If Not Now, When?

I FORGET the exact year, but Caspar Weinberger was secretary of defense for President Reagan, and I asked to see him. The SecDef ’s office, as I remember, is surprisingly modest. I remember thinking back to an interview with Prime Minister Golda Meir, whose austere desk and utilitarian adornments would have suited Bill Gates’s cubicle-minded idea of how to do business. Modest offices give off the feel that serious business gets done here.

But the ceremonial flags were in evidence, and one of the two phones on the desk connected to the Oval Office. To reach the Omaha missile-launching pads the secretary of defense presumably has to go through an operator.