At Weinberger’s Passing, Times Refights Reaganism
David Stout’s obituary for Caspar Weinberger doesn’t waste time plunging into Cold War controversies over Reagan’s “costly” military buildup, opening with loaded language: “Caspar W. Weinberger, who held high positions under three Republican presidents and oversaw the biggest and costliest military buildup in peacetime history as Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense, died yesterday in Bangor, Me., after a brief illness. He was 88.”
And: “Mr. Weinberger never lost his bone-deep suspicion of the Russians, and his comments after the collapse of the Soviet Union suggested that he still had more faith in arms than diplomacy, at least in dealing with the Kremlin.”
Stout portrays Reagan administration straight out of a liberal nightmare, cutting social programs while military spending skyrocketed: “So while other parts of the federal government were cringing under the cut-to-the-bone philosophy of the Reagan White House (as the old Cap the Knife might have desired), Mr. Weinberger demanded billions more for nuclear arms, ships, planes and tanks. ‘This is not a one-year program for summer soldiers,’ he warned in 1981. He was true to his word. Year after year, he fought for big increases in Pentagon spending and usually won.”
Stout shows Weinberger flouted in his attempts to cut, and even showed he had some liberal inclinations himself: “As his critics had predicted, Mr. Weinberger did try to kill or rein in dozens of programs, including some for hospital construction and school aid. But his stewardship was not marked by the wholesale federal retreat on health issues that some liberals had feared.
“One reason was that Mr. Weinberger embraced some causes that liberals (and not a few conservatives) liked. He tried to get Congress to pass legislation limiting the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes. He envisioned national health insurance. He prodded his own department to protect the civil rights of mentally retarded people who were considered for sterilization. And at his insistence, a better American diet became official departmental policy.”
Of course, there are several obligatory paragraphs on Weinberg’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
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