What are the odds against an ensign in the U. S. Navy achieving the Number One position in his profession—Chief of Naval Operations? What chance does a Navy captain have in getting the CNO job? And, carrying the speculation to its ultimate stage, which officer of flag rank will succeed the incumbent, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer?
A fascinating guessing game begins every few years in the Navy as to who will be the next Chief of Naval Operations.
How does one become CNO? Breathes there a naval officer with soul (or ambition) so dead that he has not secretly or publicly, or musingly, or perhaps spurred by a minor1 or major irritation wished—maybe even hungered—that he were the Chief of Naval Operations? Apocryphal stories exist in the Services2 that the career patterns of a certain select few have, from time to time, been established from the very date of Service Academy graduation which culminated at the top of the ladder. Do commonalities exist among the CNOs? Is there a prescribed route; a magic “open sesame”; a guaranteed formula; a (to use a Navy term) “gouge” which assures progression from the bottom to the very apex of the promotional pyramid?
In an attempt to show the guideposts and the danger signs along the way, this article will trace the Service careers of three former CNOs: Admirals Arleigh Burke, George Anderson, and David L. McDonald; and of the present CNO, Admiral Moorer. The author has concentrated, for reasons of time and space, on the most recent CNOs. His purpose is to try to trace the success patterns of motivation, ambition, drive, talents both natural and acquired, and luck that enabled these four men to reach the pinnacle of their profession. No attempt will be made to formulate “conclusions”—the reader may determine for himself if there, in fact, is a central, dominant theme or formula to which he can adapt himself or from which he can justify the success and/or the “paths to glory” of past or subsequent Chiefs.3
The Midshipmen. There is a quality about the Lucky Bag (the annual yearbook of the U.S. Naval Academy) which can be described only as enchanting. The Lucky Bag may never win a significant literary award; its photography is, at the best, murky; its format understandably stereotyped; its tone somewhat sophomoric; it abounds with esoteric “trade talk”—so much so that some issues carry glossaries. Its biographies are, for the most part, unsophisticated and polysyllabic continuations of the variety found in high school yearbooks, being thoughtfully based on the credo: “If you can’t say something good about this fellow—say nothing.” Still, the Lucky Bag remains as a major definitive summation of the individual midshipman’s four years on the banks of the Severn River. Where else, for example, could you get such exciting information that G. W. Anderson served on the Christmas Card Committee; or that Dave McDonald, alias “Gawjah Cracker,” was Chairman of the Academy Reception Committee? Trivia? Of course. But, it also reveals that—with the exception of “Dead Eye” Moorer, who played two years of varsity football—in a profession requiring superb physical co-ordination, none of the four was an exceptional athlete. McDonald was a “class” wrestler, captain of the Academy rifle team and an expert marksman who, in later years, always relished the staccato sounds of small arms practice conducted during slack periods at sea. “Billie” Burke was on the wrestling squad for three years, and “Aphrodite” Anderson limited his athletic activities to intramural lacrosse. Anderson was somewhat handicapped by his physique. Upon entering the Academy in 1924, he was 6 feet tall and weighed 129 pounds. Justifiably concerned, the authorities placed him under the care of five “dieticians” at the head of his mess hall (and two aunts at home). After half a year, he was checked again. Results: height, 6 feet 1 inch; weight, 128 pounds!
Regarding Midshipman rank, only McDonald attained 4-stripes (Regimental Sub-Commander). Anderson, despite an outstanding academic record, never rose higher than the 4th Battalion Sub-Commander (3 stripes). Whereas it took Moorer four years of climbing to reach the limited summit of Midshipman Petty Officer, Arleigh Burke, who stood 350th in his class of 720 Plebes, never achieved any recognition beyond P.O. 2/c. Lucky Bag had this to say about Burke: “. . . Colorado lost a killer of horses when she lost Billie—and the Navy gained a killer of work. Clouds and sunshine chase each other through Billie’s spiritual spectrum and, due to the regularity of the mail service, the sunshine manages to predominate. Billie’s philosophy is expressed in three of his pet phrases: “Lord, but that girl of mine is a wonder!” “Fool ’em all, I can’t bone.” “Well, I guess I’ll get to work.” For a Navy immortal who ranks among the giants of CNOs, this biography is hardly indicative that his contemporaries in the Class of ’23 saw any wreath of greatness on the serious, industrious brow of the man who autographs his gift photographs with the words, “A. Burke, sailor, 1st/c.”
The only Lucky Bag of the four in question with any confidence in its prognosticative skill was the Class of ’27 publication. Writing of George Whelan Anderson, it said: “. . . He is an intensely human and normal Midshipman; one with ambition, with an abiding interest in past and current events, one who has the welfare of his friends constantly at heart and one who will succeed in the fleet.” Prior comments in the same biography made reference to his natural aptitude for grasping all that he saw, heard, and read, “. . . which carried him through his academics with maximum marks and a minimum of effort.” Anderson was, and is, a genuine scholar, with a blazingly evident intelligence. He wrote extensively for Reef Points (a combination guide and diary which serves as the Plebes’ “Bible”), and after having been graduated from demanding Brooklyn Prep as class valedictorian, lived up to his scholastic promise by standing 27th in his graduating Academy Class of 579. Of the four admirals compared herein, he was the only one to wear an academic excellence star on his collar while at Annapolis.
What does the Class of ’28 Lucky Bag say about “Mac” McDonald? Wonder is expressed over the minor miracle of his going all but five weeks of his Plebe year without receiving a demerit and that it required that same full year for him to learn to speak English “after emigrating from Georgia.” The 17th Chief of Naval Operations-to-be, who stood 27th in his class of 173, was characterized as “Lazy-Rebel—nonchalant, hopelessly attractive and mutually attracted, but girl, never—always girls! Happy—lucky—savvy—sleepy—hungry—live!” In the case of Arleigh Burke, it was obviously “A slow starter makes a fast finisher,” but with McDonald it was a deceptively dark horse winning without apparent effort.
“With a most likeable nature, friendly disposition, and a will to succeed, Tom will surely be a credit to his profession . . . .” is as far out on the limb as the 1933 Lucky Bag would go for Admiral Moorer. The biography did wax somewhat lyrical over Moorer’s background and non-regulation proclivities: “. . . a true Johnny Reb if there ever was one, ‘Dead Eye’ came to us as Alabama’s pride and joy.”
Continuing on a more realistic note, the account reads: “Tom didn’t go out for football until spring of Youngster year but, when he did go out, it was with body and soul determination. Though he was a bit light on his feet (like a polar bear) he was a good lineman who always made the going tough for the opposition. With his uncanny ability to figure out mechanical subjects, he was always willing to help the less gifted among us by explaining the why and wherefore of our perplexities. ‘Dago’ (Spanish) was his nightmare among the academics, but he could always habla espanol well enough to lay up velvet.” Moorer to this day admits, “A linguist I am not.”
When interviewed, he was a bit vague as to his class standing, “Number 174, I think; and about 400th as a Plebe.” Actually, it was No. 181 and No. 289, respectively. He thought “. . . most of the admirals from my class were smarter than I was . . . .” This intriguing use of the past tense hides the fact that he was the valedictorian of his high school class at the age of 15. The records show that most of the class of 1933 midshipmen who have attained flag rank, were, as midshipmen, “smarter” than Moorer: Hal Bowen; Dave Lambert; Pickles Heinz; Pete Galantin; Tom Connolly; Waldemar Wendt; Ed Miller; Charlie Duncan; Ralph Shifley; John Tyree; John Coye; Dick Ashworth; Joe Williams; Elliott Loughlin; Horace Bird, and Smoke Strean were scholastically more proficient. The remaining 13 line admirals, including Sunshine Jim Reedy—the football captain, ranked below him. A little-known fact about the 432 graduates of this Class is that only half were commissioned. And, after two years of “probation,” followed by formal examinations in several professional subjects, these 216 ensigns were re-evaluated, with the result that Moorer’s class standing became No. 80.
