As Chairman, Brown was responsible for handling notable international event such as Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and the "Mayaguez" incident, the final act of the war in Vietnam in 1975. He also dealt with the 1976 shootings and Axe Murder Incident in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and oversaw the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977.One of Brown primary duties as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the recasting and reshaping of the leadership within the Joint Staff. One of Brown primary action as in reshaping the leadership within the Joint Staff was by eliminating the J-2 which was basically responsible for communications function and combining it with the J-3 operations. Brown also gave a chance to his fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff members such as the Air Force Chief of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Army Chief of Staff to handle crisis situation, in-order to prepare them in-case they were chose to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One notable cases is during the Mayaguez Incident, in-which at that time Brown was on a officials foreign trips to attend NATO summit in Europe, in-which at that time Brown allowed Air Force Chief of Staff General David C. Jones to act as the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and led the discussion within the National Security Council on the military planning and military matters to execute the operations to save the crew of SS Mayaguez. As a result, Jones later-on was appointed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding Brown in 1978 and Jones experience as acting-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Mayaguez Incident that led to Jones effort to modernize the scope of the military to improve its relations with the civilian leadership that eventually led to the Military Reform act in 1986 that was famously known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act.