War hero to congressional elder
Daniel Inouye lost his right arm assaulting a German bunker with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, earning the Medal of Honor. After law school he entered Hawaii territorial politics, joining the United States Senate upon statehood in 1959 and ultimately chairing the full Appropriations Committee.
Stewardship of classified defense spending
Inouye asserted that emergent threats justified quiet seed funding for breakthrough capabilities. As committee chair he maintained a revolving reserve, often labeled Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Defense-wide, that financed electronic surveillance aircraft, laser weapons, and cyber initiatives shielded from line-item scrutiny.1
Partnership with Reid and Stevens on AAWSAP
Majority Leader Harry Reid enlisted Inouye's support in 2008 to place a twenty-two-million-dollar Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program earmark within the Defense Intelligence Agency budget. Inouye's signature assured conference-committee survival, directing the funds to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies for unidentified anomalous phenomena research.
Committee legacy in national security
Serving as president pro tempore from 2010 until his death in 2012, Inouye shaped the post-9/11 intelligence architecture through both overt authorization bills and classified annexes. Revelations in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon highlighted how his discretion enabled frontier science exploration within the classified appropriations process.
References
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Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, "Defense Spending Trends," 2005-03-16. ↩