Delivered September 12, 1997

Laird Center Dedication

Mr. President, Mel, friends:

It's a great honor for me to be here and I'm the only speaker here who encountered Mel as a member of the executive branch. Now in those days, I was national security advisor and the story that was put out by David Broder and his colleagues was that I was sort of "in charge of foreign policy". Fact is, can anyone imagine being in charge of Mel Laird (audience laughter)? I once was told by John Osborne, great writer for the New Republic, he said, "We all know you are the director of this play", and I said "Am I the director of this play, or am I an actor in some other play, whose plot they haven't told me yet?"(audience laughter) And I must tell you when Richard Nixon and Mel Laird interacted, and the issue was who would get credit for something, it was not easy to determine what the plot of the play was.(audience laughter) Those were titanic struggles. Now I thought that I'd tell you how it looked from where I sat. First, no one man can handle Mel Laird. So I always had some deputy who had to do the preliminary scrimmaging, so that I might find out at least where the battlefield was.(audience laughter) And there were a number of guidelines I gave to my associates. Guideline one is: Mel Laird is extremely smart. Guideline two: He knows he's extremely smart. Guideline three is: He will let you know he's extremely smart. Guideline four is: It is much less painful to do what he wants than to refuse to do what he wants. Guideline five is: When Mel Laird says to you, 'you know what I mean'--there is no conceivable way you can possibly know what he means.(audience laughter and applause) Guideline six:(audience laughter) If Mel Laird calls you up and complains about a story in today's paper, you know he has put it out. (audience laughter)

...now let me turn to the more serious side. Mel Laird was Secretary of Defense in one of the most complicated and tragic periods of American history. When he became Secretary of Defense, he found 550,000 American troops in as far away from the United States as you can place them, and some of those who put them there joined the peace movement. We had to extricate those troops under conditions which were compatible with the honor of this country and the security of the world, which depends on the reliability and steadiness of American promises, and that had to be done under conditions where not only every move in their direction was under violent assault, but where, simultaneously, the defense budget was under sharp criticism and subjected to constant pressures to be reduced. And finally, at a time when the President and his associates believed that it was essential to demonstrate to the American people that we had a vision of peace, so that simultaneously, with the war in Vietnam, there had to be conducted negotiations on the limitations of various forms of armament, creating the possibility that one could be attacked from both the liberal and

conservative sides simultaneously. These policies could never have been
carried out without the imagination, the dedication, and the extraordinary
good humor of Mel Laird. He was the architect of the Vietnamization
program, in which every year over 150,000 American troops were withdrawn.
Our casualties dropped to only ten percent of what they were when we came
in. He was the architect of those policies. And he was the architect of
reduced, but effective defense budgets, the major elements of which have
lasted till this day.

I'd like to thank Bob for giving me this opportunity to pay tribute to a great
American, great patriot, great citizen of the world. And before we get too
maudlin, let me say I think of him with enormous affection only slightly
tinged with exasperation.

Laird Center Dedication

Page 1 of 3

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## Laird Center Dedication

The Melvin R. Laird Center was officially dedicated on Friday, September 12, 1997. Hundreds of Mr. Laird's friends and friends of the Marshfield Clinic turned out to help dedicate the building named in his honor, while still over a thousand more toured this remarkable new facility.

Longtime friend of Mr. Laird, the Honorable Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States, delivered the keynote address for the dedication ceremony. He was joined at the podium by other distinguished guests such as Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State during the Richard Nixon administration; and Robert Froehlke, lifelong friend and former Secretary of the Army.

View video clips from the ceremony or listen to audio segments:

## Gerald Ford

38th President of the United
States and friend of Melvin
Laird.

**Clip:** Speaking about the
Laird Center.

**Video:** Windows Media Player; RealPlayer; Quicktime

**Audio:** Real Audio; WAV (download); MP3 (download)

## Dr. Henry Kissinger

Former U.S. Secretary of
State

**Clip 1:** On Melvin Laird's
Performance as Secretary of
Defense

http://www.lairdcenter.org/laird_center/dedication.asp

7/3/2002

Laird Center Dedication

Page 2 of 3

### Clip 2: On Working With Melvin Laird

**Quicktime**

### Clip 3: Closing Thoughts

## Melvin R. Laird

Guest of Honor

**Clip:** Thank You

## Robert Froehlke

Former Secretary of the
Army and Friend of Melvin
Laird

### Clip 1: On His Involvement With The Center

7/3/2002