nixon Administration, it will have to be mainly in his own field.
How has he done so far? The brief record is mixed but promising. One problem he has made for himself is that of overstatement. In trying to defend his programs, he has occasionally used talk of the kind that a Congressman can easily get away with but a Defense Secretary cannot. During the ABM debate, he said at one point that there was "no doubt" that the Russians were building a first-strike force with their big S59 missiles--that is, an arsenal that could quickly obliterate U.S. offensive capability. When challenged, he backed down somewhat to the more precise statement that the S59 could be used to destroy Minuteman sites. American bombers in the air and Polaris submarines on patrol would, of course, be another matter.
Although he insists that he bases his statements on new intelligence information, his and Foster's presentations sometimes seem exaggerated simply to make debating points and headlines. State Department analysts, for instance, privately argue with Laird's assertion that the Russians' "effort ratio" on strategic defenses is seven times that of the U.S. To be sure, the Russians are spending a larger proportion of their gross national product than the U.S. on ABM and other strategic weapons. But the fact that the Russians, with half the American G.N.P., are straining their resources even more than the U.S. on defense programs is a commentary on relative economies, not comparative military strength. The formulation also overlooks the fact that the U.S. has much of its offensive arsenal in place, while the Russians have been struggling in the past few years to catch up. Some of Laird's aides have been urging him to be more circumspect.
It is the business of a department head to sell his agency's programs. Parochial enthusiasm, however, is hardly in the public interest. While going along with the Administration's avowed goal of reaching an arms-control agreement with the Russians, Laird's current arguments against any slowdown in nuclear weaponry could be extended into opposition to any agreement that might be reached. This, obviously, is the apprehension in the State Department and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as it looks to arms-limitation talks with the Soviets (see box on page 16).
Counterweight
Laird pleads guilty only to wanting a strong bargaining position: "If you give the Russians anything before the talks begin, then either the negotiations never start or they drag on for several years without accomplishing anything. The Soviet Union will wait to see how much they can get before they sit down." McNamara, when he argued for arms control and against certain weapons projects, often provided a counterweight to civilian militarism on Capitol Hill. Today the balance is tipped sharply so that opposition to the military, particularly in the Senate, threatens to go to the opposite extreme. While the new skepticism can have healthy results in terms of a more realistic defense structure, it can also degenerate into indiscriminate slashing of military strength. Now that critics of the Defense Department are in full cry, the accused should be entitled to articulate counsel.
How Laird's specific reforms will work remains to be seen. If he seems to lack startling imagination and grand vision, he also appears to be genuinely searching for new approaches and to be reluctant to make radical changes until the research is in. For all his old reputation as a hard-liner--and Nixon's for that matter--the Administration is picking its way cautiously toward what is shaping up to be a less bloated, more efficient military apparatus and a more modest commitment overseas. Politics? Of course. Good politics and good policy are not, after all, mutually exclusive.
*Freshly returned from World War II Navy service, Laird at age 23 was elected to his father's seat in the Wisconsin legislature upon the latter's death. He served six years, then won a congressional election in 1952. * The Russians reciprocate. Laird is the Cabinet officer most criticized in the Soviet press. He has recently been accused of "frightening Americans" with his statements about Russian missile development.
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