Nation: THE POLITICIAN AT THE PENTAGON

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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