A Study in Contrast: Admirals Zumwalt and Holloway at the Helm of the U.S. Navy

Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. and James L. Holloway III reached the top of their naval profession as successive Chiefs of Naval Operations (CNOs) during the Vietnam War era. Physically and morally courageous, inspiring to the sailors they led in battle, and dedicated to the nation and the Navy, the two flag officers reflected the highest ideals of military service. During the war, Zumwalt commanded all U.S. naval personnel operating in South Vietnam, battled enemy forces in the Mekong Delta, and helped enable South Vietnamese sailors to stand against their Communist enemies. Following his Navy service, Zumwalt earned worldwide acclaim for his efforts on behalf of Vietnam veterans, especially those who had suffered from exposure to the Agent Orange defoliant, and numerous other humanitarian accomplishments. 

Holloway commanded the first U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), during two combat tours off Vietnam and led the U.S. Seventh Fleet in mining Haiphong and in the Linebacker bombing campaign that helped end the United States’ direct involvement in the conflict. (See “Operation Linebacker: The Sea-Power Factor,” August 2022, pp. 12–19.) They were appointed Chief of Naval Operations by convincing successive civilian and military superiors they had the skills and determination to reinvigorate the Navy and its sailors suffering from the effects of the war and the nation’s social troubles of the 1970s.¹  

Early Lives and Careers 

The two officers had early life and Navy experiences that helped shape their characters and develop their leadership skills. Zumwalt’s parents, California-based physicians, and Holloway’s father, four-star Admiral James L. Holloway Jr., instilled in their sons a strong desire to serve others and to excel professionally. After graduation and commissioning at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1942 (the class of 1943), “Bud” Zumwalt and Jim Holloway went off to war, fighting and winning medals for valor in some of the hottest battles of World War II’s Pacific campaign. During the 1950s and ’60s, they earned laurels for leading operational commands and in Defense Department and Navy Department staff assignments. 

In 1962, the two officers studied at the National War College. During that time, Zumwalt so impressed Paul Nitze—Cold War intellectual and strategic guru, one-time Secretary of the Navy, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense—he had the young officer assigned to him as his naval aide and later executive assistant. Holloway had a similarly positive effect on Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the so-called Father of the Nuclear Navy, and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the CNO (1967–70) and thereafter Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS, 1970–74). 

Bud Zumwalt and Jim Holloway respected each other’s professional accomplishments, and they worked together often for the betterment of the naval service. Especially impressed with Holloway’s combat leadership off Vietnam, in 1973 Zumwalt brought him on board as his principal deputy, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO). Like any good executive officer in the Navy, Holloway served his boss loyally and worked especially hard to enable his superior’s vision. Their professional relationship was amicable. Zumwalt approved of Holloway as his CNO successor. From their time at the Naval Academy and into retirement, the two officers maintained close professional and personal ties. The Zumwalt and Holloway families enjoyed a warm relationship. Bud and Jim, their wives, Mouza and Dabney, and their children got together on many social occasions. 

Despite this professional and personal affinity, as CNOs Zumwalt and Holloway took radically different approaches to leadership and their efforts to develop a powerful Navy served by dedicated, skilled, and socially empowered sailors. In significant ways, Zumwalt (1970–74) failed where Holloway (1974–78) succeeded. 

Zumwalt: A ‘Political Admiral’

Elmo Zumwalt took charge of the U.S. Navy as CNO on 1 July 1970 over the heads of 33 other flag officers. His appointment did not endear him to many in the higher ranks of the service who believed they deserved to be CNO. They contended, with justification, that Zumwalt had never commanded a regional or numbered fleet and thus was not skilled in managing large naval commands and staffs. Aware of his blessing for the job by Nitze, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and Secretary of the Navy John Chafee, Zumwalt’s detractors considered him a “political admiral.” Others soon complained that he favored his surface warfare community over the aviation and submarine communities, or “unions” of the Navy. 

