Navy chief quits
NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States Navy Secretary, James Webb, feeling betrayed by a Pentagon decision to cut defence costs by postponing plans for a 600-ship Navy by 1990, resigned 10 months after taking the job with a broadside at his boss.
Although Reagan Administration officials said they were sorry to see Webb go, no-one tried to talk him out of leaving. “It’s part of the job. If you can’t support the Defence Secretary, you keep your mouth shut or you resign. So he quit,” one Defence Department official told Reuters after Mr Webb announced his decision to reporters.
Other Administration officials, who also asked not to be identified, said Mr Webb’s move would prompt no changes in the $U5299.5 billion 1989 budget sent to Congress by the Defence Secretary, Frank Carlucci, last week. Mr Webb, aged 42, released a copy of a letter to President Reagan and bitterly attacked Mr Carlucci’s decision to retire 16 Navy frigates as part of 532.58 in defence budget cuts. The Navy took nearly SI2B of those cuts.
The decision to scrap the frigates will leave the Navy with about 580 warships going into 1990 instead of the 600 promised by Mr Reagan and the former Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger.
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Press, 24 February 1988, Page 10
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208Navy chief quits Press, 24 February 1988, Page 10
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