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Harold Brown, who as Defense Secretary under the Carter Administration defended the advanced technologies in combat during a tenure including the failed bailout of hostages in Iran, died at 91 years.
Brown died Friday, said Rand Corp .., the California-based think tank that Brown has been the depository 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 successfully led a campaign to increase the Pentagon's budget during his tenure, despite skepticism at the White House and congressional Democrats.
This tumultuous period includes 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 of the US military.
"I considered the failed rescue attempt as my biggest regret and most painful lesson.He learned," writes Brown in his book "Star Spangled Security."
When it As a Pentagon leader, Brown faces many obstacles, including pressure to cut the defense budget, both in the administration and in influential congressional Democrats. [19659002] "When I became Secretary of Defense in 1977, the Vietnam War disrupted military services, particularly the army." In general, the Soviet Union outclassed classic military capabilities, especially land forces Europe, "he later wrote.
Suspicious of the growing threat posed by the Soviet Union, Brown sought to resist the pressure to reduce defense and gradually managed to increase spending.
"Constant competition from the Cold War raged under the Carter administration and worried me throughout the four years," Brown wrote. He later noted that "the real budget of the Department of Defense was 10 to 12 percent higher when we left than when we entered," which, he said, is not an easy realization.
And he cited technological advances in defense systems, particularly weapons systems such as precision guided cruise missiles, stealth aircraft and advanced satellite surveillance.
"Some of them bore fruit 10 years later during the desert storm, which reversed the occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein," 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 asserted that his considerable work with the Soviets in the arms race was not enough.
"We have also concluded a specific agreement on strategic arms control with the Soviet Union," he wrote. "Although they have never been officially ratified, both parties subscribed to this agreement and limited the Soviet threats that our other conventional and nuclear weapons programs were designed to counter."
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in a statement Saturday that Brown's "constant leadership has driven our country throughout the Cold War." Its focus on deterrence through a strong nuclear triad has facilitated peace and long-term stability in the United States and Europe. " Shanahan congratulated Brown for his "dedicated leadership and life of service."
Brown was born in New York on September 19, 1927. He attended public schools and went to Columbia University with an accelerated schedule during the war. physics in 1945 "while I was not yet 18 years old", then a doctorate in physics at Columbia.
Shortly after graduation, 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 Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Livermore in 1960.
In 1961, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara invited him to assume the post of Director of Research and Engineering of defense within 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 controversial phases 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 returned to the public service and that it be delegated to the discussions on strategic arms limitation in the 1970s,
. Carter appointed Brown to the position of Secretary of Defense in 1977. He was quickly confirmed and served throughout Carter's tenure. 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, then the Institute of Foreign Policy of the University of New York. 39, 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 the troubles that are going through the world, our interests and our peace are constantly being undermined. "
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Follow Will Lester on Twitter – @wjlester.
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