During his confirmation hearings Aspin indicated that he would take action quickly, and on entering office he presented a plan to the president to discuss the matter with Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented a timetable leading to an order dealing with the matter. That had become an issue in the 1992 campaign, when Clinton had promised to end discrimination against homosexuals. Even so, he had to deal immediately with the highly charged question of homosexuals in the military, a controversy left over from Cheney's tenure. A month later he was back in the hospital for implantation of a heart pacemaker. A serious heart ailment put him in the hospital for several days in February 1993, after barely a month in office. Aspin looked like a sound choice to manage this change.Īs it turned out, Aspin faced difficulties from the beginning. Given these conditions and the end of the Cold War, it seemed clear that the Pentagon was entering a period of potentially profound change. Shortly after he took office, Aspin discussed dangers that had emerged with the end of the Cold War: the uncertainty that reform could succeed in the former Soviet Union the enhanced possibility that terrorists or terrorist states could acquire nuclear weapons the likely proliferation of regional conflicts and the failure to take adequate account of the impact of the state of the domestic economy on U.S. Although questioned extensively, Aspin won easy confirmation in the Senate. Defense industry leaders applauded Aspin's selection because he favored maintaining a viable defense industrial base. These positions, along with the assumption that Aspin would work toward a substantial cut in the Defense budget, worried the military. troops in Europe, and further reduction of military personnel strength. He was skeptical about the Strategic Defense Initiative, and favored a smaller Navy, a cut in U.S. Because of his leadership position in the House, Aspin's views on defense issues were well known. Given Clinton's lack of military experience and avoidance of service during the Vietnam War, appointment of a prominent and respected defense expert to head the Pentagon seemed desirable. The accuracy of his prediction that the United States could win a quick military victory with light casualties added to his reputation as a military expert.Īspin served as an adviser to Clinton on defense matters during the 1992 presidential campaign.
He again broke with many Democrats in January 1991 when he issued a paper supporting the Bush administration's intention to use military force to drive the Iraqis from Kuwait. Although temporarily removed from his committee chair by his Democratic colleagues in 1987, Aspin weathered the crisis and resumed the post. His chairmanship caused controversy among some House Democrats, particularly because he supported the Reagan administration's policies on the MX missile and aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. By 1985, when he became chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, he was recognized as a leading defense authority. In his early years in Congress he often issued press releases critical of shortcomings he detected in the armed forces. Before and during his tenure in the House, he had opposed the U.S. Before his election as a Democrat to Congress in 1970, Aspin had been active in Wisconsin politics and had taught economics at Marquette University.Īspin began his career in Congress as an outsider but soon developed a special interest and expertise in defense matters. Army from 1966 to 1968, he served as a systems analyst in the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Robert S. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1965). from Oxford University (1962), where (like the new president) he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph.D. Aspin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 21 July 1938 and attended public schools there. President-elect Bill Clinton's choice for secretary of defense, Leslie (Les) Aspin, had represented Wisconsin's First Congressional District in the House of Representatives since 1971.
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