Zumwalt concluded that one of his greatest challenges as CNO would be to stabilize the Navy’s personnel base. He understood that because of the war’s often enervating effects on its sailors and the coming end of the draft in 1973, he had to act fast to retain skilled veterans and enlist new men and women. In the early months of his tenure, the first of his 120 so-called Z-Grams—direct communications to naval personnel—went out to the fleet. Zumwalt’s missives related to shipboard and shore-based quality-of-life issues that were especially important to sailors. Proposed solutions to drug and alcohol abuse soon followed. He employed various media presentations aimed at reintroducing “fun and zest” into life at sea and dispelling the common view of a “stodgy old Navy.”² 

Rather than relying on the input of flag officers and senior enlisted personnel—the Navy’s “lifers”—he established ad hoc focus groups made up of junior officers and sailors to recommend programs to retain and enlist service members. His Z-Grams focused on ending the Navy’s long-standing underservice and sometimes discrimination of its African American, women, and other minority sailors. He acted swiftly to correct historical injustices through affirmative action, human goals, and similar programs. There is no argument that Bud Zumwalt’s personnel reforms ultimately led to improving the Navy’s treatment of its minority sailors. 

Many factors, however, undercut Zumwalt’s personnel improvement efforts. The war continued to divert resources from the Navy and drove too many sailors, exhausted by extended combat tours, to go AWOL or to desert. Zumwalt’s actions did not cause the racial and other disturbances on board the aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CVA-64) and other ships and shore stations during his tour as CNO; they occurred because of many ills then affecting American society and the Navy. Zumwalt had to contend with the era’s heightened antiwar and antimilitary sentiment, drug abuse, and racial turmoil. The nation’s failure to enact the Equal Rights Amendment and continued adherence to the Combat Exclusion Law undercut his ability to improve opportunities for women in the service.

More Problematic than Problem-Solving

Zumwalt’s own actions or inactions, however, added to his woes. The Secretary of Defense effected the promotion of the first black and female admirals, not the CNO. Zumwalt enabled women to join Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps detachments and to attend national security institutions of higher learning. But, in contrast to the other armed services, he did not authorize more than a handful of female Navy officers to serve their country in Vietnam. Zumwalt met with and supported the wives of POWs held in North Vietnam, but when he stormed into the White House office of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, unannounced on a Sunday morning, to emotionally plead their case, he only angered a potential ally. 

By communicating directly to sailors via his Z-Grams, essentially bypassing the chain of command, Zumwalt alienated many of his admirals, commanding officers, and senior petty officers. Employing focus groups and a “kitchen cabinet” of a few starstruck subordinates, as he had done in Vietnam, by its nature excluded participation by other relevant personnel. Zumwalt’s uniform changes and similar measures did not endear him to traditionalists, who reversed these actions after his time in command. In his effort to keep sailors happy and in the service, he did not put enough emphasis on discipline in the ranks. 

Zumwalt’s direct and often unorthodox methods also hampered his efforts to improve the Navy’s material base. His Project Sixty envisioned the fleet’s future composition based on the notion that the most important task for the Navy was to reestablish control of the seas, supposedly being lost to a resurgent Soviet Navy. A critical aspect of this essentially defensive strategic approach was its focus on protecting the sea lines of communication to Europe and NATO. He gave only a few trusted subordinates two months to come up with a classified concept plan. Zumwalt then communicated the classified document to the department’s flag and general officers as a done deal. 

Project Sixty called for the construction of so-called sea control ships—small antisubmarine carriers—small armed hydrofoils, air-cushioned surface effect ships, and Oliver Hazard Perry–class frigates. His push for a “high-low” mix of warships met with sharp opposition from the aviation community but also from congressional supporters of the large aircraft carrier and submarine construction industries. Project Sixty in many ways revolutionized the way the Navy looked at its budgets, but only the frigates would serve the fleet in later years.³  

With typical impatience, Zumwalt launched an effort to retire Admiral Rickover from the Navy and hence end his dominance of the nuclear submarine program. He bemoaned Rickover’s refusal to take direction from the CNO, his separate independent status on the Atomic Energy Commission, too close connection to powerful congressmen, and abrasive personality. Zumwalt badly underestimated the high regard many naval officers and members of Congress had for Rickover and their appreciation of his development of the nuclear Navy. Rickover was kept on the job by successive Navy secretaries and CNOs until 1982. Zumwalt ultimately admitted he had acted unwisely in taking on the redoubtable admiral. 

