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From The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Harold Brown, who, as Defense Secretary of the Carter Administration, defended advanced combat technologies at During a tenure including the failed rescue of hostages in Iran, died at the age of 91.
Brown died Friday, said Rand Corp., a California-based think tank for which Brown has been a trustee for more than 35 years. His sister, Leila Brennet, said that he had died at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, California.
Brown was a nuclear physicist who had led the Pentagon to modernize its defense systems with weapons including precision guided cruise missiles, stealth aircraft, satellite surveillance, and improved communications and intelligence systems. He campaigned successfully to increase the Pentagon's budget during his tenure, despite skepticism at the White House and congressional Democrats.
This turbulent period included the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and the Iranian hostage crisis. In April 1980, an attempt to rescue the hostages failed. One of the mission's helicopters struck a tanker in eastern Iran and crashed, killing eight US soldiers.
"I considered the failed rescue attempt as my biggest regret and the most painful lesson I learned," Brown wrote in his book "Star Spangled Security."
"When I became Secretary of Defense in 1977, the armed forces, most of the armed forces were seriously disrupted by the Vietnam War and it was generally accepted that the Soviet Union outclassed the military. West in terms of conventional military capability, especially land forces In Europe, "he wrote later.
Suspicious of the growing threat posed by the Soviet Union, Brown sought to resist the pressure to reduce the defense and, little by little, managed to increase his spending.
"The fierce Cold War competition was raging during the Carter administration and I'm concerned all four years," wrote Brown. He later noted that "the Defense Department's budget, in real terms, was 10% to 12% higher when we left than when we entered," which, he said, is n & # 39; 39, was not an easy accomplishment.
He also cites technological advances in defense systems, particularly weapons systems such as precision-guided cruise missiles, stealth aircraft and satellite surveillance. advanced.
"Some of them bore fruit 10 years later during the desert storm, which reversed Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait," he wrote. "The Carter administration has launched and developed these programs, the Reagan administration has often funded their acquisition, and the administration of George HW Bush has employed them."
Brown later stated that his considerable work with the Soviets in the arms race was not
"We also concluded a specific agreement on strategic arms control with the Soviet Union" he wrote. "Although having never been formally ratified, both parties adhered to this agreement and limited the Soviet threats that our other conventional and nuclear weapons programs were designed to counter."
Brown was born in New York on September 19, 1927. She then studied at Columbia University under an accelerated war program, obtaining an undergraduate degree in physics in 1945 "when I was not yet 18 years, "then pursued graduate studies at Columbia where she obtained a doctorate in physics.
Shortly after graduating, he moved to California and worked on projects related to plutonium development. He then went to work in a nuclear weapons laboratory. He was then director of the Livermore Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in 1960.
In 1961, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara Invites to take up the post of director of defense research and engineering. in the Kennedy administration. In 1965 he became Secretary of the Air Force under the Johnson Administration and, as he later explained, "fulfills this role in some of the most difficult and conflicting parts of the Vietnam War" .
Republican, Richard Nixon, back at the White House, Brown accepted the position of President of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, until he resumed his duties at the government and was delegated to strategic arms control discussions in the 1970s, [19659007] Carter appointed Brown to the position of Defense Secretary in 1977. He was quickly confirmed and served throughout Carter's mandate. During the 1980 campaign, Brown actively defended Carter administration policies, often speaking in public on national issues.
After leaving the Pentagon, he remained in Washington and joined the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies as a visiting professor and later. the Institute of Foreign Policy of the University as president. He has remained active in the areas of national security, including the Defense Policy Council, which meets quarterly to provide opportunities for the current Secretary of Defense. He has been a consultant to many companies, often a member of the board of directors.
Carter awarded Brown the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Bill Clinton has awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award from the Department of Energy for his achievements in the field of science and technology.
In a farewell speech delivered as Secretary of Defense, Mr. Brown said: "The most satisfying is that our country has remained in peace despite the tensions and global unrest, our interests and our peace are constantly challenged. "
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