In 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War, centrist Congressman Melvin Laird (R-WI) agreed to serve as Richard Nixon s secretary of defense. It was not, Laird knew, a move likely to endear him to the American public but as he later said, Nixon couldn t find anybody else who wanted the damn job. For the next four years, Laird deftly navigated the morass of the war he had inherited. Lampooned as a missile head, but decisive in crafting an exit strategy, he doggedly pursued his program of Vietnamization, initiating the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel and gradually ceding combat...