Lloyd Austin confronts the dangers of being a private man in a public job
For three years, President Biden has coped well with the private nature of his media-shy, introverted Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III.
But by failing to inform the president that he needed surgery for prostate cancer, only to later return to the hospital with serious complications, the 70-year-old Austin has not only drawn more attention to himself than at any time in his life. long career. He has also criticized and criticized Mr Biden's national security team at a time when it is managing multiple crises around the world.
When asked about Mr. Austin on Friday, Mr. Biden said he remained confident in him. But the president gave a sharp, one-syllable response when asked whether it was an error of judgment if Mr. Austin had not informed him that he had been off duty on and off in recent weeks. “Yes,” he said.
The entire incident has exposed Mr. Austin as that rarest of creatures in Washington: an intensely private person in a brutally public job.
Mr. Austin, the former commander of United States Central Command, brought 40 years of service with him when he took the top job at the Pentagon in 2021.
He led men and women in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped devise and build the campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Austin, a West Point graduate, did what no other black man had done before: He rose through the ranks of the military to eventually lead the nation's 1.4 million active-duty troops in a civilian role that places him second only to the president in the chain of command.
But Mr. Austin also brought to his work a reputation for avoiding attention and revealing as little about himself as possible.
At the Pentagon, staffers often share the meme of Homer Simpson walks backwards into a hedge and disappear from view, which characterizes their boss's aversion to any spotlight. But that reluctance, Mr. Austin's supporters say, reflects decades of cultural challenges for a black man who has found success in the military by learning not to show too much of himself.
Mr. Austin has told friends the story of how, just after graduating from West Point, he did what many young men coming into their own do when they receive their first few paychecks: He bought a flashy new car. Within weeks, he was stopped by police in Alabama to find out if the car had been stolen.
“That whole thing about being a private person — you're not around him long before you discover that,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who helped Mr. Biden, the veterinarian, Mr. Austin.
But the history of black men fighting wars abroad and then facing discrimination, Mr. Clyburn said, taught many black service members to believe that they could only succeed if they showed less of themselves.
Mr. Austin has talked about having a white officer give back his briefings when he was commander of the legendary 82nd Airborne Division, because he thought a white officer would be listened to more.
Now it is Mr. Biden who listens to him. The two men spoke on Thursday, ahead of attacks by the United States and allied forces against the Houthi militia in Yemen, even though Mr. Austin remains in hospital.
Asked about Austin's role in planning the strikes, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said his “participation was no different than any other day, other than briefing the president. about the possibilities and involved in the conversations from the hospital. But he was fully involved, as he would be in any other event.
For much of his three years as secretary of defense, Mr. Austin's quiet nature was overshadowed by the talkative presence of Gen. Mark A. Milley, who until Oct. 1 was his sidekick as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Defense Staff.
“I really wish you wouldn't write that,” Mr. Austin told a reporter in the Pentagon's E Ring corridor last month, discussing a story about his role in advising Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza.
His problem wasn't with the gist of the story. It was with the inference that he played a role in policy.
It's been more than a year since he appeared in the Pentagon briefing room to talk to reporters, and he usually avoids reporters who travel with him on his plane trips. Ditto for a large part of his staff; When he travels, he prefers to dine alone in his hotel room if he does not have an appointment with a foreign colleague.
He does not like to sugarcoat or smear political relations. He waited for weeks before getting on the phone with Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, when Mr. Tuberville began threatening to halt military nominations in protest of the policy Mr. Austin had put in place to ensure that service members would have continued . access to abortions and other reproductive medical care.
Mr. Austin's relationship with the president before this latest crisis was considered cordial and affectionate, dating back to when Mr. Biden's son, Beau Biden, served under Mr. Austin in Iraq. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.
After Mr. Biden ignored Mr. Austin's advice not to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2021, the Defense Secretary appeared before Congress in the chaotic aftermath and shielded his boss, cautiously saying he was not in favor was to “stay in Afghanistan forever.” ”
When he was head of Central Command, his most high-profile job in the military, Mr. Austin was known as a shrewd strategist. At meetings at the Pentagon and White House, officials say Mr. Austin is demonstrating a command of military strategy and an understanding of the day-to-day issues of his rank and file.
He has been stung by a number of previous public controversies. After getting into a 2015 hearing while still in uniform with Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, about the Obama administration's Syria policy, Mr. Austin made headlines when he spoke before the first publicly acknowledged that a $500 million Pentagon program to train Syrian fighters against the Islamic State had produced only four or five.
He rarely bothers to defend himself against political critics. He left it to General Milley to respond to a Republican congressman who criticized the Defense Department for becoming too “woke” in his view.
Mr. Austin's backers said that with his prostate cancer he was following a military ethos instilled in him throughout his working life: don't complain. But by remaining silent about his illness and hospitalization, Mr. Austin threw a big chunk of red meat at Republican critics of the Biden administration.
There are calls from Republicans in Congress to impeach Mr. Austin, an ongoing investigation by the department's inspector general, and the evolving story about his failure to keep the White House informed about how his absence could create a gap in the chain. The lead is permanently in rotation in the 24-hour television news cycles.
Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania became the first Democrat in Congress to call for Mr. Austin's resignation. He said on social media that he had “lost confidence in Secretary Lloyd Austin's leadership of the Department of Defense due to the lack of transparency regarding his recent medical treatment and its impact on the continuity of the chain of command.”
Moreover, there is the disappointment of black health care advocates that by hiding his cancer, Mr. Austin reinforced the idea that prostate cancer, which more commonly affects African-American men, is something to be ashamed of.
“I wish Lloyd Austin a speedy recovery from cancer, but he set a bad example for black men,” read the headline an opinion piece in the Kansas City Star.
“We have now politicized a deeply personal and private issue in a very personal and private man,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said in an interview. “We have to move on.”
In recent days, the Pentagon has become more candid about what Mr. Austin is doing. “Over the past 72 hours, Secretary Austin has been actively involved in overseeing and directing the U.S. strikes in Yemen on Thursday evening,” a Defense Department official wrote in an email to reporters.
The email contained a long list of phone calls the secretary had received from the hospital.
Erik Schmitt reporting contributed.