Goodbye Cap!

[The Reaper]

Sorry to see you go, Sir. Pleasure working for you. Rest in peace.

TR

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...GER.xml&rpc=22

Former defense chief Caspar Weinberger dies at 88
Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:22 PM ET

By Bill Trott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Caspar Weinberger, who as Ronald Reagan's defense secretary oversaw a massive U.S. military buildup, died on Tuesday at age 88.

Caspar Weinberger Jr. said his father had been suffering from pneumonia and high fever for about a week and died at 5 a.m. EST in the intensive-care unit of Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, about 40 miles from his home in Mount Desert.

Weingberger's wife of 63 years, Jane, his son and daughter, Arlin, were at his bedside when he died.

"He was just a worn-out guy," his son, Caspar Weinberger Jr., told Reuters.

As head of the Pentagon, Weinberger strongly opposed concessions to Moscow in arms control negotiations and pushed hard for increased defense spending, such as Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a program to develop a land-and space-based missile shield commonly known as "Star Wars."

"He should be remembered as a world statesman, a great American patriot," the son said. "What he did with Reagan really brought down the Soviet Union. They stuck to their plan and simply outspent the Soviets despite all sorts of doubts here."

Weinberger became caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal that bedeviled the Reagan administration. He resigned the defense secretary job in 1987 and afterward was indicted on felony counts of lying to the independent counsel investigating the administration's program for selling missiles to Iran and giving the proceeds to the right-wing Contra forces fighting Nicaragua's socialist Sandinista government.

He was pardoned by the first President Bush in 1992 days before he was to go on trial.

In 1985 Weinberger had called the Iran missile plan "absurd" but supported Reagan a year later after the president decided to send missiles and spare parts to Tehran.

'CAP THE KNIFE'

Weinberger, who presided over an unprecedented peacetime military buildup costing more than $1 trillion, began his government career as a cost-cutter. When he took the defense post in January 1981, Weinberger soon erased the nickname of "Cap the Knife" that critics had pinned on him in his penny-pinching days as federal budget director under President Richard Nixon.

Weinberger performed with gusto the task of persuading the U.S. Congress to spend more than $1 trillion on arms in Reagan's first term and billions more after that.

He also steadfastly opposed concessions to Moscow in arms control negotiations advocated by Secretary of State George Shultz and other more moderate members of the Cabinet.

He made himself unpopular with many lawmakers by his unbending, often contentious push for funds for arms and for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- a program, commonly known as "Star Wars," to develop a land- and space-based shield against incoming ballistic missiles.

A longtime member of Reagan's inner circle of California friends, Weinberger was one of the president's strongest supporters in the Cabinet.

"He was just a great American," the son said. "He was a respected world diplomat, a member of 'the greatest generation,' as Tom Brokaw called it."

The younger Weinberger said his father was "first and foremost a Californian" but had moved to Maine for the benefit of his wife, a native of the state. The Weinbergers first bought a summer home in Maine in the mid-1970s and had lived their full time for the past few years.

Weinberger was a Harvard-educated lawyer and serve on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's intelligence staff during World War Two, his family said.

His funeral will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

[Roguish Lawyer]

RIP. A great American.

[Team Sergeant]

Rest in Peace Sir.

[Warrior-Mentor]

RIP.

[CPTAUSRET]

I sat behind him on a flight a couple of years ago, I saw that he was having trouble lifting his carry-on bag into the overhead bin, I asked him if I could help him, he said that he would be pleased, I expected a heavy bag, not so. I also retreived it for him once we landed, and he and I chatted, I told him I was retired military, and it was my privilege to meet him. He thanked me, and also thanked me for my service...A very gracious man.

Rest In Peace.

[CoLawman]

One of the key players in the Cold War victory. We could certainly use his wisdom, guidance, and pro-military personality for the GWOT!! RIP!

[Texian]

He truly was a great man. RIP.

[vsvo]

RIP

RIP, Sir.

M

[ad2693]

RIP

[504PIR]

RIP Sir.

[Sigaba]

Mrs. and Secretary Weinberger, may you both rest in peace.

Source is here.

July 16, 2009
Jane Weinberger, Author Who Became Publisher, Dies at 91
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Jane D. Weinberger, the widow of former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger who became an author and started her own publishing house, died Sunday in Bar Harbor, Me. She was 91.

Her son Caspar Jr. said the cause was complications of a stroke.

Mrs. Weinberger began her press, Windswept House, in Mount Desert, Me., during the Reagan administration, in which Mr. Weinberger served as secretary of defense. It was the third administration in which he had a cabinet-level position. He died in 2006.

At first, Mrs. Weinberger’s press was a vehicle to publish children’s books she wrote herself, but she expanded it to include books she wrote for adults as well as books by other authors. Windswept, named after the family’s home on Mount Desert Island and based there, published 120 titles, of which she wrote about a dozen.

In addition to her tales of lovable puffins, ducklings and dogs, her books for adults included a collection of her very frank correspondence, often referring to famous people, and a volume of advice for the extremely elderly.

In “As Ever: A Selection of Letters from the Voluminous Correspondence of Jane Weinberger, 1970-1990” (1991), she castigated former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew’s acceptance of “dirty little bits of money to do what stupid favors, heaven only knows.” She called the former Soviet ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin “a wily old bastard but amusing.”

When Nancy Reagan became first lady, Mrs. Weinberger wrote a friend that she hoped Mrs. Reagan would not be “irritable and snappish.” She expanded on the thought: “We all know how easily upset she can be when things are not exactly as she wants them.”

Rebecca Jane Dalton was born in Milford, Me., on March 29, 1918, and attended the University of Maine and graduated from the Somerville Hospital School of Nursing in Somerville, Mass. She became an Army nurse and found herself playing chess with a young officer on a troop ship in the summer of 1942. She and Mr. Weinberger married three weeks later when the ship docked in Sydney, Australia.

After World War II, they settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Mr. Weinberger worked as a lawyer. Mrs. Weinberger persuaded him to run for the state legislature and managed his campaign. He served for six years in the State Assembly in the 1950s, and in the 1960s worked in the administration of Gov. Ronald Reagan.

Under President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Weinberger served, successively, as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, director of the Office of Management and Budget and secretary of health, education and welfare, a post in which he continued under President Gerald R. Ford. When Mr. Reagan was elected president in 1980, Mr. Weinberger left his executive post at the Bechtel Corporation to become secretary of defense.

Mrs. Weinberger threw herself into the social and cultural life of Washington, becoming chairwoman from 1981 to 1986 of the Folger Shakespeare Library, a major collection of Shakespeare and other Renaissance material. She also raised money for the Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research institute in Maine.

She wrote one of her early children’s books about a laboratory mouse, of which Jackson has one of the largest collections. It was called “Vim: A Very Important Mouse” (1984). She donated profits to the laboratory.

When Mr. Weinberger resigned in 1987, many news reports cited his wife’s cancer of the uterus as a cause. Their son said the cancer later went into remission.

In addition to her son Caspar, who lives in Mount Desert, Mrs. Weinberger is survived by her son Arlin, of Marin County, Calif.; her sister, Virginia Garceau of Brewer, Me.; three grandchildren; and five great-grandsons.

In Mrs. Weinberger’s book about aging, “Experience the Journey” (2003), her last book, she said she was not sure how she had gone from collecting antiques to being one.

“How did I get here?” she wrote. “I seem to have been instantly transported here while I was busy doing other things.”

[SF0]

Rest in Peace.

[Richard]

A well deserved rest - and the eternal thanks of a grateful nation.

Richard

[Praetorian]