What, then, did these midshipmen have in common? Apparently, very little. Two—McDonald and Moorer—were Southerners; Anderson was a Yankee from New York; and Burke, the eldest of six children, was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. Paradoxically, none came from a seaport state, such as Massachusetts or California, and none was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. At 16, Anderson was the youngest to enter the Academy, but Burke at 53 was the youngest of the four when he became CNO.
Anderson was, perhaps the most strongly motivated “I was the only child of an intensely patriotic and religious family, speaking in the traditional sense of patriotism and religion. An aunt who raised me—my mother died when I was two—took me to the Brooklyn Navy Yard when I was just a little fellow. I saw those beautiful ships, was fascinated by them and wanted nothing but the Navy from that moment on.” Following up on a newspaper article which indicated that vacancies existed at the U. S. Naval Academy, Anderson wrote for—and got—his own appointment. Once he entered the Academy, he “. . . loved every minute of it.”
It is possible that Admiral Burke might take issue as to being rated No. 2 as to motivation, “My heart was in the Navy from the time I was able to walk.” But his approach—in contrast to Anderson’s romantic outlook—was the pragmatic one. He was determined to succeed (“I had little time for athletics and none for midshipman monkey business”) because his bucolic origin and pre-Academy education, by his own admission, “disadvantaged me in comparison with most of my classmates.” Proving again the fallibility of the Lucky Bag odds-makers, two of Burke’s “advantaged” competitors—who were chosen “Best All-around” and “Most Likely to Succeed”—retired to teach mathematics and resigned, respectively. This example of the dubious omniscience of the peer-rating system is the rule, rather than the exception, throughout.
Moorer was from Mt. Willing, Alabama (population 172), although listed in the Lucky Bag from Eufaula, Alabama, his wife’s hometown. His reason for choosing Annapolis was: “I was, at first, headed for Georgia Tech. I was planning to study electrical engineering—or something technical at any rate. I gave some thought to West Point, but the Navy was a more technically oriented Service and, therefore, when my appointment to Annapolis came through, I joined up.”
Once Tom Moorer embraced the Navy as a career, however, he jumped in, head-first, with all of the no-turning-back enthusiasm he has given to every assignment. By contrast, McDonald, the son of a Christian minister in Monroe, Georgia, had no inclination to “join the Navy and see the world.” He was, if he had any Service interest, Army-oriented by reason of his father’s friendship with a local politician. However, being too young (he graduated from High School at 16) to enter West Point, he turned his attention to Annapolis and—following an additional year at prep school—received a Congressional appointment to the Naval Academy. Throughout his Plebe and Youngster years he intended to resign upon graduation and become a lawyer but, in 1926, a law was passed which made it mandatory to serve two years after commissioning. During this midshipman phase, McDonald was driven principally by the urge to prove to the folks back home that a small town “cracker” could make the grade with the “smart fellers up north” in Maryland.
His classmates remember him as a non-conformist who achieved more by his natural charm and intelligence than by strict adherence to conducting himself “by the numbers.”
Despite a rainbow spectrum of medals, and many awards and gifts from foreign dignitaries, he recalls that, “I am probably one of the very few, if not the only U. S. Naval Academy 4-striper who never received the traditional Letter of Commendation from the Superintendent.” What really rankled him was that—through an administrative error—he was denied a Legion of Merit for which he was recommended in 1943-44, and which he thinks he deserved far more than any of his other awards.
To pour the final cup of cold water upon Annapolis forecasting, neither Burke, Anderson, McDonald nor Moorer ever placed his midshipman’s cap upon the top of the Herndon Monument obelisk—an act of derring-do that is supposed to identify the midshipman who will be the first in his class to achieve the rank of admiral.
The Junior Officers. By the time they were junior grade lieutenants, Anderson, McDonald, and Moorer had all decided to be naval aviators. George Anderson, the incurable romanticist, looked upon aviation both as an adventure and a challenge; Moorer, the clear-eyed junior officer on the move, saw it as the most important offensive weapons system in the Navy’s arsenal; and young McDonald—still the cynic and still unconvinced the Navy was his true métier—was persuaded by a prospective civilian employer that Navy flight training would make him extremely desirable to commercial aviation, “when you get out in a couple of years.”
To say that Arleigh Burke went into destroyers is like saying Babe Ruth went into baseball.
Anderson, although possessing a lofty class standing, got “China duty” in the USS Cincinnati (CL-6) through the luck of the draw instead of the European duty he had hoped for. As did all good ensigns, he rotated through the deck and engineering divisions and then joyfully departed for flight training at Pensacola, Florida. At 26, as a rather senior lieutenant, junior grade, he was married. He says, of this move, “Since I waited until five years after graduation, I never experienced the customary junior officer financial squeeze. I must admit, though, that we were paid more with prestige than with coin of the realm in that close-fisted era of the Navy Department.”
Flying O2U seaplanes off the cruisers Concord (CL-10) and Raleigh (CL-7), he remains proud of the fact that, even though a pilot, he stood a watch-in-five with the junior officers of the ship’s company.
His shore duty rotation placed him at the Naval Air Station, Norfolk, where he was assigned to the F2F, the Navy’s newest fighter plane project. From this job it was logical that he should report to Fighting Squadron Two in the USS Lexington (CV-2), then to the Yorktown (CV-5), “Where I also stood deck watches.” Present day personnel detailers would probably blanch at his next out-of-phrase [sic] assignment to Patrol Squadron Four in Seattle, Washington, where he flew the famous PBY “Catalinas,” but this tour enabled him to further diversify his aviation experience. Anderson, even at that stage of the game, was fully cognizant of the importance of career planning: “I made it a point to try not to plow the same ground twice.”
Anderson’s adieu to junior officer status came in 1940, when he reported to the Bureau of Aeronautics, later to become known, in a “merger” with the Bureau of Ordnance, as the Bureau of Weapons. It was here that Anderson, working in close co-ordination with British, French, and Canadian planners, established a reputation described in Who’s Who as: “. . . A specialist in naval aviation who helped formulate the American aircraft program for World War II.” From this “Joint Job,” the Admiral prizes a Letter of Commendation he received from the War Department for “Outstanding liaison with the U. S. Army Air Corps.”
Legend has it that, during this phase of his career, Anderson—much to his dismay—came to be known as “Gorgeous George.” Photographs give ample reason for this half-admiring, half-envious tag. Because of his strikingly handsome appearance, anyone who ever met George Whelan Anderson did not easily forget that erect, flat-bellied, articulate, confident young man.
David Lamar McDonald married Catherine Lois Thompson just prior to reporting for flight training in 1930. She shared McDonald’s passion for privacy and his (from the Service viewpoint) non-standard ideas. The Admiral recalls with wry amusement an “embarrassed criticism” he received from one of his commanding officers concerning the young McDonalds’ failure to give enough parties. Mac and Tommie shared another unusual trait besides their undisguised affection for each other: an abiding devotion to their families. A prolific correspondent, Admiral McDonald posts a letter to his mother every Monday morning, containing, along with intimate matters, an account of his activities during the previous week. This custom was an administrative boon to a former personal aide, who confesses that since, on trips, the Admiral kept his own itinerary and scheduling notes, “. . . which really were marvelous, detailed diaries . . .” he seldom was saddled with the onerous chore of “writing the log.” Oddly enough, these trip notes for inclusion in letters to his mother were the only notes McDonald ever kept.
