Get Up to Speed

Donald Rumsfeld, 44, whose 18 years in Government have included stints as a Representative from Illinois, White House chief of staff and, since November 1975, Secretary of Defense:

When I came to Defense, I spent time studying what the Soviet Union had been doing, and the facts then remain the facts today. We are looking at about 15 years of steady, purposeful effort on the part of the Soviet Union [to build up military capability], and ten to 15 years of the U.S., for a variety of reasons, reducing its level of effort. My conclusion was that there was no doubt that were those trends to continue, then inevitably the lines would cross, and we would be injecting a fundamental instability into the world. Further, you didn't have to wait until we were in an inferior position for that instability to occur.

Anyone can attack the budget; a trained ape could cut the budget by five, ten, 20 or 30 billion dollars. But the cumulative effect is that we would end up where we were last year: paying the penalty for successive reductions in real terms in the defense effort.

It is a hard thing for a free people. We see ourselves negotiating with the Soviet Union and simultaneously investing [in U.S. defense]. It's not a contradiction, but it seems to be. In fact, the Soviets have continued the modernization and expansion of their forces.

This place cannot be run intuitively. I would warn about the problem of civilian control, with appointees moving in 18 months before getting up to speed on the job. This place works; it runs. It will run with you or without you.

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