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Harold Brown came to office with imposing academic credentials and a wealth
of experience in national security affairs.
Born in New York City on 19 September 1927, Brown took three degrees at
Columbia University, including, at age 21 in 1949, a Ph.D. in physics.
After a short period of teaching and postdoctoral research, Brown became a
research scientist at the University of California Radiation Laboratory at
Berkeley. In 1952 he joined the staff of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
at Livermore, California, and became its director in 1960. During the 1950s
he served as a member of or consultant to several federal scientific bodies
and as senior science adviser at the 1958-59 Conference on the
Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests. Brown worked under Robert McNamara as
director of defense research and engineering from 1961 to 1965, and then as
secretary of the Air Force from October 1965 to February 1969. Between 1969
and 1977 he was president of the California Institute of Technology. With
almost eight years of prior service in the Pentagon, Brown was the first
scientist to become secretary of defense.
Brown involved himself in practically all areas of departmental
activity. Consistent with the Carter administration's objective to
reorganize the federal government, Brown launched a comprehensive review of
defense organization that eventually brought significant change. But he understood
the limits to effective reform.
With regard to strategic planning, Brown shared much the same concerns
as his Republican predecessors-the need to upgrade U.S. military forces and
improve collective security arrangements-but with a stronger commitment to
arms control. Brown adhered to the principle of "essential
equivalence" in the nuclear competition with the Soviet Union.
Brown considered it essential to maintain the triad of ICBMs, SLBMs, and
strategic bombers; some of the administration's most important decisions on
weapon systems reflected this commitment. The administration backed
development of the MX missile, intended to replace in the 1980s the
increasingly vulnerable Minuteman and Titan intercontinental missiles. For
the sea leg of the triad, Brown accelerated development of the larger
Trident nuclear submarine and carried forward the conversion of Poseidon
submarines to a fully MlRVed missile capability.
By early 1979 Brown and his staff had developed a "countervailing
strategy,'' an approach to nuclear targeting that both McNamara and
Schlesinger earlier had found attractive but never formally codified.
Although Brown did not rule out the assured destruction approach, which
stressed attacks on urban and industrial targets, he believed that
"such destruction must not be automatic, our only choice, or
independent of any enemy's attack. Official adoption of the countervailing
strategy came with President Carter's approval of Presidential Directive 59
(PD 59) on 25 July 1980.
Brown regarded the strengthening of NATO as a key national security
objective and worked hard to invigorate the alliance. With the assistance
of Robert W. Komer, at first his special adviser on NATO affairs and
subsequently under secretary of defense for policy, Brown launched a series
of NATO initiatives shortly after taking office. In May 1978 the NATO heads
of government endorsed a Long Term Defense Program that included 10
priority categories: enhanced readiness; rapid reinforcement; stronger
European reserve forces; improvements in maritime capabilities; integrated
air defenses; effective command, control, and communications; electronic
warfare; rationalized procedures for armaments collaboration; logistics
coordination and increased war reserves; and theater nuclear modernization.
At Brown's urging, NATO members pledged in 1977 to increase their
individual defense spending three percent per year in real terms for the
1979-86 period. The objective, Brown explained, was to ensure that alliance
resources and capabilities-both conventional and nuclear-would balance
those of the Soviet bloc. Although some NATO members hesitated to confirm
the agreement to accept new missiles and did not always attain the three
percent target, Brown was pleased with NATO's progress. Midway in his term
he told an interviewer that he thought his most important achievement thus
far had been the revitalization of NATO.
Brown also tried to strengthen the defense contributions of U.S. allies
outside of NATO, particularly Japan and Korea. He repeatedly urged the
Japanese government to increase its defense budget so that it could
shoulder a larger share of the Western allies' Pacific security burden.
Although the Carter administration decided in 1977 on a phased withdrawal
of United States ground forces from the Republic of Korea, it pledged to
continue military and other assistance to that country. Later, because of a
substantial buildup of North Korean military forces and opposition to the
troop withdrawal in the United States, the president shelved the plan,
leaving approximately 40,000 U.S. troops in Korea.
Arms control formed an integral part of Brown's national security
policy. He staunchly supported the June 1979 SALT II treaty between the
United States and the Soviet Union and was the administration's leading
spokesman in urging the Senate to approve it. SALT II limited both sides to
2,250 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and
air-to-surface ballistic missiles), including a sublimit of 1,200 launchers
of MIRVed ballistic missiles, of which only 820 could be launchers of
MIRVed ICBMs. It also placed restrictions on the number of warheads on each
missile and on deployment of new land-based ballistic missile systems,
except for one new type of light ICBM for each side. There was also a
provision for verification by each side using its own national technical
means.
Brown explained that SALT II would reduce the Soviet Union's strategic
forces, bring enhanced predictability and stability to Soviet-U.S. nuclear
relationships, reduce the cost of maintaining a strategic balance, help the
United States to monitor Soviet forces, and reduce the risk of nuclear war.
However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 ensured that
the Senate would not accept the treaty at that time, forcing the president
to withdraw it from consideration. When his term ended in 1981, Brown said
that failure to secure ratification of SALT II was his greatest regret.
Besides broad national security policy matters, Brown had to deal with
several more immediate questions, among them the Panama Canal issue. In the
mid-1960s, after serious disturbances in the zone, the United States and
Panama began negotiations that went on intermittently until 7 September
1977, when the countries signed two treaties, one providing for full
Panamanian control of the canal by the year 2000 and the other guaranteeing
the canal's neutrality. Brown championed the treaties through a difficult
fight to gain Senate approval (secured in March and April 1978), insisting
that they were both advantageous to the United States and essential to the
canal's future operation and security.
In Middle East affairs, Brown supported President Carter's efforts as an
intermediary in the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations leading to the Camp David
Accords of September 1978 and the signing by the two nations of a peace
treaty in March 1979. Elsewhere, the fall of the Shah from power in Iran in
January 1979 eliminated a major U.S. ally and triggered a chain of events
that played havoc with American policy in the region. In November 1979,
Iranian revolutionaries occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took more
than 50 hostages. Brown participated closely in planning for a rescue
operation that ended in failure and the loss of eight U.S. servicemen on
24-25 April 1980. Not until the last day of his administration, on 20
January 1981, could President Carter make final arrangements for the
release of the hostages.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to bolster a
pro-Soviet Communist government further complicated the role of the United
States in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. In response to the events in
Iran and Afghanistan and in anticipation of others, Brown activated the
Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) at MacDill Air Force Base,
Florida on 1 March 1980. Although normally a planning headquarters without
operational units, the RDJTF could obtain such forces from the several
services and command them in crisis situations. Brown explained that the
RDJTF was responsible for developing plans for contingency operations,
particularly in Southwest Asia, and maintaining adequate capabilities and
readiness for such missions.
After
leaving the Pentagon, he remained in Washington, joining the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies as a visiting professor
and later the university's Foreign Policy Institute as chairman. He
continued to speak and write widely on national security issues, and in
1983 published Thinking About National Security: Defense and Foreign Policy
in a Dangerous World. In later years, Brown was affiliated with research
organizations and served on the boards of a number of corporations.
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