McDonald’s reputation for unvarnished honesty, gained at the Academy, was not diminished by the story surrounding his application for flight training. “Why do you want to go into Naval Aviation?” asked the Executive Officer of the battleship Colorado (BB-45). “Because you have a wider range of duty, more pay, and you don’t have to ‘pound pitch,’” replied the forthright young ensign. Likewise, when he won his aviator’s wings, he did not regard them as the answer to all his dreams, although he had a choice assignment of three years in VF-6 in the old Saratoga (CV-3) and one year in a cruiser aviation unit. “It was not until 1935, when I was an instructor at Pensacola, that I decided the Navy would be my permanent career. Helping others fulfill their lifelong ambition seemed to me to be the first real constructive thing I had ever done in the Navy, and I liked it.”
Pensacola was followed by three years of service with Patrol Squadron 42, based in the untropical climes of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. At the outbreak of World War II, he was Flag Secretary to the Commander, Aircraft, Atlantic Fleet, in the carrier Ranger (CV-4). He says, “I will never forget 1942—not only for the excitement generated by the war—but for the facts that I made a big rank, lieutenant commander, and got a simultaneous big disappointment: assignment as a Flight Training Officer with the newly formed Naval Air Operational Training Command at Jacksonville, Florida, instead of as a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater.”
It is characteristic, though, of McDonald’s take-the-bad-with-the-good attitude that he received the Secretary of the Navy’s Letter of Commendation for, “Outstanding performance of duty . . . . Experienced in aviation matters and thoroughly conversant with training procedures and requirements, he assisted materially in creating the Naval Air Operational Training Command and was responsible for providing the Fleet with skilled pilots and efficient crewmen whose performance in combat operations against the enemy proved the success of the instruction program . . . .”
In this non-combatant environment, it was a concurrent oddity that he was tabbed as a “real comer” by one of his seniors. Perhaps the first to spot McDonald’s latent talents under his properly polite, rather austere manner, was Rear Admiral “Andy” McFall, who praised him as a “potential CNO.”
While Lieutenant Commander McDonald was chafing under the yoke of shore duty when his classmates were mostly making history in the war at sea, another junior officer—Lieutenant Thomas Hinman Moorer—was having a series of uncommon adventures. On 19 February 1942, while piloting a patrol plane in the Dutch East Indies campaign, he was shot down by Japanese fighter planes north of Darwin, Australia. Moorer and his crew (all wounded) were picked up by a Filipino tramp freighter, only to have this ship, two hours later, sunk from under them. Moorer had watched the attack on the freighter forming and—just before the bombs began falling—evacuated his men in a rubber life raft, after which he performed a Captain Bligh feat of navigation in returning the survivors to the Australian mainland. For these heroic acts he was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.
Having fast-talked his way out of the recuperation ward, he participated in another Hollywood-type episode. The citation accompanying his Distinguished Flying Cross tells of this portion of his service with PatRon 101: “For extraordinary achievement and heroic conduct as commander of a patrol plane on a hazardous round-trip flight from Darwin, Australia, to Beco, Island of Timor, on the afternoon and night of 24 May 1942. In an undefended, comparatively slow flying boat, Lieutenant Moorer braved an area dominated by enemy air superiority, effected a precarious landing in the open sea at dusk and took off at night in the midst of threatening swells, with a heavily loaded airplane. His superb skill and courageous determination in organizing and executing this perilous mission resulted in the delivery of urgently needed supplies to a beleaguered garrison and the evacuation of eight seriously wounded men who, otherwise, might have perished.”
His routine Navy life, following graduation from the Academy in June 1933, had given little notice of what was to follow. He served six months on board the cruiser, Salt Lake City (CA-25) (as a JO in the gunnery department) and then assisted in fitting out the USS New Orleans (CA-32) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. As did George Anderson, he rotated through the various departments, compiling his ensign’s journal, until he was ordered to flight training at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, in 1935. A year later, he was designated a Naval Aviator and ordered to Fighting Squadron One-B, based on the carriers Langley (AV-3) and Lexington. “I made jaygee in June 1936,” said the Admiral, after living through a 15 per cent pay cut as an ensign. I thought I was the richest, luckiest (he had just married Carrie Ellen Foy) junior officer in the U. S. Navy.”
In 1937, Moorer was transferred to Fighting Squadron Six, attached to the old USS Enterprise (CV-6) and, in August 1939, joined Patrol Squadron 22, a unit of Fleet Air Wing Ten, stationed on a carefree island where the palm trees swayed in the gentle tradewinds—Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. He was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
“My most important single act as a junior officer,” said Arleigh Burke, “occurred on the day of my graduation from the Naval Academy—I got married.” His bride was 5-foot, 2-inch, 95-pound Roberta Gorsuch. She accompanied him to Bremerton, Washington, where Burke reported on board the battleship Arizona (BB-39). They felt the same way about $183 per month, including allowances, income as did the young Moorers. “We never had more money than when Arleigh was an ensign,” Bobbie Burke maintains after more than 46 years of their peripatetic existence.
The future CNO did not enjoy any spectacular surge through the ranks. He made jaygee in 1926, got his second full stripe in 1930, and, seven years later, still a lieutenant, got the post which—probably more than any other—shaped his career. As executive officer of the destroyer Craven (DD-382) “Without a doubt, the toughest, most challenging job in the Navy”, he came to realize this was his true niche—the “black shoe” (surface) Navy. There is little doubt that his successful completion of this assignment led to his command—as a lieutenant commander, 16 years after he was commissioned—of the destroyer Mugford (DD-389).
If ever there was a man who subscribed to John Paul Jones’s credo of: “Give me a fast ship, for I mean to go in harm’s way,” it was Arleigh Burke. “I don’t care what a ship looks like as long as she’s fast,” said the Mugford’s new skipper. Later, emphasizing this same restlessness which was to make him a kind of benevolent juggernaut, he said, “The difference between a good officer and an excellent one is about ten seconds. A fine rule is to get going sooner than anticipated, travel faster than expected, and arrive before you’re due.”
With all his natural flair for the dramatic, Burke did not neglect the basics of his trade; he found time away from “those lovely destroyers” to get his M.S.E. degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan and, as a junior officer, he never neglected an opportunity for self-improvement. Long before Budd Schulberg thought of the phrase, Burke’s classmates were wondering, “What makes Arleigh run?”
It would appear that, before sewing on the three stripes of a commander’s rank, these four men who were to inherit the title of Chief of Naval Operations—with the exception of Thomas Moorer, who had already been bloodied—had served in a fairly routine manner. It is easy for the researcher to look back at the JOs and say, “Anderson and Moorer were always heirs apparent; Burke was an operational genius; McDonald was never less than outstanding.” But would any professional odds-maker have taken an even-money bet on the certainty of any one of these four officers of making four stars at their respective moments of becoming three stripers?
The Senior Officers. Only Arleigh Burke was a full-fledged war hero in the historical tradition of great warrior-leaders. Anderson, McDonald, and Moorer all fired, and were fired at, in anger during World War II, but Burke captured the imagination of both the writers and readers of combat journalism.
