The Test of War, the second volume in the planned comprehensive History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, follows the evolution of OSD from the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 to the end of the Truman presidency in January 1953. Like the first volume in the series (The Formative Years, 1947-1950), the present one focuses on the secretaries of defense, their staffs, and OSD's administration of the Pentagon and examines, beyond OSD and the Department of Defense, the larger framework of national security organization and policy that involved the White House, Congress, and other agencies of the government. As the central event of this period, the Korean War tested the mettle of officials and institutions throughout the national security establishment, but nowhere more acutely than in the E-ring offices of the Pentagon leadership. The Korean-era secretaries of defense—Louis Johnson, George Marshall, and Robert Lovett—confronted a maze of problems relating to strategy, budgets, manpower, weapons development, and service roles and missions. Operating under wartime pressures while attempting to manage a department only recently created and still undergoing major adjustments, they faced a formidable agenda made even more difficult by domestic political and economic constraints that narrowed the options available to them. In a narrative rich in both documentary detail and broad-brush perspective, The Test of War assesses how well the secretaries met these challenges. Success or failure depended not only on their effectiveness in managing the Pentagon bureaucracy, in particular their interaction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the still parochial-minded military services, but also on their relationship with Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and a contentious Congress unhappy over the firing of MacArthur, the pace of mobilization, and the progress of the war generally. Korea, of course, was the flash point for a much wider struggle unfolding during this time, the effort by the United States to contain the expansionist activities of the Soviet Union and communism. As the conflict in the Far East dragged on seemingly indefinitely, officials in Washington turned their attention increasingly to Europe and the strengthening of the Western alliance. Much of the book deals with the shaping of NATO and the related subject of military assistance. In a thoughtful conclusion, The Test of War observes that the precedents established in these seminal years—the beginnings of a military-industrial complex, the changing strategic formulations that allowed for reliance on nuclear as well as conventional weapons, the sharp debate over European vs. Asian priorities, and, above all, the staunch and expensive commitment to containment—would influence national security policy and the U.S. defense effort for the remainder of the century.

Strategy, Money, and the New Look, Volume III in the award-winning History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, examines the role of OSD and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson in the transformation of national security policy during the first Eisenhower administration. In the aftermath of the Korean War, the new administration presided over a reduction of military forces that saw a realignment of service missions and reshaping of strategy in the context of more constrained budgets and more advanced technology. Author Richard M. Leighton explores the connections between money, politics, technology, and strategy and the relationships among the key participants—besides Wilson, a president with commanding military knowledge and experience, an often divided Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Congress increasingly involved in national security affairs. An accomplished manager and outspoken advocate, Wilson was staunchly loyal to Eisenhower and firmly committed to the president's priorities, Leighton portrays the defense secretary as a man of strengths and foibles who was both a major asset and an occasional embarrassment for the White House. At the center of the defense debate during this period were economy concerns that ordained a shift from an emphasis on ground forces and tactical airpower to strategic airpower and nuclear weapons. Fully a third of the book traces the evolution of the defense budget, annually and in unprecedented detail, from planning and conception to final negotiation and legislative enactment. Through the prism of the budget exercise and working extensively in the original records, Leighton focuses on both the philosophical differences and institutional conflicts—within the Pentagon, in Congress, within the R&D community, and within NATO—that sometimes blocked the administration from achieving its goals. At all stages, partisan politics, service jockeying for influence and advantage under the new strategic concept, and the cost of military assistance to bolster allies complicated the commitment to balance the budget. In the end, unrelenting fiscal pressures and cold war uncertainties in both Europe and Asia forced some retreat from the New Look's "more bang for a buck" but not before, as Leighton concludes, Eisenhower and Wilson had fundamentally altered both the tone and direction of national security decisionmaking.

