The two main issues in 1973 were the nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz and the F-14 fighter. As an aviator, I had a major interest in each of these projects, and Bud Zumwalt was solidly behind both programs. He had inherited both from his predecessor, Adm. Tom Moorer, so they were not his initiatives, but he very clearly appreciated the essentiality of these weapons systems and their fundamental contribution to the effectiveness of the Navy of the future. Admiral Zumwalt was not simply passive in his advocacy. He personally took the lead in generating support in the office of the SecDef and in Congress. In 1972 I was serving as deputy commander in chief, Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia. On three separate occasions Zumwalt had sent a helicopter to the CinCLant compound to airlift me to the helicopter pad at the Pentagon for lunch or for an afternoon briefing to help him persuade recalcitrant congressmen, assistant secretaries of defense, or systems analysts. I had been serving as the program coordinator of the CVN program when Bud had taken over in 1970 as CNO, and since then, Bud had always considered me the Navy’s expert witness on nuclear carriers and air warfare.
Prior to that, as director of strike warfare under the previous CNO, Tom Moorer, I had originated the CV Concept, which had established as a matter of doctrine the principle of flexibility in a carrier’s air wing in order to meet the operational requirements of the carrier’s mission on its current deployment rather than try to maintain specialized antisubmarine warfare carriers and attack carriers. In his book On Watch, Zumwalt comments on his interest in the implementation of the CV Concept, which led him to order the Atlantic Fleet to actually conduct an exchange of air wings from an attack air group to an ASW air group on board an underway carrier off Bermuda.
There was really only one of Bud’s initiatives, not yet brought to closure, that troubled me. Some time previous to my arrival as vice chief of naval operations, Zumwalt had asked the chief of staff of the Air Force, General Ryan, if he would like to have the Air Force operate from Navy carriers. When Bud briefed me on this proposal, he had expressed annoyance that Ryan had never gotten back to him with an answer. Zumwalt had pretty much given the Air Force a free hand on how they would implement such a plan: modify Air Force planes to make them carrier suitable or, more likely, equip Air Force squadrons with Navy carrier planes. But what would be the extent of the integration? As individual Air Force squadrons or as an entire tactical fighter wing replacing the carrier’s air wing? I was bothered to learn that this proposal had been made in such broad terms and that it was still on the table. It seemed like a foot in the door to replace the naval aviation organization with the Air Force.
Such a plan had been implemented before, in the United Kingdom after World War I, when the Royal Naval Air Arm, in which the pilots were naval officers, was merged with the Royal Flying Corps to create a single air service, the Royal Air Force (RAF). RAF officers served as the pilots in the Naval Air Branch, a new component of the RAF established to take over the Royal Navy’s aircraft squadrons. This did not work well, and in 1937 the Fleet Air Arm was reestablished under the Admiralty and carrier pilots again became officers in the Royal Navy.
In Bud’s defense, he could cite the precedent of Marine fixed-wing squadrons being assigned to carriers. However, the Air Force situation was sufficiently different to introduce a host of new problems. Marine pilots go through Navy flight training and are designated naval aviators. Most Marine fixed-wing planes are Navy carrier aircraft, such as F-4 fighters and A-6 attack planes. Bud asked what I thought of his initiative. In response, I pointed out the serious potential for the Air Force to restake its claim to all DoD aviation, possibly taking over naval aviation as an Air Force Specified Command, such as is SAC. Eventually, General Ryan did get back to Admiral Zumwalt, but declined the proposal without giving any specific reason.
The year with Bud was a good one for both of us. He mentioned several times that having a known quantity, like an old shipmate, as vice chief of naval operations gave him a chance to shift some of his workload so he could relax a little and savor his final year of running the Navy. Being Bud Zumwalt’s vice chief was a pleasant experience. First, our professional careers complemented one another. His was strong in frontoffice administration, personnel, politico-military affairs, and systems analysis. Mine was mostly in fleet operations, aviation, and nuclear power. We both knew the Pentagon from previous tours of duty, and I understood how Bud liked to do things from our close association at the National War College and our previous tour together in the Pentagon in 1967–68. Bud was generous in his praise, which did much to keep morale up in the largely office-confined job of vice chief of naval operations. I still have in my files a handwritten note from Bud: “For 09 [vice chief of naval operations], Eyes Only: Jimmy, I want you to know how impressed I’ve been (but not surprised) to see how fast you have gotten up to speed and moved out. I’m going to enjoy my last 7 months. Bud.”
One area in which the CNO and I had basic differences — and I think we handled it very well — was Admiral Rickover. Zumwalt considered Rickover an anathema, mainly because Rickover operated independently to a large degree and was rather careless — perhaps deliberately so — about keeping the CNO informed. This had been Rickover’s style from his earliest days in the Navy. He considered himself the one person in the world who understood the technical side as well as the operational potential for nuclear power, and he did not want ordinary laymen, such as Navy line officers, getting in his way. This philosophy had been tolerated by Adm. Arleigh Burke, Admiral Dave MacDonald, and most recently Admiral Tom Moorer. These CNOs had recognized the benefits of nuclear power in submarines and aircraft carriers, and were content to let Admiral Rickover sell the program and manage it, as long as he didn’t make mistakes. And Rickover didn’t make mistakes.
Bud’s problem with Rickover, and a legitimate concern, was that Zumwalt’s programs for reform required major alterations in the Navy’s way of doing things — its very culture — and he needed everyone in the Navy to accept these new philosophies if they were to be successful and retain a permanent place in the service’s future. Rickover was really not a person who consulted with anyone on how he managed his programs on a daily basis. Furthermore, Bud’s naval experience had not included much exposure to engineering or technical matters. He had served mainly in assignments involving policy and command. Consequently, Bud had never really cared to learn much about nuclear propulsion, either its capabilities or its limitations. He made that clear when he described his interview with Rickover for the nuclear-power program. His lack of rapport with Admiral Rickover meant that much of what Bud Zumwalt knew about nuclear reactors came from contractors’ sales representatives. During the early 1970s these hustlers were making extravagant claims about what their companies could produce in terms of cheap, lightweight reactors. I sat through one office briefing with the CNO in which the contractor’s representative said, holding up his briefcase, “I could fit a reactor powerful enough to run a destroyer in this briefcase.” If that were true, it would be as safe as an armed hydrogen bomb in the back of a pickup truck. But because of his latent hostility toward Rickover, Bud wanted very much to believe the contractors who said that Rickover was much too conservative in his design philosophy to produce a reactor that could really exploit the full potential of the atom.