“The Little Beavers,” as Destroyer Squadron 23 was known, became famous when Burke took over as their commander. In October 1943, The New York Times reported how the eight ships swept at high speed around the Solomons bastion at Bougainville and shot up—one after another—the Japanese airfields, while the U. S. Marines stormed ashore at Empress Augusta Bay. “When a Jap task force came up in support, Burke led his squadron in sinking a cruiser and four destroyers. Navy men commented that they had never seen anything like the fury and deadly precision of The Little Beavers.”
Burke, with typical thoroughness, had prepared for this day by intensive gunnery practice. It is not coincidental that, in 1939 as commanding officer of the USS Mugford, he won the competition for the Force Gunnery Trophy—setting a new destroyer shooting record in the process.
When ordered to stop the Japanese from evacuating Buka Island on November 1943, Burke headed his ships of The Slot and flashed a now-famous message to some U. S. transports which were wallowing in his path; “Stand aside—I’m coming through at 31 knots.” He reached Buka in time to sink three Japanese Navy transports, also shooting down 20 enemy aircraft during the engagement. Suffice it to say that “31-Knot” Burke has travelled at that speed during his entire Navy career, and it goes without saying, he has continued at the same speed ever since his retirement.
Unlike Tom Moorer, but like George Anderson and Dave McDonald, Commander Burke found himself “beach bound” at the beginning of World War II. A year later, he was still an inspector of anti-aircraft and broadside gunmounts at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C. Despite frantic efforts to get sea duty, he was thwarted at every turn by his BuOrd superiors who considered him indispensable. Finally, in an act of last-ditch desperation, he literally burst into the office of the admiral who was Assistant Chief of the Bureau. After an extemporaneous, passionate appeal, he was on his way to Noumea, New Caledonia, where he reported as Commander, Destroyer Division 43 in February 1943.
Burke threw himself into the business of winning the war as though he, alone, could accomplish it. He drove himself unmercifully.
In the latter part of May 1943, he was transferred to Commander, Destroyer Division 44, where in his flagship, the Conway (DD 507), Burke continued the series of many runs up and down the infamous Slot. In August, he picked up his fourth stripe and was appointed Commander, Destroyer Squadron 12, which brought this formation of eight destroyers under his command. On the 19th of October, his birthday, he received the following message: “You are hereby detached. Take earliest air transportation to Espiritu to relieve as ComDesRon 23 where, with Cruiser Division 12, you will proceed to Guadalcanal prepared for action.” What followed is one of the proudest pages found in U. S. Navy combat history, and Arleigh Burke was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Navy Cross, the Legion of Merit, and the Presidential Unit Citation.
But there was more to come: Admiral Marc Mitscher asked for, and got, Burke as Chief of Staff to the famous Commander of Fast Carrier Task Force 58. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to Commodore. He was on board the flagship Bunker Hill (CV-17) when that carrier was struck by two Kamikazes. The staff transferred to the Enterprise (CV-6) and were on board for only a short time when she, too, was hit by Japanese suicide planes. Commodore Burke survived these major engagements without so much as a scratch, although he had previously “picked up” a piece of Japanese 4.7-inch shell and several broken ribs in the Conway.
When Tom Moorer was promoted to Commander in April 1944, he had returned from the Pacific war zone and had gone through eight months in the United Kingdom as a mining observer for the Commander-in- Chief, U. S. Fleet. He then assumed command of Bombing Squadron 132, operating in Cuba and Africa from the Boca Chica Naval Air Base in Key West, Florida. From March 1944 to July 1945, he served as gunnery and tactical officer on the Staff, Commander Air Force, Atlantic, winning a Legion of Merit for “. . . the outstanding manner in which he planned the development and practical application of tactics, doctrines and training methods relating to anti-submarine warfare.” He also got his fourth stripe. The Alabama high school boy who wanted “some technical experience” had found his niche in the “brown shoe” Navy.
Captain Moorer was next assigned to the OpNav Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan. For nine months he travelled throughout that country, interrogating Japanese officials concerning U. S. strategic and tactical bombing operations during the latter phases of the war. To his growing reputation as an expert on “damn near anything that has wheels, wires, or wings,” he had added another exemplary demonstration of detailed evaluative analysis.
Of his next duty—executive officer of the Naval Aviation Test Station, Chincoteague, Virginia—he said, “My wife deserved some shore duty and so, I guess, did I.” After two years, he reported on board the new attack carrier Midway (CVB-41) as Operations Officer whence he was transferred, in December 1949, to the Staff, Commander Carrier Division Four. Reporting in August 1950 to Inyokern, California, he served for two years as Experimental Officer of the Naval Ordnance Test Station.
Moorer was the delight of both the Cal Tech scientists and the enlisted technicians alike because he was a “shirtsleeves mechanic with brains” who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. There wasn’t a bomb fuse or a black box he couldn’t take apart and put back together.
He was then ordered as a student at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. A year later, in August 1953, he reported for the second time to the Staff of Commander Air Force, Atlantic Fleet.
In May 1955, he was ordered to the Navy Department to serve as Aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Air). This assignment not only enabled him to garner invaluable “head shed” experience, including his first look at the Washington political scene, but it also exposed him to the critical appraisal of the scores of flag officers who call the fourth deck of the Pentagon their “home away from home.” A year later, he got his deep draft command, the seaplane tender Salisbury Sound (AV-13). It was his last job as a captain.
Commander David McDonald finally got to sea, too—in March 1944. He reported as Air Officer on board one of the real veterans of the South Pacific fighting, the USS Essex (CV-9). Later he fleeted up to Executive Officer in the Essex, and the cessation of hostilities found him as Operations Officer on the Staff, Commander Air Force, Pacific Fleet.
During those 18 action-filled months, he earned the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V,” two Letters of Commendation, and the Presidential Unit Citation. The latter citation reads: “For extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces in the air, ashore and afloat in the Pacific War Area from August 31,1943 to August 15, 1945 . . . . Daring and dependable in combat, the Essex and her gallant officers and men rendered loyal service in achieving the ultimate defeat of the Japanese Empire.”
Captain McDonald—he was promoted in March, 1945—then reported to the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, to serve as Director of Military Requirements. Establishing a pattern for Tom Moorer, who was to have the same job seven years later, he became Aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Air) in 1948. In 1949, the Assistant SecNavAir was promoted to Under Secretary of the Navy and took McDonald with him. “I just moved my hat a few doors up to the E-Ring corridor; the job was about the same,” said the Admiral.
McDonald was then ordered to the National War College in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, in a unique series of consecutive responsible assignments, he skippered the USS Mindoro (CVE-120) for a year; was Assistant Chief of Staff (Operations) to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet; and served for a year as the Commanding Officer of the attack carrier Coral Sea (CVB-43).
In March 1943, George Anderson, after a fruitful, yet frustrating year of being a top level planning officer, reported to the Newport News Shipbuilding Company to assist in fitting out the new USS Yorktown (CV-10). He became her navigator and tactical officer when she was commissioned a month later. While on board during her combat actions, he received a CinCPacFlt Letter of Commendation and the Presidential Unit Citation.
Already greatly respected as a thorough and gifted planning officer, he then reported to Commander Aircraft, U. S. Pacific Fleet as Plans Officer, and “. . . for exceptionally meritorious conduct . . . as Head of the Plans Division, ComAirPac, during the period from November, 1943 to March, 1944 . . .” he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Immediately thereafter, he reported as Assistant to the Deputy Commander in Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for “. . . meritorious achievement during operations against enemy Japanese forces in the Pacific War Area, from March 28, 1944 to April 16, 1945 . . . .”
