In a previous paper (AD-296 177), the transversal contour of a slender body of a given length and base area was determined in such a way that the total drag (sum of the pressure drag and the friction drag) is a minimum. Directions were employed, and the analysis was confined to a body whose cross section is either a regular polygon or is composed of a basic circle external to which are superimposed symmetric segments of a logarithmic spiral. In this paper, these arbitrary limitations on the transversal contour are removed, and the minimum drag problem is investigated with the indirect methods of the Calculus of Variations. The following basic hypotheses are employed: (a) the body is slender in the longitudinal sense; (b) its longitudinal contour is represented by a power law; (c) the distribution of pressure coefficients is Newtonian; and (d) the distribution of skin friction coefficients versus the abscissa is represented by a power law.