Melvin Laird Melvin Robert " Bom " Laird ( born September 1 , 1922 ) is an American politician and writer . He was a U . S . congressman from Wisconsin before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon . Laird was instrumental in forming the administration ' s policy of withdrawing U . S . soldiers from the Vietnam War ; he invented the expression " Vietnamization , " referring to the process of transferring more responsibility for combat to the South Vietnamese forces . Early life . He was born in Omaha , Nebraska , grew up and attended high school in Marshfield , Wisconsin , although he attended Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest , Illinois his junior year . He was nicknamed " Bambino " ( shortened to " Bom " and pronounced like the word ' bomb ' ) by his mother . Laird was the grandson of William D . Connor , the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin from 1907 to 1909 . His niece is Jessica Laird Doyle , wife of former Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle . He graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota in May 1944 , having enlisted in the United States Navy a year earlier . Following his commissioning as an ensign , he served on a destroyer , the USS " Maddox " ( DD - 731 ) , in the Pacific . A recipient of the Purple Heart and several other decorations , Laird left the Navy in April 1946 . Legislative career . Laird entered the Wisconsin State Senate at age 23 , succeeding his deceased father Melvin R . Laird , Sr . He represented a legislative district encompassing Stevens Point , Wisconsin . He remained in the Senate until his election in November 1952 to the United States House of Representatives representing Wisconsin ' s 7th District in central Wisconsin , including the areas of Marshfield , Wausau , Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point . In the 1964 Republican presidential primaries , Laird was an " unannounced " supporter of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater , and chaired the Platform Committee at that year ' s Republican convention , at which Goldwater was nominated . Laird was re - elected eight consecutive times and he was chairman of the House Republican Conference when Nixon selected him for the cabinet . He was known for his work on both domestic and defense issues , including his service on the Defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee . He left Congress reluctantly , making it clear when he became secretary on 22 January 1969 that he intended to serve no more than four years . As a congressman Laird had supported a strong defense posture and had sometimes been critical of Secretary McNamara . In September 1966 , characterizing himself as a member of the loyal opposition , he publicly charged the Johnson administration with deception about Vietnam war costs and for delaying decisions to escalate the ground war until after the 1966 congressional elections . Laird also criticized McNamara ' s management and decision - making practices . Laird was reportedly the elder statesman chosen by the Republicans to convince Vice President Spiro Agnew to resign his position after Agnew ' s personal corruption became a public scandal . He also had a prominent role in the selection of Gerald Ford as Agnew ' s replacement as Vice President . Secretary of Defense . After he became Secretary of Defense , Laird and President Nixon appointed a Blue Ribbon Defense Panel that made more than 100 recommendations on DoD ' s organization and functions in a report on 1 July 1970 . The department implemented a number of the panel ' s proposals while Laird served in the Pentagon . Managerial style . Laird did not depart abruptly from the McNamara - Clifford management system , but rather instituted gradual changes . He pursued what he called " participatory management , " an approach calculated to gain the cooperation of the military leadership in reducing the Defense budget and the size of the military establishment . While retaining decisionmaking functions for himself and the deputy secretary of defense , Laird somewhat decentralized policymaking and operations . He accorded the service secretaries and the JCS a more influential role in the development of budgets and force levels . He revised the PPBS , including a return to the use of service budget ceilings and service programming of forces within these ceilings . The previously powerful systems analysis office could no longer initiate planning , only evaluate and review service proposals . Laird noted this in his FY 1971 report , " Except for the major policy decisions , I am striving to decentralize decisionmaking as much as possible . . . So , we are placing primary responsibility for detailed force planning on the Joint Chiefs and the Services , and we are delegating to the Military Departments more responsibility to manage development and procurement programs . " The military leadership was enthusiastic about Laird ' s methods . As the Washington Post reported after his selection as secretary of defense , " Around the military - industrial complex these days they ' re singing ' Praise the Laird and pass the transformation . ' " Laird did not shrink from centralized management where he found it useful or warranted . His tenure saw the establishment of the Defense Investigative Service , the Defense Mapping Agency , the Office of Net Assessment , and the Defense Security Assistance Agency ( to administer all DoD military assistance programs ) . In October 1972 Congress passed legislation creating a second deputy secretary of defense position , a proposal Laird strongly supported , even though he never filled the position . Laird paid special attention to two important interdepartmental bodies : the Washington Special Action Group ( WSAG ) , composed of senior Defense , State , and CIA officials , which gathered information necessary for presidential decisions on the crisis use of U . S . military forces ; and the Defense