Boyd (55 page)

Boyd was busy during those months. Not only was he a primary point of contact for the
Time
reporters but he was showing Spinney how to work within the bureaucracy to affect change in the Pentagon. Boyd believed the
independent study that confirmed the accuracy of Spinney’s work should “have lots of little brothers and sisters.” Spinney
knew what that meant: he should make dozens of copies of the study and send it to everyone in the Pentagon who had heard the
“Plans / Reality Mismatch” briefing. The independent study was not classified and it mentioned Spinney by name. It mentioned
the “Plans / Reality Mismatch” briefing. Spinney was simply letting people know they could now hear the briefing.

As Boyd knew would happen, news of the study found its way to reporters. It is safe to assume that this was leaked by a Reformer.
Again, dozens of reporters descended on the Building demanding copies of Spinney’s newest work. Again the Pentagon launched
a security investigation to determine the source of the leak. David Chu appeared at a press conference and told reporters
there was no study—only a few scribblings that had been pasted together. The reporters suspected they were getting a runaround
and called friendly congressmen and senators and had them call the Pentagon. They called every contact they had in the Building.
The big squeeze was on. Coincidentally, about this time another study confirming Spinney’s work popped out of the Pentagon.
The Air Force had secretly conducted its own budget study and had come to the same conclusions as Spinney. The Heritage Foundation,
a conservative think tank with close ties to the Republican Party, released still another study saying the Pentagon’s budget
process was in serious trouble.

By February 1983, the
Time
piece was finished. It was so powerful that it was scheduled as a cover story. Now
Time
needed both a news peg and someone from the reform movement to appear on the cover. By now congressmen and senators were
weary of Pentagon stone-walling. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, a conservative Republican, called Secretary of Defense
Weinberger and asked to see Spinney’s study. To Grassley’s astonishment, Weinberger refused. Grassley thought the role of
the Senate was being usurped by a political appointee and he jumped into his old Ford Pinto, went to the Pentagon, and demanded
to meet Spinney. He was denied.

Grassley returned to the Senate and called for Senate hearings. He was going to hear from Spinney even if he had to subpoena
him. Now, once again, arose the constitutional issue of whether or not civilians controlled the Pentagon. That was not a battle
the Pentagon wanted to fight, so the Building called upon one of its closest and most powerful friends. Senator John Tower
of Texas, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was such a strong Pentagon supporter that the Reformers
referred to him as “a wholly owned subsidiary” of the Building. Senator Tower said Grassley’s budget committee had no authority
to call for a hearing involving a Pentagon employee—that Pentagon issues should be heard before his committee. But Grassley,
too, knew how to play the power game. He gathered enough support from fellow senators to force a joint hearing.

Now
Time
had a news peg for its cover story. But the magazine still needed a Reformer on the cover.
Time
wanted Boyd or Sprey but, to the utter astonishment of the magazine, both refused. Neither had any desire for publicity.
Since Boyd was the point of contact for the
Time
reporters, they leaned on him to come up with a cover boy. Boyd pulled Spinney aside and said, “You’re going to be on the
cover of
Time
.”

Spinney recoiled. “The hell I am.”

“Listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you,” Boyd said. “After you testify over on the Hill you are going to be
vulnerable. They will be after you. This is your protection.”

Boyd knew that when Pentagon bureaucrats seek vengeance the best strategy is not—as many believe—to keep a low profile but
rather to become so prominent that any retribution will be seen for what it is.

Spinney put on a pinstriped suit and posed for a picture.

A story about Spinney appeared in the
New York Times
the week before the hearing. The next Sunday morning, Spinney’s phone rang and a voice identified itself as Bosuns Mate somebody
and said, “Admiral Rickover would like to speak with you.” A moment later Admiral Hyman Rickover was congratulating Spinney
about what great work he was doing. He wanted to see Spinney’s latest study.

“I will send it over, Admiral, but I have to tell you it will take several hours to read.”

“I don’t read anything but executive summaries.” “I don’t have an executive summary.”