In June 1945, Anderson became Aviation Officer in the Strategic Plans Section on the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Fleet. As such, he also had duty as Deputy Navy Planner on the Joint Planning Staff.
In July 1948, Anderson returned to sea as Commanding Officer of the USS Mindoro (CVE-120), preceding McDonald by three years, and, when detached from that antisubmarine carrier a year later, reported as a student at the National War College. Completing the course in July 1950, he joined the Staff of the Commander, Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean as the Operations Officer. In December 1950, at the behest of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, he was transferred to the Staff of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SHAPE), and remained there until mid-1953 as the Senior U. S. Officer in Plans and Operations. Here again, he preceded McDonald who came to that job in 1957.
Feeling that he had had his share of staff duty, Captain Anderson then requested sea duty and was assigned as Commanding Officer, USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42), the Fleet’s most certain admiral-maker, from which, after a year’s command, he reported for duty in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department.
In July 1953, he became Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
No one, then, could read the illustrious records of these four senior captains without predicting that their broad gold stripes would be forthcoming.
The Admirals. In June 1954, the first of a two-part paper entitled “The Promotion of Career Officers” was published in the U. S. Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS. Its authors were two Navy Commanders, Rexford V. Wheeler, Jr. (now Captain) and Sheldon H. Kinney (now Rear Admiral). The article was of particular interest to senior officers of the post-World War II era, since it provided the first definitive data concerning the Officer Personnel Act of 1947.
Based upon the three elements of distribution, flow rate, and attrition, the article showed—by empirical mathematics—that a line captain with a minimum of three and a maximum of five years in grade, who had attained a “normal” total of 25 years’ service, had a 16.7 per cent opportunity for selection to flag rank. This was a deceptive figure, because it took into consideration all the vicissitudes of service, such as failure of selection in junior ranks, death, and early retirement/resignation. Actually, the distribution percentages of the Officer Personnel Act permit three-quarters of 1 per cent of the unrestricted line officers of the regular Navy to become rear admirals and is designed, in theory, to impose the following overall attrition: Of each 100 officers commissioned in the line, regular Navy, as ensigns:
91 will reach the grade of lieutenant (junior grade)
63 will reach the grade of lieutenant
42 will reach the grade of lieutenant commander
26 will reach the grade of commander
17 will reach the grade of captain, and
1.6 will reach the grade of rear admiral.
In the words of Wheeler and Kinney, “Selection to rear admiral constitutes the attainment of the peak of the profession. It is popular to say that making this grade is ‘frosting on the cake’; that making captain is ‘par for the course’; that the ‘grade of rear admiral exists only to meet the needs of the Service, and is so limited in number that it is outside the career pattern.’”
Career pattern, indeed! Burke, Anderson, McDonald, and Moorer seemed almost “destined” to become admirals. Burke, in fact, was a flag officer four times. He held the wartime rank of commodore; reverted to commander, by mistake; was then captain in 1945; back up to commodore, Chief of Staff, 8th Fleet, and, again, as Chief of Staff, Atlantic Fleet, before reverting to captain for the final time in 1946. Their combat records— especially Burke’s and Moorer’s—were impressive; their duty patterns were in the approved mold; their staff work was brilliant and, most of all, that hard-to-define (since it is awarded by one’s juniors and seniors alike) accolade of approval known as “Outstanding Service Reputation” was stamped upon their brows with all the permanency of Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter.
But now the real competition—if, indeed, such competition exists within the ego of a new rear admiral—for CNO begins and intensifies. What, for example, transpired with Arleigh Burke after he survived the tumultuous “Revolt of the Admirals”—l’affaire B-36—and became rear admiral in January 1950?
At the outbreak of the Korean War, Burke was assigned to duty as Deputy Chief of Staff to Commander Naval Forces, Far East. From there, he assumed command of Cruiser Division Five and, in July 1951, he became a member of the U. N. Truce Delegation to negotiate with the Communists for a military armistice at Panmunjom. One of the oddest reports ever made on Burke was filed by a DMZ correspondent with the now-defunct New York Herald-Tribune. “He lightened things up a bit with his grin and blarney.” He did inherit Irish blood from his mother but, for a man of Swedish and Pennsylvania Dutch stock, whose paternal grandfather changed his name from Bjorkegren, Arleigh Burke had, and has, about as much “blarney” as the late Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. (“When they want a war won, they call on the sonsabitches.”)
Admiral Bill Fechteler, then CNO, wanted to see if Burke could convince U. S. Congressmen as well as the North Koreans. In early 1952, he was thrown into the Pentagon cockpit as Director of the Strategic Plans Division until—bloody but unbowed—he departed in April 1954, to take command of Cruiser Division Six. Six months later, Arleigh Burke raised his 2-star blue flag on the flagship of Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet; as ComDesLant he had, at last, returned to his first and true love in the Navy, those over-worked but ever-ready “greyhounds of the sea,” the destroyers.
At the conclusion of his tour with Chairman Admiral Arthur W. Radford in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Anderson was selected for rear admiral. Few people knew that he had, while in SHAPE Headquarters, requested Admiral Forrest L. Sherman, who was then CNO, not to consider “deep selecting” (selection from below the promotion zone) him for flag rank. Anderson had been informed privately of this possible and probable honor-to-be, but he was in principle (a word which is the very keystone of his character) opposed to what he termed “the unwarranted substitution of stars for stripes in certain billets.”
In August 1955, he assumed command of the Formosa Patrol Force with additional duty as Commander, Fleet Air Wing One, involving air coverage of the western Pacific, surveillance of the Formosa Straits and intimate relationships with the Chinese Navy. A year later he reported to his then current boss, Admiral Felix Stump, as Chief of Joint Staff, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific. Then, in a not-unexpected meteoric rise, he was promoted to vice admiral and, in May 1957, took over as Chief of Staff and Aide to CinCPac during the formation of the new unified command in the Pacific, a reorganization that eliminated the old Far East Command of General MacArthur and centralized command of all forces in Hawaii.
A routine physical exam in January 1958 revealed that Vice Admiral Anderson was suffering from a serious malignancy. He was advised that a major operation was indicated. “It was another crossroads of fate,” said the Admiral. “I had gone through the same agonies before with the death of my first wife in 1947.” He was routinely reduced in grade to rear admiral but, following an amazingly successful post-operative period, was given the aviator’s traditional physical “up check” to qualify for assignment to the top sea duty billet of Commander, Carrier Division Six, during which the Lebanon landings and Middle East crises occurred.
As ComCarDiv Six, Anderson ran a bold, almost swashbuckling, outfit which made him a natural to win back his three stars and to succeed Vice Admiral “Swede” Ekstrom as Commander, Sixth Fleet. Based and operating in the increasingly troubled waters of the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Anderson won a Distinguished Service Medal for skillfully alternating his tactics of showing strong muscle and pouring soothing oil during the period September 1959 to June 1961.
Dave McDonald, just a year behind George Anderson at the Naval Academy, continued to follow “just behind him.” Upon leaving the Mindoro, he went to the Staff of CinCPacFlt for two years, thence to the Coral Sea, where he was selected for rear admiral. Wearing two stars, in November 1955, he reported as Director of the Air Warfare Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
In November 1957, he reported to SHAPE Headquarters in Paris as the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff to General Lauris Norstad. The New York Times praised his 3-year tour of duty. “Although soft-spoken to the point of reserve,” the Times wrote, “he is one of the toughest across-the-table operators in uniform.”