Program Review Committee ( DPRC ) , which brought together representatives from many agencies , including DoD , State , the Council of Economic Advisers , and the Office of Management and Budget , to analyze defense budget issues as a basis for advising the president , placing , as Laird commented , " national security needs in proper relationship to non - defense requirements . " Pentagon budget . Laird succeeded in improving DoD ' s standing with Congress . As a highly respected congressional veteran , Laird had a head start in his efforts to gain more legislative support for Defense programs . He maintained close contact with old congressional friends , and he spent many hours testifying before Senate and House committees . Recognizing the congressional determination , with wide public support , to cut defense costs ( including winding down the Vietnam War ) , Laird worked hard to prune budgetary requests before they went to Congress , and acceded to additional cuts when they could be absorbed without serious harm to national security . One approach , which made it possible to proceed with such new strategic weapon systems as the B - 1 bomber , the Trident nuclear submarine , and cruise missile s , was agreement to a substantial cut in conventional forces . As a result , total military personnel declined from some 3 . 5 million in FY 1969 to 2 . 3 million by the time Laird left office in January 1973 . Those weapon platforms , as well as the F - 15 , F - 16 , A - 10 , and Los Angeles nuclear submarine were all programs started by the Laird Pentagon . Other initiatives , including troop withdrawals from Vietnam , phasing out old weapon systems , base closures , and improved procurement practices , enabled the Pentagon to hold the line on spending , even at a time when high inflation affected both weapon and personnel costs . In Laird ' s years , total obligational authority by fiscal year was as follows : 1969 , $ 77 . 7 billion ; 1970 , $ 75 . 5 billion ; 1971 , $ 72 . 8 billion ; 1972 , $ 76 . 4 billion ; and 1973 , $ 78 . 9 billion . Vietnam War . Vietnam preoccupied Laird as it had McNamara and Clifford . In 1968 Nixon campaigned on a platform critical of the Johnson administration ' s handling of the war and promised to achieve " peace with honor " . Although not receptive to demands for immediate withdrawal , Laird acknowledged the necessity to disengage U . S . combat forces gradually . Thus he developed and strongly supported " Vietnamization " , a program intended to expand , equip , and train South Vietnam ' s forces and assign to them an ever - increasing combat role , at the same time steadily reducing the number of U . S . combat troops . During 1969 the new administration cut authorized U . S . troop strength in Vietnam from 549 , 500 to 484 , 000 , and by 1 May 1972 the number stood at 69 , 000 . During this same period , from January 1969 to May 1972 , U . S . combat deaths declined 95 percent from the 1968 peak , and war expenditures fell by about two - thirds . Laird publicized Vietnamization widely ; in his final report as secretary of defense in early 1973 , he stated : " Vietnamization . . . today is virtually completed . As a consequence of the success of the military aspects of Vietnamization , the South Vietnamese people today , in my view , are fully capable of providing for their own in - country security against the North Vietnam ese . " In this same report Laird noted that the war had commanded more of his attention than any other concern during his four - year term . Upon becoming secretary he set up a special advisory group of DoD officials , known as the Vietnam Task Force , and he met with them almost every morning he was in the Pentagon . He also visited Vietnam several times for on - the - scene evaluations . Although his program of Vietnamization could be termed a success , if one considers the progress of troop withdrawals , U . S . involvement in the conflict became perhaps even more disruptive at home during Nixon ' s presidency than during Johnson ' s . The U . S . incursion into Cambodia in May 1970 to eliminate North Vietnamese sanctuaries , the renewed bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of its harbors in the spring of 1972 in response to a North Vietnamese offensive , and another bombing campaign against the North in December 1972 brought widespread protest . Nixon ' s Vietnam policy , as well as that of previous administrations , suffered further criticism when , in June 1971 , the Pentagon Papers , a highly classified narrative and documentary history of U . S . involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 , prepared at Secretary McNamara ' s order , was leaked and published in part in several major newspapers . Laird publicly supported Nixon ' s Vietnam course , although Laird privately opposed the deception used to mask the Cambodian invasion from the American populace . He counted on the success of Vietnamization , peace talks that had begun in 1968 in Paris , and the secret negotiations in Paris between Henry Kissinger , the president ' s assistant for national security affairs , and North Vietnamese representatives to end the conflict . On 27 January 1973 , two days before Laird left office , the negotiators signed a Vietnam settlement in Paris . They agreed to an in - place cease - fire to begin on 28 January 1973 , complete withdrawal of U . S . forces within 60 days , the concurrent phased release of U . S . prisoners of war in North Vietnam , and establishment of an international control commission to handle disagreements among the signatories . Although , as time was to demonstrate , South Vietnam was not really capable of defending its independence , Laird retired from office satisfied that he had accomplished his major objective , the disengagement of United States combat forces from Vietnam . Cold War and nuclear war planning . Vietnam preoccupied Laird , but not to the exclusion of other pressing matters . Although not intimately