Several factors worked against Zumwalt’s approach to problem-solving. His impatience to launch and finish new projects managed by small, hand-picked staffs denied him the allies he needed in the Navy at large. Bypassing subordinate flag officers and their staffs in the Pentagon to develop Project Sixty limited his access to their knowledge and support. Having no fleet command experience, Zumwalt did not realize the support subordinate organizations and staffs could provide. Finally, his publicly aired and emotional animus toward Rickover prompted key leaders in Congress, the shipbuilding industry, and aviators and submariners to question and in some cases reject his fleet development proposals. 

Emotional and Alienating

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, JCS chairman, and Zumwalt, the JCS Navy member, consistently warned of the rising threat from the Soviet Navy to U.S. global interests and the declining ability of the Navy to meet that challenge. They also opposed provisions of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), then being negotiated with Moscow by President Richard M. Nixon’s White House. Both men wanted to ensure the treaty did not compromise the Navy’s Trident intercontinental-ballistic-missile submarine program and the Tomahawk cruise-missile program. Finally, both flag officers questioned the propriety and wisdom of the administration’s détente policy with the Soviet Union. 

Moorer and Zumwalt, however, voiced their opposition in completely different ways. The JCS chairman used his access to President Nixon and Kissinger to address the issues in a private, fact-based, and workmanlike manner. Zumwalt, in contrast, aired his views in the media and before Congress, implicitly questioning the wisdom of the administration’s policies. He predicted that without more funding support the Navy would lose in a conventional naval war with the Soviet Union and said the SALT terms were deficient and the détente approach was in essence a U.S. capitulation to Soviet power. The admiral’s emotional and public stands may or may not have changed administration policies. They did, however, alienate Nixon, Kissinger, Senator John Stennis, and other powerful members of Congress and hinder his efforts to score on other vital Navy issues. 

Zumwalt’s inability to seriously influence the administration’s national security and foreign policies was partially reflected by the institutional weakness of the JCS organization during the Vietnam era. Nixon had low regard for many of its members, especially Army General Creighton Abrams, who Zumwalt admired after their service together in Vietnam, and Zumwalt, who the President believed was ruining the Navy Nixon had served in as an officer. Nixon remembered that the admiral owed his job to a glowing endorsement from Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, who Nixon also came to abhor. Zumwalt’s close connection to and admiration for Laird did the admiral no favors, since the White House worked to limit the access of both men. In the end, the President relied almost exclusively on Moorer for military advice. The chairman guarded that connection zealously and passed on the advice of the JCS members only when he chose to, which was not often. 

At one point, Laird’s successor, James R. Schlesinger, had to persuade Zumwalt to tone down a fiery briefing the admiral planned to give at the White House for fear it would harm Defense Department and Navy budgets. On another occasion, Zumwalt managed to get a letter delivered to Nixon, bypassing Schlesinger and Kissinger, that opposed the administration’s position on SALT. The President was so displeased he considered, not for the last time, firing the incendiary admiral. The White House threatened, but did not act, to court-martial Zumwalt if he appeared on his last day in the Navy on the TV program Meet the Press. Finally, Nixon refused to sign a Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal presented at the admiral’s retirement from the Navy.   

Holloway: A ‘Practical’ Admiral

James Holloway is much less well known to history than Zumwalt, but in many ways he proved to be a more successful CNO who put the naval service on the road to recovery after Vietnam. In contrast to Zumwalt, Holloway routinely took a practical, reasoned, and businesslike approach to problem-solving and demonstrated a unique ability to disarm critics and win allies.  

Although they managed the Navy together as CNO and VCNO during 1973–74, Zumwalt and Holloway could not have been more dissimilar in their professional attachments and core beliefs. As CNO, Zumwalt wanted a mixed fleet of both large and small aircraft carriers. Holloway had commanded the carrier Enterprise in battle and unabashedly supported an exclusive contingent of these large warships for the fleet. 

