Caspar Weinberger dies at 88

Caspar Weinberger, defense secretary under the Reagan administration and central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, has died at the age of 88.
Weinberger died about 5 a.m. in a hospital near his home in Mount Desert, Maine, his family said. He had recently been treated for pneumonia.
"He was just a worn-out guy," his son, Caspar Weinberger, Jr., told Reuters.
"He should be remembered as a world statesman, a great American patriot," the son said. "What he did with Reagan really brought down the Soviet Union. They stuck to their plan and simply outspent the Soviets despite all sorts of doubts here."
Weinberger was pardoned by former President Bush on the eve of his trial in the Iran-Contra case in 1992. He was charged with making false statements.
Military spendingWeinberger, who presided over an unprecedented peacetime military buildup costing more than $1 trillion, began his government career as a cost-cutter.
He was born in San Francisco in 1917. He received a law degree at Harvard and was on General Douglas McArthur's intelligence staff in World War II. Following the war, he returned to California and worked as a law clerk for a federal judge, then at a San Francisco firm. In the 1950s, he was elected to the California State Assembly. He remained active in California politics through the '60s.
In 1970, President Nixon named him as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. He was named deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget in 1971, where his cost-cutting policies earned him the nickname "Cap the Knife." In 1973, he became secretary of health, education and welfare. He returned to the private sector in 1975.
When he took the defense post in January 1981, Weinberger soon erased the his budget-cutting nickname.
Arms raceWeinberger performed with gusto the task of persuading Congress to spend over $1 trillion on arms in Reagan's first term and billions more after that.
He also steadfastly opposed concessions to Moscow in arms-control negotiations advocated by Secretary of State George Shultz and other more moderate members of the Cabinet.
He made himself unpopular with many lawmakers by his unbending, often contentious push for funds for arms and for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- a program, commonly known as "Star Wars," to develop a land- and space-based shield against incoming ballistic missiles.
A longtime member of Reagan's inner circle of California friends, Weinberger was one of the president's strongest supporters in the Cabinet.
He called "absurd" a White House decision in 1985 to sell arms to Iran but supported Reagan a year later after the president decided to send missiles and spare parts to Tehran.