‘AT THE NUCLEAR BRINK’


that term came up in 1997, I was totally ready to leave, not because I was unhappy with the job. I felt good about the job, felt good about what I was doing, but I was also just turning 70.


I thought, “Do I want to sign up for four more years? I’ll be taking it up to 74. Will I still have the energy at 74 to do the job? Will I have some kind of illness between now and then?” I mean, the statistical ele- ment of things that could happen to you after you pass 70 starts to get higher. It turned out that I got to the end of that next term all right, but that was one of the concerns in my mind.


I guess there was one other thing, a sub- jective factor. I observed that no secretary of defense had ever successfully served two terms. Tree of them tried. Tere was [Robert S.] McNamara and [Caspar W.] Weinberger and, [after me, in his second time as secretary,] [Donald H.] Rumsfeld, and all three of them were fired about the third year of their second term. Now, it wasn’t that I was worried about being fired; it was that I thought there’s something about this job that gets to you, so I was worried about whatever it was that had gotten to those men, all of whom were quite capable.


I didn’t want it to happen to me. So that was my subjective thinking, and I cannot say which of these weighed most heavily on my thinking.


Army AL&T: Your title, “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink,” suggests you’re still there.


UNDER THE RADAR


The F-117A Nighthawk is the first operational aircraft designed to exploit low-observable stealth technology. As undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, Perry spearheaded the development of stealth, funding a DARPA project that ultimately produced the F-117. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Lance Cheung)


Perry: Oh, yes. As I said, I think today, the danger of nuclear catastrophe is, if anything, a little greater than it was in the Cold War. It’s changed in nature, but the overall danger of a real catastrophe with a nuclear weapon is greater than it


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Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2016


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