While Zumwalt despised Rickover and Kissinger, Holloway credited Rickover for developing and strengthening the U.S. arsenal of nuclear-powered submarines. He considered Kissinger a statesman of the highest order and a civilian who truly understood the utility of the carrier force. In global crises of the time, Kissinger’s first thought was often, “Where are the carriers?” Wisely, Holloway did not trumpet his admiration for these leaders while loyally serving Zumwalt. Holloway did act on delegated authority that resulted in the dismissal of Zumwalt’s ill-considered proposal for Air Force squadrons to operate from Navy carriers.     

When James Holloway took command of the Navy on 29 June 1974, he focused on stabilizing the Navy’s personnel base following Zumwalt’s social revolution and strengthening the fleet after ten years of hard wartime service. While put off by many of Zumwalt’s social and fleet building programs, he did not launch an immediate or radical effort to change course. Holloway continued a number of Zumwalt’s efforts to improve the lot of minorities and other sailors, eliminated some ill-considered or ill-administered efforts, and even launched his own Navy affirmative action plan. 

Holloway, continuing his predecessor’s improvement of opportunities for women, authorized women serving on board naval vessels other than hospital ships. He disliked Zumwalt’s uniform changes, but to save the Navy money put off for a time another wholesale clothing buy. At the same time, Holloway put heavy emphasis on greater discipline in the fleet. For instance, he prohibited the sale of alcohol at enlisted clubs during working hours. He also pushed an understanding that the purpose of the Navy and its sailors was to fight and win wars, even when that service might not entail “fun and zest.”  

At one point Holloway’s immediate superior, Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements Jr., suggested a renewed effort to fire Admiral Rickover. The CNO rejected the idea, considering Rickover of towering importance to the nation’s security and the nuclear safety of its warships. But Holloway did not shy away from confronting his mentor. Rickover wanted all of the Navy’s major warships, including cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, to be nuclear-powered. Holloway testified before Congress that the nation could not afford such a multibillion-dollar fleet. He asked the senators whose advice they should follow, that of the CNO with the support of the White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Navy or that of Admiral Rickover? Without histrionics, Holloway won the day. From that point on, nuclear power in the Navy has been limited to aircraft carriers and submarines. 

Holloway agreed with Zumwalt that the Navy needed a balanced fleet. But he found the high-low mix not the right balance. He considered a smaller carrier—the proposed sea control ship—much less capable than nuclear-powered ships able to operate independent of slower fuel tankers and ammunition ships. The big carriers also packed more of a punch with their onboard fighter and attack squadrons. Holloway was instrumental in solidifying the Nimitz-class carriers as the Navy’s only capital ships. 

A Patient and Steady Hand

Holloway, like Zumwalt and Moorer, recognized the serious threat to U.S. global interests posed by a rapidly developing Soviet Navy. Two Soviet exercises, Okean 70 and Okean 75, demonstrated that America’s naval adversary could mount a global challenge with advanced submarines, surface ships, and missiles. Where Zumwalt went before Congress to exclaim that the sky was falling regarding U.S. Navy deficiencies, Holloway worked patiently and within the national security establishment to counter the threat. 

Holloway established a “Battle Force Fleet” concept that combined in each grouping an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, four destroyers, and a nuclear-powered attack submarine. Working to lessen the divide between the warfare communities, he enabled a qualified surface ship, submarine, or aviation flag officer to command the battle force. In contrast to Zumwalt, he reemphasized experience over youth. Holloway embodied a new maritime strategy in Naval Warfare Publication 1: Strategic Concepts of the U.S. Navy, which naval analyst Captain Peter Swartz considered a repudiation of Zumwalt’s Project Sixty. 

Unlike Zumwalt, Holloway respected Henry Kissinger’s keen understanding of the utility of sea power. Holloway, however, did not hesitate to confront the Secretary of State in council over issues of prime importance to the Navy. Much to Kissinger’s displeasure and that of his boss, President Gerald R. Ford, Holloway spoke out against restrictions to the deployment of the Navy’s forthcoming Tomahawk cruise missiles being included in SALT negotiations with the Soviets. Ultimately, Congress did not ratify the agreement, and the revolutionary Tomahawk became a mainstay of the modern fleet. 