Spinney sent copies of his work and a few days later the admiral called and again congratulated Spinney. Then he mentioned
the upcoming hearings and said, “Son, you are not going to win. But it will make a man out of you.”

The call was very sobering to Spinney. For about five minutes.

Senator Tower was in charge of all arrangements for the hearing. He proved that he had the best interest of the Pentagon at
heart when he scheduled the hearing for a Friday afternoon, a time when many senators have departed the capital for their
home states. Even more important, Friday afternoon is one of the most difficult times to get media attention. Tower even tried
to schedule the hearing in one of the smallest hearing rooms and to ban television cameras but was overruled by his colleagues.

To get a big turnout,
Time
reporters called their colleagues and said the hearings would be next week’s cover story. While the reporters groused about
having to work on Friday, they knew the cover story would drive the next week’s news agenda for much of the Washington media.

On March 4, 1983, Spinney spoke to the joint Senate committees and the room was filled with print and television reporters.
David Chu, Spinney’s boss, sat beside him. If he was there as a looming presence to inhibit Spinney’s presentation, he was
disappointed. Spinney talked for more than two hours and held nothing back. The Reagan defense budget was going to be a fiscal
disaster for America, he said.

Grassley and the senators on the Budget Committee were shocked, but Tower was calm and unruffled. The joint committee turned
to Chu for a response. Spinney’s work is historical, Chu said, and not relevant today. Trust us. The Reagan Administration
will not repeat the mistakes of the past. Spinney’s report is irrelevant.

As Senator Tower and the Pentagon had planned, press coverage was relatively light on Saturday and even less in the big Sunday
papers. Many of the stories filed by reporters did not run. By Monday morning the Pentagon was gloating over how it had outmaneuvered
the Reformers. Navy Secretary John Lehman said at a meeting, “Well, I guess we laid the Spinney thing to rest.”

In the middle of the self-congratulations, the March 7, 1983, issue of
Time
magazine arrived in the Pentagon. Spinney was on the cover, identified as a “Pentagon Maverick.” The cover line was underlined
in red and said, “U.S. Defense Spending.” Underneath, in bold type, was the question, “Are Billions Being Wasted?” Most of
the eleven-page article was devoted to the reform movement, of which Boyd and Sprey were identified as “architects.” Their
ideas for alternatives to weapons proposed by the Pentagon were given great prominence. In fact, the article read as if they
had written it.

The story said that, taking out the effects of inflation, the Army was spending the same amount of money in 1983 on new tanks
as it had thirty years earlier, but the number of tanks produced declined by 90 percent. In 1951 the Pentagon spent $7 billion
to buy 6,300 aircraft. Now the United States was spending $11 billion to build only 322 aircraft, or 95 percent fewer than
in 1951.

Pentagon officials were in shock. All day long the magazine distributor brought shipment after shipment to the Building. An
eleven-page story in
Time,
that powerful protector of Republican causes, had attacked the sacrosanct Pentagon and defense industry. And during a Republican
administration? The impact was monumental.

Boyd smiled when he saw the cover, skimmed the story, and tossed it aside. He looked at Spinney and said, “Well, that’s done.”

As expected, the
Time
cover story caused still another flurry of stories in the national media about the Reagan budget and Pentagon spending and
ineffective high-tech weapons. Not only that, but in the Möbius strip that is the congressional-media relationship, the House
of Representatives and the Senate called for more hearings. Each hearing brought forth even more coverage. The coverage prompted
congressmen and senators to call for still more hearings. This was suddenly the hottest issue in America and every person
in Congress wanted to be involved. They were, as Boyd said, “climbing Mount Motherhood.”

For months, Spinney, always followed by Chu, testified to congressional committees in what many in Washington called the “ChuckieChu
Show.” The script was always the same. Spinney’s briefing brought a moment of stunned silence. Then the committee chair turned
to Chu, who said the report was historical and therefore irrelevant.