Into the Missile Age, the fourth volume in the History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, traces the development of the OSD from 1956 through 1960 during the eventful tenures of three secretaries: Charles E. Wilson, Neil H. McElroy, and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. It focuses on the secretaries of defense, their staffs, and the administration of the Pentagon within the larger framework of national security policymaking and execution. These were years of peace, but the United States faced an increasing threat from the Soviet Union and mounting challenges elsewhere. The book examines OSD's difficulties in coping with pressures from the White House to minimize military spending and from within the Department of Defense to produce more and better weapons for the military services, notably long-range missiles. U.S. national security was closely bound up with that of the other member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Efforts to bring NATO strategy into the age of nuclear weapons were complicated by the need to reach agreement among all the nations of the alliance and the reluctance of Europeans to pay the necessary costs. OSD also had to deal with international crises that raised a possibility of major hostilities. Perhaps most dangerous was a Soviet threat to abrogate the World War II agreements on the status of Berlin. In the Near East, chronic instability threatened to provide the Soviets with a strategically important foothold. In the Far East, Communist China's avowed desire to "liberate" Taiwan caused great apprehension in 1958. Establishment of a Communist regime in Cuba and the rise of an aggressive Communist movement in Southeast Asia laid the groundwork for more serious difficulties in the next decade. Based on extensive research in archival records, Into the Missile Age offers fresh information and insights into a pivotal era in the evolution of both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and U.S. national security policy during the Cold War.

A narrative history and assessment of the early years of Robert McNamara’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, including McNamara’s relationship with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the transformation of the Department of Defense as a part of Kennedy’s New Frontier, and the Pentagon’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs episode, and onset of the Vietnam War along with other major national security events and developments during a turbulent and momentous period of the Cold War. (Fuller description is on the dust jacket flaps.)

McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969, volume VI in the newly-named Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, covers the incumbency of Robert S. McNamara, as well as the brief, but significant, tenure of Clark M. Clifford. McNamara’s key role in the ever-deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968 forms the centerpiece of the narrative. During these years, Vietnam touched every aspect of Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, determining budget priorities, provoking domestic unrest, souring relations with NATO, and complicating negotiations with the Soviet Union. McNamara’s early miscalculations about Vietnam became the source of deep disappointments. Relations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never good, frayed almost to the breaking point as McNamara repeatedly rejected military advice in favor of his civilian experts. McNamara’s carefully crafted plans failed, his frustrations grew, and he became estranged from the President. His private attempts to check the war’s momentum contradicted his public statements supporting the military effort and tarred McNamara as a hypocrite. McNamara’s successor, Clark Clifford, arrived with a reputation as a hawk, but focused most of his effort on extricating the United States from Vietnam. McNamara and Clifford presided over the Department of Defense during momentous and dangerous times. Vietnam was one of a series of wars, emergencies, and interventions involving U.S. interests. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, declining U.S. prestige and power in Europe and NATO, war in the Middle East, heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, arms control talks with the Soviet Union, and violent protests at home competed for attention. Overseeing the Vietnam War and contending with these complex policy issues taxed even McNamara’s enormous energy and brilliant intellect as he struggled to manage DoD programs. His long-cherished cost-cutting programs fell by the wayside; his favored weapons systems were swept aside; his committed efforts to limit strategic arms faltered; and his reputation was permanently tarnished. McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam highlights the interaction of McNamara and Clifford with the White House, Congress, the JCS, the State Department, and other federal agencies involved in policy formulation. The two secretaries attempted to impose order while fighting a war whose cost of winning became as morally prohibitive as the price of losing.

Melvin Laird and the Foundation of the Post-Vietnam Military, the seventh volume in the Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, examines former Congressman Melvin Laird's efforts to reconstitute the Department of Defense during the last years of the Vietnam War.

THE NINTH VOLUME IN THE Secretaries of Defense Historical Series focuses on President Jimmy Carter's defense secretary, Harold Brown, who brought stability to an office that had seen three different secretaries in the last four years under the Nixon-Ford administrations. When Brown began his tenure in January 1977, he and his staff confronted an array of national security and international policy concerns, especially the Warsaw Pact's conventional and nuclear theater forces superiority over NATO and the Soviet threat to U.S. land-based missiles. Within the context of the national security and foreign policy challenges of Carter's administration, this volume describes the role of the Pentagon chief, the advice he gave the president, and his interactions with other senior political and military leaders. It is also a history of the management of the Defense Department, including the continual development of the All-Volunteer Force and the organizational changes that saw improved policy formulation and acquisition decisions.