Professional and Influential

Unlike the great personal animus that had developed between Nixon and Zumwalt during the admiral’s last years as CNO, Holloway kept his opposition to the essentially anti-Navy policies of President Jimmy Carter and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown on a professional level. Holloway was especially concerned that Carter aimed to severely reduce the fleet and limit the carrier force. Holloway’s supporters in Congress added a ship dropped by the White House in the 1979 defense budget. Carter then vetoed the bill. The President stopped the 1980 budget as well, but this time Congress overrode his veto, enabling eventual construction of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Holloway understood that the nation’s versatile, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers enabled the Navy not only to ensure sea control and project naval power ashore in wartime, but also to fulfill a foreign policy deterrent mission in peacetime. 

Holloway also was concerned that Carter intended to relegate the Navy to a defensive fleet, only escorting Army troop ships to Europe as reinforcements for NATO. The CNO was equally distressed about Carter’s “Swing Strategy,” envisioning concentration of the fleet in the Atlantic during a war with the Soviet Union, thus ceding the Pacific to the enemy. Unlike Zumwalt, who like Carter overemphasized the sea control mission of the Navy, Holloway reaffirmed the traditional missions of projecting naval power ashore and maintaining the Navy’s global presence. Holloway echoed Japan’s complaint that Carter’s strategy would sacrifice the East to save the West. 

Despite opposition from the Carter administration, Holloway suggested a new strategic course for the Navy that came to fruition in the 1980s. The CNO sponsored Sea Plan 2000, which reaffirmed the importance of a forward-deployed, global Navy prepared not only to defend the sea lanes, but  also to launch carrier and submarine strikes against adversaries in Europe and Asia. President Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary, John Lehman, later concluded that the success of his 600-ship Navy owed more to “Holloway than any other person.”⁴

Unlike Zumwalt, Holloway’s service on the JCS did not disappoint and indeed enabled him to influence management of two crises in the wake of the Vietnam War. In May 1975, he worked with Secretary Schlesinger, Admiral Noel Gayler, the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and the Joint Staff to organize the military’s response to the Cambodian Communist Khmer Rouge seizure of the SS Mayaguez and her crew. 

Holloway was especially important to resolving a crisis in August 1976, when Kim Il-sung’s North Korean troops killed two U.S. Army officers overseeing the removal of a tree in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. At the time Acting Chairman of the JCS, Holloway operated in Kissinger’s Washington Special Action Group. As directed by President Ford and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Holloway raised the defense condition in the Pacific from five to three and deployed the aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41) and B-52 bombers to the region. Eventually, powerful and combat-ready U.S. and South Korean forces entered the DMZ and destroyed the tree. The North Koreans did not interfere with this demonstration of U.S. and South Korean resolve.    

Despite Admiral Elmo Zumwalt’s towering and well-deserved reputation as an inspiring combat leader, humanitarian, and champion of black, female, and enlisted sailors, his four years in command of the U.S. Navy cannot be described as a success story. His impatient, often shortsighted, and resentment-driven approach to problem-solving did little to further, and often undercut, his vision for a powerful Navy served by contented sailors. He needlessly alienated many of superiors and subordinates who might have been his allies. 

Conversely, James Holloway’s practical, professional, and unemotional leadership during his time as CNO proved especially worthy. Through fact-based analysis and patient argument, he won friends for Navy programs in the White House, the Defense Department, Congress, and the Navy. He counted as long-term allies Henry Kissinger, Hyman Rickover, and Thomas Moorer. At the same time, he did not hesitate to oppose those same individuals and Presidents Ford and Carter to uphold Navy interests. His service on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on occasion as acting chairman, had a positive impact on the management of post-Vietnam crises in Asia. Finally, he eliminated many of the problems that plagued the Navy after Vietnam and helped build the powerful fleet that in the 1980s witnessed the demise of the once-vaunted Soviet Navy and the end of the Cold War.