Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [117]
The week before Easter, 1976, Philip Berrigan brought a group of protesters to our house near the Washington-Maryland border. For days they demonstrated around the clock on the sidewalk, shouting, “Murderer!” We worried about our younger children, Marcy and Nick, going back and forth to school through the aggressive demonstrators. At one point, Joyce opened our windows and played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” at the highest volume to keep up her spirits and to try to drown out the protesters’ chants. When they started digging a grave in our front yard, Joyce called the police. Three were arrested for destroying private property.12
At the Berrigans’ trial, Joyce’s only support in the courtroom was our eldest daughter, Valerie, who was home from Connecticut College for Easter.* Valerie was conflicted in a way I expect was typical of many young people at the time. She had been part of a student group at college that had invited Daniel Berrigan to speak about the war (although it had not been her choice to invite him). To her surprise, she had found his remarks not unreasonable. But though she walked across the courtroom and shook hands with him at the hearing, Valerie believed the Berrigan brothers’ destruction of our property had crossed a line well beyond lawful dissent. A public official ought not to have to serve as a doormat for every malcontent with a gripe against the government. Thanks to Joyce, the protesters were convicted.
In the grim atmosphere of the post-Vietnam period, the Cold War, and the relentless demonstrations, I tried to lift the spirits of the twenty-three thousand military and civilian personnel who worked in the Pentagon. I made an early effort to take in the daunting physical terrain of the building by walking through it. I found the experience depressing. To save energy, many of the sockets in the long hallways lacked bulbs. Much of the seventeen miles of dark corridors had bare walls, making the atmosphere dreary at best.13 Though they had every reason to be proud of its history and their service, there was little to inspire the men and women of the department into feeling that they were working in a great and historic institution.
I decided to turn on the lights—literally, with new bulbs and bright hallways. I asked that paintings depicting scenes of U.S. military history be dusted off, brought up from basement storage rooms, and hung on the mostly naked walls. We dedicated corridors to commemorate historic moments, missions, and people. My former NATO colleague, Secretary General Joseph Luns, traveled from Belgium to participate in the official opening of a new corridor honoring the NATO alliance.
In an attempt to demystify the Department of Defense, I had the Pentagon opened up for public tours, much like the White House and Capitol building. The tours allowed people from across the world to get a sense of what was taking place there and what the men and women of the armed forces had achieved.
Unfortunately, as I assumed my duties, I did not enjoy the support of outgoing Secretary Schlesinger who, understandably, was hurt by his removal. Our relationship previously had been friendly.* But the inaccurate rumors that I had been involved in masterminding his firing were gathering steam and no doubt contributed to our uneasy relationship.
I also found myself in an uncomfortable relationship with the number two at the department, Deputy Secretary Bill Clements, who had hoped to be appointed secretary of defense himself. Clements had on occasion bypassed Schlesinger in his dealings with the White House and the State Department, even boasting to reporters that he had greater influence at the White House on defense policy than his boss.14
Heading into a presidential campaign, I could not make significant personnel changes—particularly with someone as politically well connected as Clements.† Fortunately, the Pentagon at the time had statutory positions