MELVIN R. LAIRD - BOOK PAGE SIGNED - HFSID 214802

MELVIN R. LAIRD
Shown with President Nixon and his cabinet signing a bill into law.
Book Photograph signed: "Mel Laird". B/w, 5¼x7 overall, image 4x2¾ (one surface). Page 37 of a book. Photograph is captioned at upper margin: "A BILL BECOMES LAW. The President [Richard Nixon] signs into law a bill sponsored by Representative F. Edward Hébert, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. It provides for a Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Standing behind the President (L. to R.) are Frank Slatinshek, Chief Counsel for the House Armed Services Committee; Dr. Richard Wilbur, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Environment; Chairman Hébert; Representative Charles Bennett; former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird; Representative Leslie Arends; former Representative Doctor Durwood Hall; and Dr. Louis Rousselot, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Environment." The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland was established as a separate agency of the Department of Defense under The Uniformed Services Health Professions Revitalization Act of 1972. In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon appointed a Board of Regents for the school, which was later the target of bills to terminate it in 1999 and 2001 as part of Democratic Louisiana Senator Russ Feingold's efforts to reduce the federal deficit. On March 22, 2001, however, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield praised the University, saying, in part: "The Department takes great pride in the fact that the USUHS graduates have become the backbone for our Military Health System...All of us in the Office of the Secretary of Defense place great emphasis on the retention of quality physicians in the military...I look forward to continued excellence from the University." Melvin Robert Laird, Jr. (1922-2016) was U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Richard M. Nixon from 1969-1973, the first Congressman appointed to the post. Committed to only a four-year tenure, Laird publicly supported Nixon's course in Vietnam but opposed the Cambodian invasion and the bombing and land mine operations of the spring of 1972. On January 27, 1973, two days before he left office, the Vietnam settlement was signed in Paris. Laird, who had previously served as a Republican in the Wisconsin state senate (1946-1948) and as a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin (1953-1969), then became a domestic advisor to Nixon. In 1974, the year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Laird resigned to become senior counselor on national and international affairs for "Reader's Digest". Lightly creased. Show through of print on verso at caption and signature. Fine condition.