A year after Anderson had left CarDiv Six, McDonald reported as its Commander and in July 1961, he relieved Anderson as Commander, Sixth Fleet, with the rank of vice admiral. Southern Europeans are still convinced that after four successive years of Anderson and McDonald, most U. S. Navy vice admirals are: extraordinarily handsome, persuasive orators, accomplished diplomats, and married to lovely women. McDonald, too, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal “For exceptionally meritorious service . . .” as Commander, Sixth Fleet, from July 13, 1961, to March 18, 1963.
As 28th on the vice admiral seniority list, McDonald was then presented with his fourth star and was ordered to report to London, England, as Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Naval Forces, Europe.
Few naval aviator captains ever make rear admiral without first having had a “major command” afloat (CVA, CVS, LPH, CVT) or ashore (NAS or NS), or one of the six Fleet Air Wings commanded by captains which are also designated as major commands. There is, in fact, even an unofficial “pecking order” among aircraft carriers themselves, e.g., an attack carrier is loftier on the scale than an antisubmarine support carrier or a helicopter carrier. Tom Moorer, with apparent disregard for this dictum/tradition, went straight from the Salisbury Sound to two stars.
Moorer reported as Special Assistant, Strategic Plans Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, in October 1957. In January 1958, he became Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (War Gaming Matters) and, 18 months later, was assigned as Commander, Carrier Division Six. (Shades of Anderson and McDonald!) After an excitingly satisfying year in the Mediterranean, he returned to the Pentagon and served as Director of the Long Range Objectives Group until October 1962. Moorer then hit the big jackpot: three stars and command of the Navy’s largest afloat force—the U.S. Seventh Fleet.
In June 1964, moving so rapidly that his baggage was lagging behind, he pinned on his fourth star and became Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet. Less than a year later, Admiral Moorer assumed command of NATO’s Allied Command, Atlantic, the U. S. unified Atlantic Command, and the U. S. Atlantic Fleet, thus becoming the first admiral in Navy history to command both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. He had risen from rear admiral to the Navy’s most prestigious operational command in less than eight years.
Along the way he had earned the Distinguished Service Medal and a Gold Star in lieu of a second DSM. He also had earned the affection and admiration of those persons, both Americans and foreigners, who worked with him and for him. “It’s not that everyone gets along with him—they have to; but he gets along with everyone else—and he doesn’t have to,” said his CinCLant Aide.
In this intense “Game of Many Stars,” the rear admirals take a free card. The best free card would appear to say: “Become a Carrier or Cruiser Division Commander, then move ten spaces to Force Commander or eleven spaces to Fleet Commander. If you land on CinC, take another free card.”
The Choosing Process. Shock waves from the biggest promotional bombshell ever felt in the U. S. Navy reverberated through the Pentagon’s sacrosanct E-Ring in May 1955. The explosion was activated by Rear Admiral Arleigh Burke zooming past 92 rear admirals, vice admirals and admirals who were senior to him. It had never happened before and it might never happen again.
“You’d better check these facts with [Secretary of the Navy] Charlie Thomas first,” said Admiral Burke, “but—as I recall—I was in San Juan, riding the USS Mitscher (DL-2) on one of my ComDesLant inspections, when I received a message directing me to call Admiral Radford upon the ship’s arrival in Key West.
“I did as I was ordered, but all that Radford would tell me on the telephone was that SecNav wanted to see me ‘right away’ in his office. So, I flew commercially to Washington and, completely mystified by all the hush-hush, reported to Mr. Thomas. We chatted for about an hour about a little bit of everything when he arose and said, ‘Let’s go to see Charlie Wilson [then Secretary of Defense] and you tell him why we need aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean.’
“After a brief exhange [sic] of views with Mr. Wilson—it was a most cordial meeting—we left his office and Mr. Thomas told me to go back to my Destroyer Force Headquarters at Newport, R.I. Before I departed, though, I stopped by the JCS area and queried both Admiral Radford and (then) Captain George Anderson, who was the Chairman’s Special Assistant, as to what was going on. They ‘played it straight’ and to this day I don’t know if they knew and wouldn’t tell, or didn’t know and couldn’t tell.
“I was extremely puzzled and, as you can imagine, not exactly at ease in my own mind as to what was actually going on. I returned to Newport that same day and, at 0200 the following morning, received a phone call from SecNav’s office: ‘Can you be here at 0800 this morning?’
“ ‘I don’t see how,’ I replied. ‘I have to set up military air transportation at Quonset Point and you know it will take me an hour by boat just to get there.’
“ ‘Don’t worry about that—we’ll arrange all the logistics here from Washington.’
“Mr. Thomas then came on the line and I asked him, ‘Mr. Secretary, what is the matter?’
“The only thing I could elicit from him was that he wanted me to come to his office. I left Quonset at 0700, leaving Bobbie [Mrs. Burke] in quite a stew about all these peculiar goings on, and arrived at the Pentagon about nine o’clock. Andy Jackson [later, Vice Admiral A. M. Jackson, Jr., now retired], who was Secretary Thomas’ Aide, had orders to see that I ‘stayed put’ in the Secretary’s inner office. I was not so much as to place a foot into the hall, but was to remain there until Mr. Thomas came back from testifying on The Hill. He returned about noon and, after greeting me, asked, pointblank: ‘Do you have any reasons why you shouldn’t be CNO? Before you answer, let me tell you that I have recommended your appointment and have received the President’s approval.’ ”
At this point, the Admiral refilled his pipe, and continued: “You can imagine my reaction—I was absolutely staggered. I finally outlined several reasons why I thought I might not be the most suitable man for CNO. The Secretary told me these reasons had already been carefully considered and rejected by himself and the Secretary of Defense, and then he discussed at length the requirements of the Navy and the grave responsibilities inherent to the office of the CNO.”
A letter from Mr. Thomas to the author adds: “You might be interested to know that Secretary Wilson and I first went alone to see the President. We told him that Admiral Carney was nearing the retirement age and that I recommended, with Secretary Wilson’s concurrence, that he appoint Admiral Burke the new CNO. President Eisenhower said, ‘I never heard of Burke, but the Navy is your responsibility and if he is your choice it is all right with me.’ It is well known that Admiral Burke served with and had the complete confidence of the President for six years thereafter.”
“After a while,” Burke continued, “I asked if Admiral Carney knew about what was going to happen.
“The Secretary replied, ‘No, nobody knows.’
“ ‘Then,’ said Arleigh Burke, ‘I’d like to tell him personally.’ And I did.”
The Admiral, Mr. Thomas Gates, then Under Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Robert Anderson, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, went to the White House. “President Eisenhower gave me a short lecture on the subject of my Joint Chiefs of Staff hat being the primary job, and my Service hat being a secondary role,” mused Burke, “but I don’t know if the advice took 100 per cent.”
“I took the President’s statement seriously, but the great advantage of our JCS system is that the Chiefs of Staff are members of the JCS, i.e., the policies and orders which the JCS promulgate are executed by the same men as Service Chiefs. Nothing can be worse than having the planners and executors different people. If planners have no responsibility for the execution of the plans they develop, they soon isolate themselves in an ivory tower and develop plans which can’t be executed. Conversely, if the operators have not had a hand in the development of plans and policies, they are apt not to appreciate fully their background and the execution is liable to be faulty. Hence, it is my conviction that a strong Service Chief, who puts forward his Service views vigorously, brings the experience of his Service to bear on joint problems with great benefit to JCS deliberations. I think General Eisenhower also felt that—along with his very strong conviction, expressed above, which was absolutely correct—the members of the JCS must always try to do the best they possibly could for the good of the country.