Senator Grassley prompted the chairman of the Budget Committee to do what no one else thought of doing: ask Spinney to update
his conclusions to include the current Reagan budget. The secretary of defense forbade Spinney to do so. This was still another
direct assault on senatorial prerogatives and touched off another constitutional debate between the Senate and the Pentagon.
That is an issue the Pentagon can push only so far. If one senator publicly raises the issue of civilian control of the military,
newspapers all over the country will run cartoons comparing Pentagon generals with military strongmen in a banana republic,
or show them jumping up and down on the U.S. Constitution.

In February 1984, Spinney testified before the House and Senate Budget Committees with a new briefing entitled “Is History
Repeating Itself?” His testimony included three years of budget figures from the Reagan Administration. The answer to the
question asked in the title of his briefing was a solid and undeniable
yes
.

Chu did not accompany him to this hearing.

As the reform movement reached its peak, a parallel chain of events was taking place in the military services. At first glance,
the Army and Marine Corps’ effort at reform are of questionable relevance to the life of John Boyd. But, as will be seen,
Boyd and his ideas were at the center of each effort.

Years later, after John Boyd died, the Army would deny he had ever been involved in that service’s effort at reform. The Marine
Corps would claim Boyd as one of its own.

T
HE
Air Force has never made a serious study of warfare because every historically based effort to do so has come to the inescapable
conclusion that the use of air power should be consistent with or—better yet—
subordinate
to the ground commander’s battle plans, a conclusion that argues against the existence of an independent Air Force. And since
Air Force doctrine is hardwired to the idea of independence from ground forces, this branch of the service remains unable
to do any original thinking about how air power should be integrated into the strategy of war.

Thus, while Boyd’s ideas became increasingly well known and acknowledged, and while some Air Force generals thought it would
be rather progressive to think about warfare instead of program management, Air Force efforts to change were little more than
sophomoric public-relations stunts. Project Check Mate, the purpose of which was to create a think tank dealing with air warfare
and strategy, quickly devolved into little more than a stage play. Then came the “Warrior of the Month” award, in which a
large photo of the chosen one was displayed on the fourth floor of the Pentagon. Finally, the Air Force published a reading
list of articles and books about war fighting, an idea taken from Boyd’s source list at the end of his “Patterns” briefing.
In
short, the Air Force did not change at all. Even today, retired senior generals take pride in the fact Boyd’s ideas had no
influence whatsoever on the Air Force.

Nor did his ideas have any effect on the Navy.

The Army, on the other hand, made a serious effort to change. No branch of the U.S. military was harmed more by the Vietnam
War than was the Army—widespread drug use, pervasive racial troubles, and the “fragging” of officers being obvious examples.
Plus, the senior noncommissioned officer corps was virtually wiped out by the war. The Army
had
to reinvent itself. But no one quite knew how to go about it.

In 1976 the Army made an attempt to change its ancient doctrine of attrition warfare, but the effort showed how very difficult
it is for the military to abandon an old doctrine and adopt a new one. The new Army field manual still placed heavy emphasis
on centuries-old ideas of firepower and orderly frontal assaults. The Army continued to rely on the idea that whoever has
the biggest guns and the most soldiers will win; it favored a toe-to-toe slugfest with heavy casualties in which the winner
is the last man standing.

Boyd constantly ridiculed the Army for spending months developing a new doctrine only to come up with essentially the same
thing they had when they started. When Army generals were in his briefing audience, he would wave a copy of the 1976 doctrine
overhead and, in his usual subtle and understated fashion, say, “It’s a piece of shit.”

Whether or not Boyd’s frequent and devastating critique of the Army doctrine had any influence is not known. But—and perhaps
this is coincidence—as Boyd’s briefing gained more and more followers, the Army came under increasing criticism from both
within and without. For whatever reason, in 1982 the Army again revised its doctrine. Donn Starry, the four-star general in
charge of the Training and Doctrine Command, received credit for the new AirLand Battle Doctrine, but it was written largely
by Lieutenant Colonel Huba Wass de Czege, a Harvard-educated, fast-rising young officer. In those days, Wass de Czege was
considered a freethinking officer receptive to new ideas. He often invited Boyd out to Fort Leavenworth, the home of the Army’s
Command and Staff College, to lecture both to his colleagues and to classes at the college. He and Boyd talked frequently
by telephone.