"[E]xamines the former Congressman Melvin Laird's efforts to reconstitute the Department of Defense during the last years of the Vietnam war... Laird acted to mitigate the adverse effects of the Vietnam War on the department and to prepare the nation's armed forces for the future. Foremost was the transition from a conscripted military to an all-volunteer force, a fundamental policy shift that ended an unpopular and inequitable draft system."--from jacket.

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.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel & Readiness), referred to throughout this report as P&R, is responsible for the total force management of all Department of Defense (DoD) components including the recruitment, readiness, and retention of personnel. Its work and policies are supported by a number of organizations both within DoD, including the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), and externally, including the federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) that work for DoD. P&R must be able to answer questions for the Secretary of Defense such as how to recruit people with an aptitude for and interest in various specialties and along particular career tracks and how to assess on an ongoing basis service members' career satisfaction and their ability to meet new challenges. P&R must also address larger-scale questions, such as how the current realignment of forces to the Asia-Pacific area and other regions will affect recruitment, readiness, and retention. While DoD makes use of large-scale data and mathematical analysis in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and elsewhereâ€"exploiting techniques such as complex network analysis, machine learning, streaming social media analysis, and anomaly detectionâ€"these skills and capabilities have not been applied as well to the personnel and readiness enterprise. Strengthening Data Science Methods for Department of Defense Personnel and Readiness Missions offers and roadmap and implementation plan for the integration of data analysis in support of decisions within the purview of P&R.

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.)