The Admiral concluded: “A great many Navy people-including me—thought that, when Mick Carney retired, Jerry Wright (Admiral Jerauld Wright, now retired; then CinCLant) might step into his CNO shoes, so I asked the Secretary if he had any objections to me telling Admiral Wright before the public announcement. Mr. Thomas said he had no objection. So, the next day Bobbie and I drove down to Norfolk and told him what had happened. Then I telephoned Charley Thomas and the news of Arleigh Burke’s appointment to the CNO billet was released from Sec Nav’s office.” Exactly eight years later, this seemingly unique series of events was to have an amazingly similar parallel: Admiral David L. McDonald, the new CinCUSNavEur, had reached Ankara, Turkey, along the route of an inspection trip of his far-flung area of responsibilities. Staying at the home of the U. S. Ambassador, he received a telephone call, “About 0100 local time, I think,” from a Navy commander in Washington, D.C., who stated: “The Secretary of the Navy (then Mr. Fred Korth) wants to see you in his office on Monday morning, not later than 0800.”
“You must remember,” said Admiral McDonald, “that this call came through Saturday morning—Turkish time! It’s a long distance from Ankara to Washington, even by jet. And, remembering that I had an important conference with the Iranian CNO in Tehran that day, I wanted to know if it were agreeable if I saw SecNav at the conclusion of my scheduled visits. The commander allowed as how he was sorry to interfere with my plans, but it was urgent that I return immediately to the United States.
“Despite my repeated questions, he insisted he couldn’t tell me the reasons why my presence was required on such short notice. Finally, I said, ‘Would it do me any good to speak to Mr. Korth?’ He replied, ‘No, Admiral, it wouldn’t.’ I knew when I was licked; I told him I’d be there.”
Admiral McDonald received a mystifying set of instructions: his trip to Washington was to be a closely held secret; only those with a “need to know” were to be involved. “Of course,” said the Admiral, “since I didn’t know why I was going myself, it was a well-kept secret.” Anderson, however, was fully aware of developments by virtue of an amusing error on the part of one of the high civilian authorities.
He arrived by commercial plane in New York from London, where he had left turn-over instructions to his Deputy, and proceeded to Washington. Then, in the same abrupt fashion in which Arleigh Burke had received the news in 1955, the Secretary of the Navy informed David Lamar McDonald that he was to be the next Chief of Naval Operations.
Only persons acquainted with McDonald’s forthright honesty to himself and to others could understand or appreciate his reply: “Mr. Secretary, I am both honored and embarrassed over this—probably more of the latter, because I don’t really want to be CNO.”
Mr. Korth, obviously startled, said, “Would you tell Mr. McNamara what you have just told me?”
McDonald, still bewildered by the astonishing turn of events, but never lacking candor, replied, “Sure.”
“So,” recalls the Admiral, “we trooped off to SecDef s office. Fortunately, or unfortunately, McNamara wasn’t in, but Roswell Gilpatric, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, was. He and Mr. Korth listened, very politely, when I told them the job of CNO didn’t appeal to me as much as the one I had. ‘In fact,’ I said, ‘if I had my choice, I’d rather be CinCSouth than CNO.’ If I had touched a sensitive nerve, neither Gilpatric nor Korth showed it. Then I went on to say that I felt the revisions to the National Security Act of 1958 took the CNO out of the operational business and made him a sort of glorified administrative officer with delusions of JCS grandeur. Gilpatric patiently countered my gambits and, after about half an hour, said, ‘Why are we arguing anyway, Dave? The whole matter is a fait accompli.’”
“Do you mean the President, himself, has decided?” asked the incredulous McDonald.
“Yes, he has—unless you simply refuse the appointment,” answered Gilpatric.
“Well, I certainly can’t—and I won’t—say no to my Commander in Chief. Let’s get on with the job,” said McDonald.
One of the many amusing Winston Churchill stories concerns his reply to a political associate who remarked that Clement Attlee was a very modest man, “That’s understandable,” said the Prime Minister, “he’s got a great deal to be modest about.” This “damning with faint praise” technique can never be applied to Thomas Moorer—a genuinely modest man with very little about which to be modest.
“The first inkling I had that I was going to be the new CNO,” said the Admiral, with a straight face, “was when I received the official notification from SecNav.”
Paul Nitze, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who was Secretary of the Navy at the time of Admiral Moorer’s appointment to CNO, when questioned as to other candidates then under consideration, replied, “There was only one person considered—Moorer.” Admiral McDonald recalls one of Admiral Moorer’s visits to Washington in early 1967 while he (Moorer) was CinCLant: “I believe I told him then that he was my choice to take over my job.”
Admiral Anderson, thinking back to his retirement from the Navy, mused: “In deference to Dave McDonald’s expressed desire to take over as CinCSouth, I believe—had I served four years as CNO—that Tom Moorer probably would have succeeded me in 1965.” Almost everyone apparently believed that Tom Moorer was going to relieve David McDonald as the Navy’s 18th Chief of Naval Operations—everyone but Admiral Moorer, that is.
What about the only other “hand-picked, shoo-in” CNO? "I hope you will appreciate the difficulty I experience in speaking objectively, without seeming egotistic,” Admiral Anderson said. “It’s comparatively easy to be a grandstand quarterback, because time is a great vindicator of what you believe to have been good thinking. In retrospect, I don’t agree that—as most Navy people now say they believed at the time—I was the only candidate for CNO on ‘the list.’ Jim Russell, Admiral Burke’s Vice CNO, now retired, was a wonderfully talented and dedicated officer; and Vice Admiral J. T. “Chick” Hayward, (later President of the Naval War College, now retired) was a stiff competitor. I will say, though, that I thought I had the best chance of those under consideration.”
Had being a Catholic influenced his chances with President Kennedy? Anderson chuckled, “If anything, knowing JFK, he bent over backwards to ignore it.”
Did he have the ambition to be CNO? “Doesn’t every admiral?” he counter-questioned.
How was he “tapped” for the job? “As ComSixthFlt, riding at anchor in Augusta Bay on board the cruiser Springfield (CLG-7), I received the nomination message from Arleigh Burke,” said the Admiral, with a smile. “It was a wonderful sensation. I felt as if I had just climbed Mt. Everest.”
That “wonderful sensation” experienced by Admiral Anderson and, to greater or lesser degrees by Burke, McDonald, and Moorer, was the product of a myriad of minor and major decisions: professional, political, personal, and emotional. Even in this computer age, the selection of a Chief of Naval Operations will continue to remain an enormously complex process and, essentially, one primarily involving human factors.
The long years of preparation; the thousands of hours spent in cockpits and on ships’ bridges; the uncounted pages and hours of staff work; the sought-after and the thrust-upon competition; the scrutiny borne and the judgments made; the joys of reunion and the wrenches of separation—all had culminated in the ultimate of professional success for these four admirals. They were at last, for better or worse, at the top of the Navy’s promotional ladder.
The CNOs. Another popular conversational pastime in Navy wardrooms is to “rate” the CNOs. The arguments are similar to the ageless imponderables: “Was Stan Musial a better hitter than Ted Williams?” or “Could Joe Louis have beaten Jack Dempsey?”
