Star Spangled Security: Applying Lessons Learned over Six Decades Safeguarding America

3. Stripes and Bright Stars: How the Team at the Top Affects Security Policy

38 3 StripesandBrightStars how the team at the top affects security policy A joke goes that when a new secretary of defense takes office he finds three envelopes in his desk that were left by his predecessor. They’re to be opened when he gets into trouble. There’s a crisis. The new secretary of defense opens the first envelope. The letter inside says: “Blame the other political party.” And he does. There’s another crisis a year later. He opens the second envelope. Its letter says: “Blame the media.” A third crisis happens. He opens the last envelope. That letter says: “Prepare three envelopes.” Friends come and go in Washington; enemies accumulate. Four years is enough time for them to accumulate. For defense secretaries who stayed more than four years (Robert McNamara, Caspar Weinberger, and Donald Rumsfeld each stayed six years or more), the job generally ended badly. At the other end of the spectrum, half the secretaries of defense held office fewer than two years, which is too little time to get much done. Mel Laird stayed four years as secretary of defense and managed to come through fairly well. Charlie Wilson stayed a little longer than four years and was pushed out after the Soviet Union’s Sputnik was successfully launched in 1957. I stayed all four years of Carter’s presidency, one of few of his cabinet-level officials to do so. Some say my longevity was a result of my previous experience and my lack of interest in high visibility. I am by nature an introvert and sought to solve problems I had with others in private. During my last two years in office I had little choice but to become more visible, trying to speak 03-2382-0 ch3.indd 38 9/6/12 4:11 PM Stripes and Bright Stars   |   39 effectively in support of the administration’s national security policies. That inevitably eroded my public image of technocratic nonpartisanship. I admit that the increasing political polarization of the subsequent three decades has not left me unaffected. Remaining a Democrat, I have a lower opinion of both parties. how carter chose his cabinet President-elect Carter made a thorough process of choosing his cabinet officers. He considered several potential candidates for each job and invited them to Georgia, either to his home or to the governor’s office in Atlanta, and interviewed them. His list included people whom he had met before, but also many he had not. My appointment as secretary of defense began with a series of interviews Carter held at Pond House on his farm. My wife, Colene, and I were at a conference in Aspen, Colorado , in July 1976 when I received a call saying that Jimmy Carter wanted to convene a meeting of national security advisers to his campaign. I was one. It was clear to me that this was to be more than just a meeting on issues; Carter was thinking about who might join his administration if he were elected. Before the “defense meeting”—I knew the other half dozen people there—Carter had held a meeting with a group of other people on the topic of foreign policy. That autumn, Carter asked me to come to Atlanta for an individual meeting at the governor’s mansion. He asked me how I would work with other people in his administration without reference to what job he might offer. His approach to assembling his team was more methodical than that of most presidents. He went to great pains to ask potential candidates whether they thought they could get along with each other. Of course, they all said they could. He also wanted to get an idea of the views of the people he was considering. I believe he felt that whatever differences he saw from his detailed interviews, and he did see them, he could manage. It is appropriate for a president to want a variety of views, but there is a limit to the range. During this process, I remembered that back in 1967 when I was air force secretary, Defense Secretary McNamara had come up to my office on the fourth floor of the Pentagon. Cyrus Vance had just left as deputy secretary of defense. McNamara said to me: “I really want to make you 03-2382-0 ch3.indd 39 9/6/12 4:11 PM 40   |   Stripes and Bright Stars deputy...