Editing Clark Clifford (section)

===Secretary of Defense===
[[File:Advisors, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and Secretary of State Dean Rusk - NARA - 192534.tif|thumb|right|Secretary of Defense Clifford with the Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] in 1968.]]
On January 19, 1968, Johnson announced his selection of Clifford to succeed [[Robert McNamara]] as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Clifford estimated that, in the year just prior to his appointment, he had spent about half of his time advising the President and the other half working for his law firm.<ref>"Historical Office." Clark M. Clifford > Historical Office > Article View. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2017.</ref>
Widely known and respected in Washington and knowledgeable on defense matters, Clifford was generally hailed as a worthy successor to McNamara. Many regarded the new secretary as more of a [[war hawk|hawk]] on Vietnam than McNamara, and thought his selection might presage an escalation of the U.S. military effort there. Clifford attempted to allay such fears when, responding to a query about whether he was a hawk (favoring aggressive military action) or a dove (favoring a peaceful resolution to the [[Vietnam War]]), he remarked, "I am not conscious of falling under any of those ornithological divisions."<ref>{{cite book |author=Roger R. Trask |title=The Secretaries of Defense: A Brief History, 1947-1985 |url=https://archive.org/details/secretariesofdef00wash |year=1985 |publisher=Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense |page=[https://archive.org/details/secretariesofdef00wash/page/34 34]}}</ref> Policy planning director [[Les Gelb]] recalled in 2018, however, that Clifford was secretly opposed to the war since 1965.<ref name="Gelb1"/>

The new Secretary did not change the management system McNamara had installed at [[the Pentagon]], and for the most part assigned internal administration to [[Deputy Secretary of Defense]] [[Paul H. Nitze]]. Clifford made no effort to depart from McNamara's policies and programs on such matters as nuclear strategy, [[NATO]], and military assistance, but he favored the [[Sentinel program|Sentinel]] [[anti-ballistic missile]] system, to which McNamara had given only lukewarm backing. Clifford wanted to deploy the system, and supported congressional appropriations for it. One important effect of Sentinel construction, he thought, would be to encourage the [[Soviet Union]] to enter arms control talks with the U.S. Indeed, before Clifford left office, the Johnson administration made arrangements for negotiations that eventually led to the [[Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]] of 1972.

Clifford continued McNamara's highly publicized Cost Reduction Program, announcing that over $1.2 billion had been saved in [[fiscal year]] (FY) 1968 as a result of the effort. Faced with a congressionally mandated reduction of expenditures in FY 1969, Clifford suspended the planned activation of an infantry division and deactivated 50 small ships, 9 naval air squadrons, and 23 [[Nike-Hercules]] missile launch sites.

By the time Clifford became secretary, Defense Department work on the fiscal year 1969 budget was complete. It amounted in total obligational authority to $77.7 billion, almost $3 billion more than in FY 1968. The final FY 1970 budget, which Clifford and his staff worked on before they left office after the election of [[Richard Nixon]] to the presidency, amounted to $75.5 billion TOA (Total Obligational Authority).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120417090338/http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/FY13_Green_Book.pdf National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013]. Department of Defense. March 2012. p. 1</ref>