Perhaps the best analogy to use in explaining why comparisons cannot be made among CNOs is the similarity of the CNO syndrome to the horse race syndrome: the track conditions, the jockeys, the weights carried, the competition—all are different; and the horses themselves are different. And so it is with the four CNOs we are considering: their historic time-spans were different (Burke’s and Anderson’s Cuban Crises, McDonald’s and Moorer’s Vietnam war); their SecNavs (Franke through Chafee) and SecDefs (Wilson through Laird) were different; their military appropriations were different; their sprints to the front were different; and—most important—the men themselves were as different as were their unique personalities.
Yet, apparently, it is inevitable that some Service Chiefs are referred to as “great” or “strong,” whereas others are designated by some observers as “unremarkable” or “vacillating.”
Arleigh Burke says that a CNO’s most difficult daily struggle is to keep his perspective, “Don’t ever get to that giddy perch where you are unquestioned.” As Aristotle and Harry S. Truman observed,” Time is the great leveler.”
The records of these four Chiefs of Naval Operations are open to public examination; each has had his moments of heady achievement and his moments of teeth-clenching frustration, but it is not the purpose of this paper to present their accomplishments and their failures. A career tapestry has been woven from Midshipman to CNO to, hopefully, establish a pattern—or the lack of one—for success.
Their philosophies? Their advice? Their own words are worth pondering.
Burke: “To be the senior officer in the Navy is very difficult; not so much the getting there, but the being there . . . . Family troubles, physical difficulties, other personal inconveniences—all must be ignored . . . . Our top people must be in top shape; their judgment unimpaired by the fatigues imposed by 22-hour days . . . . Humility is the greatest asset a CNO can have—he must remember that the gun salutes, the parades, the panoplies are not for him; they are for his office . . . . The CNO is a symbol . . . . Nothing substitutes for knowledge, unless it is common sense, . . . . The CNO must accept from the beginning that he has no personal life—his job must be his vocation and his avocation . . . . He must gain the confidence and cooperation of his senior officers—for example, before I nominated rear admirals to the grade of vice admiral, I asked the opinions of all the 4-star admirals . . . . Although it sounds paradoxical, a CNO must be ruthless with mercy; friends can’t matter—only the Navy.”
Anderson: “Motivation is the key—a deep, endless affection for the Navy and for all it represents . . . . An officer must take a personal interest in his own career planning—avoid ‘nuts & bolts’ jobs and accent the operations and plans side of the ledger . . . . Maintain a versatility of interests and duties—geographically as well as professionally . . . . Don’t avoid duty in Washington and, if you can, work in some Joint duty . . . . Whenever you think you are pretty hot stuff, have humility and remember, you may be more lucky than skillful. . . . Always relieve someone considerably senior to you; every one of my predecessors made Flag rank . . . . Always resist the temptation to upgrade your own billet, let someone else prove you were doing a 3-star job with captain’s eagles . . . . My philosophy of command is based on: (1) Maintaining a strict adherence to principles; (2) Keeping my attention riveted to the basic issues and leaving the details to my staff; (3) Remembering that the success of Operations—regardless of the Service involved—is a Command, not Staff, responsibility; (4) Showing my confidence; (5) Keeping my sense of humor; and (6) Recognizing that most people try to do their best most of the time, go for morale; it is all-important.
McDonald: “Pass out praise when praise is deserved, but require people to do their jobs. . . . An officer must discipline himself on his weaknesses; ‘drink temperately’ is good advice for anyone . . . . You can afford to be independent if you’re sure you are right . . . . Being arbitrary is an easy pitfall for a CNO . . . . Be careful of the taxpayer’s money; remember, you are a taxpayer, too . . . . Always tell the truth and you never have to remember what you said . . . . The most important characteristics a CNO should have are self-assurance and determination . . . . I have always followed the counsel of Fleet Admiral Halsey to ‘accentuate the positive.’ Do whatever job you’re given to the very best of your ability.”
Moorer: “I’m not particularly fond of parties, but I like people . . . . Hard work never hurt anybody . . . . Loyalty is a two-way street . . . . If I have to make a choice, I’ll take quality over quantity . . . . Modesty doesn’t mean being humble . . . . I try to make a determined effort to consider the feelings of the people with whom I work, and I try to get along with everyone . . . . Maintain contact with the young people; we’re not smarter—just older . . . . To my way of thinking, a CNO can’t cut the mustard without the two ‘vees’: vitality and versatility.”
What are they doing now? Admiral Burke, at the last count, had funneled his enormous vitality and versatility into 26 different jobs. Still residing in Washington, D.C., he is principally occupied as the Chairman of The Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University. A prolific writer (38 different references to his works are currently carried in research libraries), his credo remains: “It is obvious that—if the Free World is to continue in existence—the U. S. Navy must be able to ensure that the oceans remain free for the use of all nations.”
George Anderson was U. S. Ambassador to Portugal from 1963 until 1966. He is presently established, also, in Washington, D.C., where—besides being on the Board of Directors of several corporations—he finds himself occupied with “a great many” worthy Navy, civic, and charitable organizations. A gifted formal and extemporaneous speaker, he has delivered frequent addresses throughout the country on such topics as: “An Evaluation of Military Strategies.”
David McDonald has established a permanent residence in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, where he and Tommie have built “the first house we have ever owned.” An ardent, low-handicap golfer, he is engaged in the never-ending battle against par when free from his commitments which, up to the moment, include directorships in six corporations plus trusteeships in two.
Thomas Moorer occupies Room 4E660 in the Pentagon. He said, “When I went into the Navy my father told me: ‘Like what you do; and do it better than anyone else.’ I’ve been trying to follow that advice ever since.”
The special Art in becoming a CNO? The miracle of leadership—whether by precept or charismatically.
The acquired Science required to become a CNO? Being a versatile and veritable expert in your profession; having the mental and physical stamina to carry out the requirements.
The true Innocence in becoming a CNO? Perhaps “serendipity” is a better word: Being at the right place at the right time under the right people.
The Ways of Genius
Captain Thomas Jefferson Jackson See, one of the world’s great astronomers, was a well known character at Mare Island. Like many men of genius, he was said to be egotistical, and he certainly was colorful.
During the years when the Navy had a Construction Corps, many of the Corps officers were chosen from among the top graduates of the Naval Academy, and they were regarded as the brains of the Navy. One constructor, stationed at Mare Island in the late 1920s, ran into Captain See one day and asked him to solve a particularly baffling mathematical problem that had made the rounds of the Corps without a solution.
Captain See was silent for about a minute. The constructor chuckled, and observed that even he must be baffled.
“Oh no, son,” Captain See answered, “I’ve already done it three ways, and I am trying to think of one that you would understand.”
—Contributed by W. Jardim
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the PROCEEDINGS.)
1. When the author was Executive Officer in the USS Springfield (CLG-7) (Ex-CL-66), Flagship to Commander Sixth Fleet, he was frequently required to accompany (then) Vice Admiral McDonald to the helicopter platform on the fantail to assist in greeting various arriving dignitaries. It was an idiosyncrasy of Admiral McDonald’s that he disliked carrying, as part of the prescribed uniform with dress blues, a pair of gray gloves. Several times he remarked, “When I am CNO, I’m going to get rid of these damned unnecessary gloves!” Six months later—following a dramatic chain of events—he was CNO, but the “damned gloves” are still with us.
2. As part of the MacArthur lore, upon receiving his 2nd lieutenant’s commission and numerous awards as the top cadet in his Class, the General-to-be is said to have murmured, “The hard part is finished; I can do the remaining 30 years to Chief of Staff standing on my head.”
3. See Hanson W. Baldwin, “CNO—Past, Present and—Future?”, August 1963 PROCEEDINGS, pp. 33-43.