In My Time - Dick Cheney [86]
General Powell was at that time in command of U.S. Forces Command, or FORSCOM, at Fort McPherson, Georgia, a post he’d gone to after leaving his Reagan White House assignment. I didn’t have to make a decision right away, but I was increasingly attracted to the idea of him as chairman.
A crucial job I had to fill immediately was deputy secretary of defense, a post more important than most cabinet secretaries. Don Atwood of Michigan, formerly vice chairman of General Motors, had been slotted to be John Tower’s deputy, and the president asked me to look at him. It was the only time the president weighed in with a suggestion, and it was a good one. Don was sometimes frustrated at the way Washington worked, especially the relations between the Defense Department and the Congress. He told me once that “at least at General Motors the board of directors wanted us to succeed.” But Atwood brought great managerial strength to the Pentagon and got us through many of our toughest problems, from reform of the procurement system to the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated Florida and Louisiana in 1992.
I chose Paul Wolfowitz as undersecretary of defense for policy. A former ambassador and assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, Paul had the ability to offer new perspectives on old problems. He was also persistent. On more than one occasion, I sent him on his way after I had rejected a piece of advice or a policy suggestion, only to find him back in my office a half hour later continuing to press his point—and he was often right to do so.
As general counsel for the department, I recruited Terry O’Donnell, an Air Force Academy graduate and Vietnam veteran, whose wisdom and discretion I had first seen when he was President Ford’s personal aide and I was deputy chief of staff. David Addington, a CIA-trained attorney with experience working at both the White House and on Capitol Hill, became my special assistant. Bright, completely discreet, and with tremendous personal integrity, Addington was an ideal choice.
Pete Williams, who had been press secretary in my congressional office, became assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. A Stanford graduate, Pete was from my hometown of Casper, Wyoming, where he had once been news director of KTWO television. He had the intellect and judgment to know what he could say to the press and what had to remain confidential. Others from my personal staff, including Dave Gribbin, Patty Howe, Jim Steen, Kim McKernan, and Kathie Embody, moved to the Pentagon with me.
WITHOUT QUESTION ONE OF the most significant posts is that of senior military assistant to the secretary of defense. During my tenure, the military assistant was usually the first person I saw each morning when I arrived for work, and he accompanied me to many of my meetings throughout the day. Inside his office, right next to mine, there was a photograph on the wall taken during the Civil War that showed the military assistant’s supposed forebears. Called Horse Holders, the photo shows a number of junior officers holding the horses of Ulysses S. Grant’s commanders while they meet with the general. If the young men in that photograph were the predecessors of the military assistants I knew, they must have gone on to distinguished careers. My three military assistants all went on to become four-star officers. Admiral Bill Owens would serve as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Joe Lopez would command all U.S. naval forces in Europe, and General John Jumper would become air force chief of staff.
ON FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 1989, I held my first press conference. That morning a front-page story in the Washington Post reported that Air Force Chief of Staff, Larry Welch, had been negotiating directly with Congress about the future of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile systems.