After Teller departed, I concluded that I had learned a lesson: No matter how brilliant a genius may be in his field of study, that does not mean that he is equally knowledgeable in other fields, even those based largely on commonsense matters. I was to encounter this anomaly often in dealing with people throughout my career, and I reserved a caution when geniuses opined in sectors of know-how in which they had never previously demonstrated a competence.
However, as the technological clock ticks on, new developments occur to contest our conventional wisdom. Within a year after my conversation with Teller, Russian scientists developed a high-speed underwater body, a supercavitating missile, that was capable of much higher speeds than our hydrodynamic engineers had even thought was a remote possibility — over 250 knots! The Russian missile, given the Russian name for squall (Shkval), became operational in 1977, but was so shrouded in secrecy that it was only in the past two years that I have known of its existence.
Also, the essence of Teller’s concept, a submarine mother ship carrying a flotilla of underwater craft that would be sent out to some distances from the “carrier” to explore or attack and then be recovered by the mother ship, is an ongoing research program in the U.S. Navy in 2006.
Today the underwater carrier can be an attack submarine or a strategic type, and the underwater craft are unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV). Currently their missions are mainly surveillance and reconnaissance into hostile areas of high danger to a nuclear submarine, or the shallow waters of a littoral shelf to explore for minefields or defensive devices in depths not deep enough for the mother ship.
The UUVs are unmanned now, but there are many parallels to Teller’s concepts in both of these developmental programs that have made me conclude that Teller was wiser than I gave him credit for being.
PRESIDENT FORD AND THE CVAN-71
In the fall of 1976, I had been in the job of CNO for two years when President Ford called me to the White House. I was ushered into the Cabinet Room, where the president was in his shirt sleeves with members of his staff, several cabinet members, and the presidential budget people. President Ford was always gracious under any circumstances, and in spite of what was a tough, shirtsleeve working session, he politely offered me a seat at the table and got right to the point. “Admiral,” he asked, “don’t you think we should have an aircraft carrier in this year’s budget?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Don’t you think it should be a big carrier?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t you think it should be nuclear powered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you recommend?”
“A Nimitz-class carrier, Mr. President.”
“I agree. It will be in this fiscal year’s budget.”
President Ford knew what he was talking about. He had been the speaker at the Nimitz commissioning ceremony in Norfolk, and sitting together on the dais, there had been a more than adequate opportunity to talk about the capabilities of the Nimitz, including comparisons with his own World War II carrier, the Monterey. Unfortunately, when Jimmy Carter won the election for president, his administration would not support the construction of any kind of carrier and, in fact, vigorously opposed Congress’s move to include a large nuclear carrier in the FY 77 budget, vetoing the entire defense authorization bill because it contained an aircraft carrier.
JOHN McCAIN
Adm. John Sidney McCain Jr. had been the Navy’s chief of legislative liaison at the time I was executive assistant to Vice Adm. Bob Pirie, the deputy chief of naval operations for air, in 1958. McCain, then a rear admiral, was famous as being enormously effective in this role, a persuasive proponent of naval forces who was instrumental in getting the Navy programs of the CNO, Adm. Arleigh Burke, through Congress. John Sidney McCain continued to rise in rank and correspondingly responsible positions, and he became commander in chief, Pacific, in 1972, during the war in Vietnam.
His son, John Sidney McCain III, had graduated from the Naval Academy in the class of 1958 and gone through flight training. He was a carrier pilot flying an A-4 Skyhawk when he was shot down on a combat mission in Vietnam. As a prisoner of war he inspired the admiration of all Americans when he rejected the offer of the North Vietnamese to send him home because of the severe injuries he had sustained in his crash. This was intended by the North Vietnamese as a gesture of goodwill because he was the son of the commander in chief in the Pacific, at that time the senior military commander in the field directing the efforts of the war in Vietnam. Lieutenant Commander McCain, in a public statement, said that he would not accept repatriation until all of his fellow POWs were released.
Dating back to my days in the Pentagon as an executive assistant to the DCNO (Air), I had developed an appreciation of the importance of the Office of Legislative Affairs, and the tremendous contribution that a competent chief could bring to the furtherance of the Navy’s programs through the generation of congressional support. It took a very special sort of person — a diplomat, an officer of common sense and a broad intellect, and a strong operational naval background. It was important that the chief of Legislative Affairs be able to speak with personal authority about the programs that he was briefing to the members of Congress on behalf of the CNO. I had been very impressed with Rear Adm. John Sidney McCain Jr.’s competence in this assignment. He was effective in his ability to explain the Navy’s need for the components that constituted the Navy’s budget and he was convincingly persuasive in the logic of his presentations to the individual members. The most effective chiefs of Legislative Affairs were officers who had not only the fleet experience but also the brains to handle the complex matters of congressional relations. In this, the experience of having worked “on the Hill” as a junior officer in the office of Legislative Affairs, was important. It was for this reason that I had told my executive assistant, Captain Poindexter, to earmark young Lt. Cdr. John McCain III for assignment to legislative affairs upon his return to full-duty status after his rehabilitation from the injuries he had received in his crash and captivity.
I was therefore surprised to learn, when I happened to check with Poindexter concerning McCain’s status, that he was reporting back to full duty and the Bureau of Naval Personnel had seen fit to assign him as the attack aircraft desk officer in the Naval Air Systems Command. I didn’t know what had happened, nor did I really care at that instant. I wanted to get this back on track as quickly and smoothly as possible. I called Vice Adm. Jim Watkins, the chief of BuPers, but he was absent on a field trip. His deputy informed me that, in the detailing officer’s judgment, this was the assignment that best suited McCain. Not feeling it necessary to justify my decision in this matter, I simply told the deputy chief of naval personnel to have McCain’s orders changed, sending him to the Office of Legislative Affairs. The rear admiral said, “But, sir, we have already cut his orders and that means we’ll have to do it all over again.” Well, fortunately, this was a telephone discussion, for I would have found it difficult to restrain myself physically if we had been talking face to face. I simply said, “Get those new orders recut, reissued, and delivered by close of business tomorrow” and slammed the phone down. The rest of the story is that Lt. Cdr. John McCain III went to the office of the legislative liaison and earned a name for himself as a highly effective staffer. From there he left the Navy to become a member of the House of Representatives and, subsequently, a U.S. senator from Arizona and a potential candidate for the presidency. As a member of Congress in both Houses, his interest in, and support of, naval aviation — especially carriers — has never been wanting.