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His life of service is chronicled in an authorized new biography, With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics, by Dale Van Atta. The book's overarching theme is that Americans achieve great things when they work together, and falter when divided.
Fifty years ago, Reader's Digest founder DeWitt Wallace asked Laird to brief his editors. Now a senior counsellor to the magazine, Laird is still at it. His recent interview with RD is a reminder that the Greatest Generation still has a lot to teach us, not just about their sacrifices during World War II but about the full lives they led after coming home.
Mel Laird was wounded as a young naval officer in the Pacific. Later he became an influential member of Congress, a Cabinet official and an unofficial Washington wise man. Best remembered today as Secretary of Defense in the Nixon Administration during the divisive years of the Vietnam War, Laird was known during his time on Capitol Hill as a tireless promoter of spending on health research. The appropriations he steered through Congress built the National Institutes of Health, the nation's 12 regional cancer centers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now 85 and living in Fort Myers, Florida, Melvin Laird has known every President since Dwight Eisenhower, three generations of Navy officers named McCain and three generations of politicians named Bush. Before the 2003 Iraq invasion, Laird tried through back channels to convince the 41st President, George H. W. Bush, to slow his son's charge to war. He failed, but Laird's concern is shared by many: not whether the U.S. would win militarily but "what we do afterwards."
Q. As a boy, you always wanted to join the Navy. Did an officer McCain have anything to do with it?
A. You're talking about John Sidney McCain, Sr., the Senator's grandfather. The first time I saw him was in 1932 or '33, when I was ten years old, in my hometown of Marshfield, Wisconsin. He was wearing his Navy dress whites, with gold buttons and epaulets. I was so impressed! I followed him up and down the main street. He put up with me. In the drugstore, he bought me a Coca-Cola.
Q. He became a four-star admiral, as did his son, John S. McCain, Jr., who was called Jack.
A. Yes, as Secretary of Defense, I asked Jack McCain to remain as commander of the Pacific Fleet. I would stay at his home when I stopped in Hawaii on my way to Vietnam. When John S. McCain III was shot down and taken prisoner in North Vietnam, Jack always said publicly that he didn't want his son treated any differently than any other American POW. He talked the same way in private. Later, when he was released, I had the honor of meeting John McCain.
Q. What can you recall about a young woman named Hillary Rodham, who worked as a summer intern when she was a student at Wellesley?
A. That was in 1964, also a Presidential election year. I was chairman of the House Republican Conference, so Hillary reported through me. I've always kidded Bill Clinton that Hillary went wrong after meeting him -- she was a good Republican when she worked for me.
Q. What else do you remember about her?
A. Hillary was a very studious-looking young lady. Very smart. She wrote several things for me that I used almost verbatim in speeches. One was called "Fight Now, Pay Later." She used General Accounting Office reports showing that the Pentagon was using supplies from NATO and other places to hide the cost of the Vietnam War.
Q. Did you see a future President in either John McCain or Hillary Rodham Clinton?
A. It would make a better story if I did, but I can't say that. I can say they were both impressive young people.
Q. Speaking of Presidents, you were an intermediary when Richard Nixon chose Gerald Ford to replace Spiro Agnew as Vice President. Did you know at the time that Ford might become President himself?
A. I knew he was going to be President if he accepted the Vice Presidency, because I already knew Nixon had lied.
Q. You came to Congress from Wisconsin at age 30 and teamed up on the Appropriations Committee with a Democrat from Rhode Island, John Fogarty, to take NIH funding from $50 million to $1.4 billion. Is this a legacy a Republican should brag about?
A. I hope they would. It's one of the government's finest accomplishments.
Q. Mary Lasker, the great advocate for cancer research, called you and Fogarty "the cloud riders" because of your lofty ambitions, but you could be down-to-earth. You campaigned for each other, he in Wisconsin and you in Rhode Island.
A. We needed crossover votes in our districts, so it helped us both. Once John Chafee, the Republican governor of Rhode Island, called me: "What are you doing campaigning in this state for a Democrat?" I told him, "He's a good man, and we work well together."
Q. You wouldn't be likely to see something like that today.
A. No, you wouldn't, and it's too bad.
Q. How did your free-spending ways sit with President Eisenhower?
A. Not too well. Ike was always very friendly -- I had traveled with him in the 1956 campaign -- but he got me down to the White House and said, "This budget is just going to get out of order." I said, "Mr. President, I feel so strongly about this. Research is important. Health education is important. We don't have enough doctors. We don't have enough nurses."
Q. President Kennedy gave you a replica of the rocking chair that eased his back pain. You Navy guys stick together, don't you?
A. [Laughs] Well, he gave one to Fogarty too. Mine is at the Laird Center for Medical Research in Wisconsin.
Q. If you could change one thing about how Washington operates today, what would it be?
A. Cut out the shouting. Start working together.
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