It may seem odd that a man known as “Cap the Knife” for his efforts to cut government spending in the Nixon administration could go on to oversee the biggest peacetime increase in defense spending. To Caspar Weinberger, the math was simple: “We won the Cold War, and if we won by too much, if it was overkill, so be it,” he said when leaving the Pentagon in 1987.

Mr. Weinberger, who died Tuesday in Bangor at the age of 88, is likely to be remembered as President Reagan’s skilled defense secretary. He took a hard line against the Soviets and backed that up with more than $2 trillion in spending on weapons, planes, tanks and ships to “rearm America.” When he left the Pentagon, the personable Mikhail Gorbachev had risen to power in Moscow and the United States soon began working more closely with the Soviet Union on arms reduction and other issues.

Years earlier, as President Nixon’s budget director, Mr. Weinberger smilingly denied agencies’ requests for more money, earning that nickname. He also served as Nixon’s secretary of health, education and welfare, a job he continued under President Ford. As Defense secretary, he was known not only for a weapons buildup but as an able leader and an advocate for finding more roles for women in the service branches.

Mr. Weinberger was a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair and was indicted in 1992 for concealing notebooks that may have further explained the roles of President Reagan and Vice President George Bush in the affair that involved the sale of arms to Iran and the use of some of the proceeds to fund the Contras, Nicaraguan rebels. The notebooks had already been donated to the Library of Congress and Mr. Weinberger was pardoned by President Bush in 1992.

Mr. Weinberger fell for Maine “hook, line and sinker,” his wife said in 1974. Mrs. Weinberger, born Jane Dalton, grew up in Milford and graduated from Old Town High School and the University of Maine. The couple met on a troop ship heading for the South Pacific during World War II. She was an Army nurse and he was a lieutenant.

Mr. Weinberger served in the highest ranks of government but was known on Mount Desert Island for his kindness and unassuming demeanor. A good-hearted Cold Warrior has left us.