involved in the development of strategic nuclear policy as McNamara had been , Laird subscribed to the Nixon administration ' s program of " Strategic Sufficiency " - that the United States should have the capability to deter nuclear attacks against its home territory and that of its allies by convincing a potential aggressor that he would suffer an unacceptable level of retaliatory damage ; it should also have enough nuclear forces to eliminate possible coercion of its allies . The policy , not much different from McNamara ' s except in name and phrasing , embraced the need both to avoid mass destruction of civilians and to seek mechanisms to prevent escalation of a nuclear conflict . The administration further refined its strategic ideas in July 1969 when the president issued a statement that came to be known as the " Nixon Doctrine " , stressing " pursuit of peace through partnership with our allies . " Instead of the previous administration ' s " 2½ war " concept - readiness to fight simultaneous wars on two major fronts and one minor front - the Nixon Doctrine cut back to the " 1½ war " level . Through military aid and credit - assisted sales of military equipment abroad , the United States would prepare its allies to take up a greater share of the defense burden , especially manpower needs , in case of war . U . S . military forces would be " smaller , more mobile , and more efficient general purpose forces that . . . [ would ] neither cast the United States in the role of world policeman nor force the nation into a new isolationism . " Laird supported the strategic arms talks leading to the SALT I agreements with the Soviet Union in 1972 : a five - year moratorium against expansion of strategic nuclear delivery systems , and an antiballistic missile treaty limiting each side to two sites ( later cut to one ) for deployed ABM systems . As Laird put it , " In terms of United States strategic objectives , SALT I improved our deterrent posture , braked the rapid buildup of Soviet strategic forces , and permitted us to continue those programs which are essential to maintaining the sufficiency of our long - term strategic nuclear deterrent . " Conscription suspended . Other important Laird goals were ending conscription by 30 June 1973 and the creation of an All Volunteer Force ( AVF ) . Strong opposition to selective service mounted during the Vietnam War and draft calls declined progressively during Laird ' s years at the Pentagon ; from 300 , 000 in his first year , to 200 , 000 in the second , 100 , 000 in the third , and 50 , 000 in the fourth . On 27 January 1973 , after the signing of the Vietnam agreement in Paris , Laird suspended the draft , five months ahead of schedule . Later career . Laird completed his term of office as secretary of defense on 29 January 1973 . Because he had stated repeatedly that he would serve only four years ( only Charles E . Wilson and Robert McNamara among his predecessors served longer ) , it came as no surprise when President Nixon on 28 November 1972 nominated Elliot L . Richardson to succeed him . In his final report in January 1973 Laird listed what he considered to be the major accomplishments of his tenure : Vietnamization ; achieving the goal of strategic sufficiency ; effective burden - sharing between the United States and its friends and allies ; adequate security assistance ; maintenance of U . S . technological superiority through development of systems such as the B - 1 , Trident , and cruise missiles ; improved procurement ; " People Programs " such as ending the draft and creating the AVF ; improved National Guard and Reserve forces ; enhanced operational readiness ; and participatory management . One of Laird ' s most active initiatives was his persistent effort to secure the release of the American captives held by the enemy in Vietnam . During his tenure as Defense Secretary , Laird did not share President Nixon ' s lingering timetable for withdrawal from Vietnam . He publicly contradicted the administrations policy , which upset the White House . Laird wished to return to the political arena , and was said to be planning a run for president in 1976 . After Watergate , this proved implausible . There was also talk of a Senate run and perhaps a return to his old House seat in hopes of becoming Speaker . In spite of Vietnam and the unfolding Watergate affair , which threatened to discredit the entire Nixon administration , Laird retired with his reputation intact . Although not a close confidant of the president and not the dominant presence that McNamara was , Laird had been an influential secretary . He achieved a smooth association with the military leadership by restoring some of the responsibilities they had lost during the 1960s . His excellent relations with Congress enabled him to gain approval for many of his programs and budget requests . After a brief absence Laird returned to the Nixon administration in June 1973 as counselor to the president for domestic affairs , concerning himself mainly with legislative issues . In February 1974 , as the Watergate crisis in the White House deepened , Laird resigned to become senior counselor for national and international affairs for " Reader ' s Digest " . Following Richard Nixon ' s resignation as President , Laird was reported to be the first choice of successor Gerald Ford to be nominated , a position ultimately filled by Nelson Rockefeller . In 1974 , he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom . Since 1974 he has written widely , in " Reader ' s Digest " and other publications , on national and international topics . On January 5 , 2006 , he participated in a meeting at the White House of former Secretaries of Defense and State to discuss United States foreign policy with Bush administration officials . Journalist Dale Van Atta has written a biography of Laird entitled , " With Honor : Melvin Laird in War , Peace , and Politics , " published by the University of Wisconsin Press , 2008 .