Man in the Middle

John Lehman is a legendary figure in American naval history. He was one of the youngest people ever to serve as Secretary of the Navy and arguably the most-powerful holder of that office. While the President and Secretary of Defense determine defense policy in the United States, it is up to the military services to implement it. The secretary of each service – the "man in the middle," as one Air Force Secretary put it – represents the higher-level civilian leadership to the military. Lehman filled this role unlike anyone who came before (or after) him. He reversed the decline in the size of the Navy after the Vietnam War, oversaw the Navy's expansion to almost 600 ships during the defense buildup of the Reagan era, and promoted an offensive maritime strategy against the Soviet Union. Drawing from recently declassified sources, private archives, and interviews with dozens of Lehman's contemporaries, Anand Toprani offers a fresh perspective on the Navy during the last decade of the Cold War. By exploring how Lehman confronted his major challenges, from applying naval power against a continental power to reforming an inefficient system for designing and procuring new weapons that has produced a smaller and more-expensive military, this book gives readers vital insights into contemporary defense policy, as national-security leaders confront similar problems today.