Word: politicians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...POLITICIAN AT THE PENTAGON...
...task of lifelong Politician Melvin Laird to preside over the Pentagon at the most critical and criticized era for the U.S. military in many years. He must manage America's withdrawal from Viet Nam in such a way that an unsatisfactory war does not turn into a debacle. He must find ways to reduce sharply military spending in a time of rising costs at home, continuing challenges to U.S. power abroad, and changing definitions of America's role in the world. He must shake up a Pentagon grown sluggish and wasteful. And he must do it all under the aroused...
Americans once demanded a lot less of their national public figures than they do now. In the frontier days, a politician often proved himself by demonstrating his capacity for drink, women and duels. Alexander Hamilton was able to continue his career in politics even after publicly acknowledging that he had paid blackmail to a woman. The fact that Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel, defending the honor of his wife, probably helped him get elected President. During his four years in the White House, Franklin Pierce often drank himself into a stupor, but, says Historian John Roche...
While the U.S. has become more permissive about such matters as divorce and sex outside marriage, the public is demanding more of politicians these days-possibly because they are demanding more of themselves. Since the new politician relies more on his "image" and personality, he must answer for their defects as well. And these are scrutinized more closely than ever by an omnivorous press. His flaws are almost always excruciatingly on display...
...entrusted with high public office today operates under unprecedented strain: he may well feel personally responsible for the survival of much of the human race in the nuclear age. More than ever, he needs the kind of private release that the open frontier once provided. A successful politician often possesses immense energy that needs to be released. The obscure private citizen can lose control of himself in public. Nobody but his friends will care. The man in public life must exercise iron control...