Editorials/Veep Stakes/John Lehman's Enemies
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS VEEP STAKES by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. W hat decision could more hilariously demonstrate the hypothesis that in recent years American political leadership has suffered a massive loss of...
...Some are mere admirals, but others are actual senators and congressmen charged with overseeing the Pentagon's relations with defense contractors...
...He was only twenty ships short of his goal when he left the Pentagon...
...This practice ended only after a Washington Post expose...
...Finally he is not bedeviled by the distractions that dizzy Democratic leaders...
...C oon we are going to witness the L./ result of Vice President Bush's judgment...
...Bear that in mind as the Justice Department's inquiry into military procurement fraud finds its way into the newspapers—and remember it was Lehman whose reforms made the procurement of ships and planes more competitive...
...During the 1970s, every Navy program overran its original contract by 50 percent...
...Moreover, they operated on a cost-plus basis...
...In fine, most of Lehman's enemies hold one thing in common: they are members in good standing of the Military Industrial Complex...
...I return to the hypothesis that there has been a huge loss in political intelligence in the country...
...Some are defense consultants...
...Bureaucracy spreads ceaselessly, making its own process more sacred than its original goal and more costly...
...Bush will enlist New York's Congressman Jack Kemp, the vigorous and youthful ex-quarterback of the Buffalo Bills who wins the Democraticblue-collar vote in his district every time...
...The irony of dragging Lehman's name into the present scandal is that his procedures have done more to open procurement to the public gaze than had theretofore been possible...
...Soon we shall see if George Bush has suffered a similar loss of intelligence...
...Some are defense contractors associated with behemoth corporations...
...By the time Lehman arrived the procurement of weaponry had become more important than the goal, resulting in wasted taxpayers' dollars and inefficiency...
...Senator Bentsen has in 1988 surpassed all his colleagues in snagging contributions from political action Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...All that is charged is that he changed the system—and for the good...
...Kemp is a proven campaigner, whose support in the Republican primaries would have been substantially larger had the Rev...
...His views are consistent with the Vice President's on such major issues as the Strategic Defense Initiative, Central American policy, national security, and the means to sustained economic growth...
...Pat Robertson not competed for it...
...Thus those in the Military Industrial Complex who do not want to adapt to the efficient and more open ways of the market see the present looming scandal in procurement as a way to denigrate Lehman...
...Against Governor Dukakis's choice of the wan and aging Senator Bentsen I hope Mr...
...By choosing Senator Bentsen, Governor Dukakis has shown that to him ideas and principles are to be exploited, not implemented...
...In 1981, 85 percent of the Navy's contracts were awarded to contractors without competitive bidding and on the cost-plus basis...
...The original goal of arms 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988procurement bureaucrats was effective weapons at economical prices...
...Hitherto the government bought these plants and paid for the tooling according to the state socialist model that the Pentagon adopted during World War II...
...Their monopoly contractors were glad to indulge the admirals' every whim, for with cost-plus contracts they merely added on higher costs and realized higher profits unencumbered by a competitor who might have given the Pentagon a better price...
...For instance, peacetime admirals dealt with weapons contractors who most frequently had not had to compete with second and third bidders on a given weapon...
...Many of his reforms have been recommended for the other branches of the military by a presidential commission headed by that eminent wizard of the private sector, David Packard of the Hewlett Packard Corporation...
...Balancing the ticket is supposed to mean choosing a running mate from different areas of the country or from different cultural backgrounds, not from different ends of the philosophical spectrum...
...He would help the Republican ticket in upstate New York, California, and the South, as well as with Reaganite Democrats...
...Lehman's growing Navy put doves in mind of the Spanish Armada, which was not as lethal and as gluttonous toward fossile fuel...
...I would hope that the Vice President will run a far superior campaign than most of the Republic's political connoisseurs expect...
...Lehman's reforms have saved the taxpayer billions of dollars and encouragedweapons contractors to deliver their products efficiently...
...600-ship Navy—that being 100 more than when he arrived at the Pentagon...
...Ultimately, such distractions impair a candidate's judgment...
...Traditional interests, such as labor unions, can be reasonably dealt with, but the new interests—theaggrieved minorities, the inflamed liberationists--are usually beyond reason...
...As no less a political sage than Richard Nixon will tell you, a Republican cannot win without active participation from this constituency...
...During the primary season he did well in debate and he has a fine television adviser in Roger Ailes, as Dan Rather so painfully demonstrated...
...How does one-explain such a botch...
...Kemp is an agreeable man who would be a cooperative running mate...
...And then consider the televised debate between Kemp and Governor Dukakis's number two...
...Such distractions now leave them just a bit stupid...
...His cynicism will not ingratiate him to his fellow liberals or to the conservatives in his party...
...Will he botch...
...He is the maestro of the $2,000,000 breakfast, having in 1987 proposed that 200 Washington lobbyists pay $10,000 to enjoy breakfast with him...
...Remember this: In all the news stories about John Lehman, no charges of illegality or even impropriety have been brought...
...Finally, weapons contractors are now being required to invest their own capital in producing a military product, just as other companies do in creating products in a free market...
...Governor Dukakis had plenty of sensible choices available to him...
...Less liberal but equally attractive would have been Ohio's Senator John Glenn or Georgia's Sam Nunn...
...What he got the other day when he reached beyond the confines of Massachusetts was a museum piece, a 1930s style Democrat with no television presence and no allure beyond Texas and the wheeler-dealer salons of Capitol Hill...
...Rather, while bragging about how his campaign will march us into the future, Governor Dukakis is borrowing from the past, and a somewhat unsavory past at that...
...With Lehman's reforms ship building programs came in under budget by $8 billion...
...Now the admirals must decide on .a weapon's design before writing a contract, and contracts are written on a fixed-cost basis...
...Thus admirals were allowed to redesign weapons during thelife of the weapons' contract without regard to costs and usually free from scrutiny...
...Thus the enmity that so many in the Military Industrial Complex hold against him cannot issue from his dovishness...
...What is more, contractors frequently have to compete for a weapons contract...
...Since early June poor Governor Dukakis has had to attend to all the conflicting zealots in his party...
...Now 75 percent are awarded competitively and at fixed prices...
...He gets along well with the press and has already been thoroughly scrutinized for bugs...
...From 1981 to 1987 Lehman was the agile and indefatigable advocate of the Finally Kemp will turn out the Republican conservatives who feel the White House has neglected them...
...committees, a lush $1.4 million...
...JOHN LEHMAN'S ENEMIES We know from published accounts that the enemies of former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman compose a shadowy lot...
...W hat decision could more hilariously demonstrate the hypothesis that in recent years American political leadership has suffered a massive loss of intelligence than Governor Michael Dukakis's choice of Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate...
...There are plenty of Senator Bentsens in his party, too...
...Over the past two decades too many trivial issues and humbug values have come to command the pols' attention...
...To understand the enemies of John Lehman, who today murmur against him and the reforms he instituted, one needs to understand the slow, plodding, self-aggrandizing ways of bureaucracy as did Max Weber—after the emergence of statism in the last century—and as do such insightful political scientists as James Q. Wilson today...
...So, there goes the sleaze issue, eh Governor Dukakis...
...He could have chosen Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana who brings geographical balance and philosophical compatibility, and is a competent campaigner...
...He has flummoxed around in recent months, but it is his advantage to be always underestimated...
Vol. 21 • September 1988 • No. 9
