Better in their words…

One of the unsung heros of the USA…
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By Edwin J. Feulner

I was a young staffer on Capitol Hill during the Johnson administration, soaking up lessons from my boss, Republican Congressman— later Defense Secretary—Melvin R. Laird, who died Wednesday at the age of 94.

A proven warrior in World War II in the Pacific, Mel never talked about that to the kids on his staff. But he pushed and prodded us on many fronts, gently and firmly: “Eddie, what are you doing with Del Latta (a Republican congressional colleague from Ohio) about trading with the Soviets today? There are a lot of committees involved in those questions. Make sure Del is ready for the floor debates on that.”

Or, “Eddie, we’ve got to get your study on welfare programs in Wood County (Wisconsin) finalized. I’m going to be back home this weekend and we want to discuss these issues back there.”

There was the time he phoned me in May 1968: Laird was chairman of the House Republican Conference at the time, and I ran the summer intern program.

“Eddie,” he said, Illinois Rep. “Harold Collier just called me. He asked if we’d take one of his constituents as a summer intern at the Conference. Harold said, ‘Mel, she’s from a fine family, and she was a Goldwater Girl three years ago.’ “I told him, ‘Sure Harold. She’s at Wellesley, and that’s a great school, so she sounds good.’ So, Eddie, you have a new summer intern, and her name is Hillary Rodham.” And that was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first job in Washington.

Laird, the war hero, became known in the House as an intellectual leader of the Republican Party. He was chairman of the party’s platform committee in 1968, and he paved the way for sensible conservative policy ideas in the Nixon administration. They weren’t always followed on the domestic front, but much of that was because President Nixon tapped the bright House member as his secretary of defense.

And what a challenge Laird faced there. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger could take secret trips to Beijing to open a new policy that made him famous. Or he could take part in high-profile peace negotiations with the Vietnamese. But back home somebody had to pick up the pieces: implementing Vietnamization of the war, keeping the funds flowing, ending the draft, defending the administration’s policies, and making sure the Soviets didn’t try to take advantage of us. That was Laird’s job.

A great tribute to Nixon is that he recognized Laird as a loyal ally and leader who could build a bipartisan coalition to wrap up this ugly inherited mess and build a new military capability for the future. When Laird voluntarily retired from the Pentagon after four challenging years, Nixon appointed him as counselor to the president for domestic affairs.

Laird knew well the intersection of ideas and policies. He told me early on how proud he was to have taken me on his staff as the first ever public-affairs fellow from David Abshire’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. Then the program moved to the Hoover Institution, and he assured me that Glenn Campbell, Hoover’s director, was a great scholar. Another Laird staffer, Bill Baroody, would go on to head the American Enterprise Institute, while I went on to run the Heritage Foundation. This congressman from Marshfield, Wis., was at the center of the development and growth of four of the modern conservative movement’s most important think tanks.

Fast forward to this November. I spoke with Mel shortly after the presidential election. His speaking voice was halting and blurry, but he told me how proud he was of me and of my standing up for what I believed, even if many of his and my friends didn’t agree with me.

He didn’t say it, but I could sense that he meant: “Goodbye, Eddie, it’s over to you and the younger generation to carry on.”

Mr. Feulner, former president of the Heritage Foundation (1977-2013), is a senior policy adviser to the Trump transition team.