White House’s slate of nominees would put familiar faces back in the Pentagon 5 days ago Clockwise: Heidi Shyu, Michael Brown, Christine Wormuth and Frank Kendall. (Spc. Isaac Adams/U.S. Army; U.S. Defense Department; Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images; Tom Pennington/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — After three months of silence on who would make up his administration’s top Pentagon leaders, President Joe Biden announced the names of 17 potential officials in April. Of those, four will be critical in deciding how the Pentagon will modernize and how it will transition to focus on China in an era of relatively constrained spending.