Based upon the many manifestations of management inefficiencies that had surfaced in the course of the carrier study, I sought a personal meeting with the CNO in the days following its release. I privately recommended to Admiral Moorer that a “Navy Carrier Program” be created under a single manager. My experience with the carrier study had revealed that authority and responsibility for the many and various aspects of carrier design, construction, operations, and overhaul were scattered throughout OpNav, the Navy Secretariat, the Naval Systems Commands, the Naval Laboratories, the Nuclear Power Directorate, and the Atomic Energy Commission. Moreover, the fleet commanders were beginning to weigh in on matters of carrier aircraft complements, ship deployments, and force levels.
Admiral Moorer confessed that he had harbored the idea for such a step for the past year and agreed that this was the time to make it happen. He accepted the recommendation on the condition that Admiral Rickover would concur. Rickover was contacted, and he not only agreed but enthusiastically supported the reorganization, recommending that I be assigned to set up the new program and function as its first incumbent. Rickover’s main motive probably was that he would be getting his people in on the ground floor.
The rules for the organization of a weapons system “program” were explicitly defined in secretary of the navy instructions. The directives provided for a program manager in the Naval Material Command, then under the command of Vice Adm. I. J. Galantin, who reported directly to the secretary of the navy. This program manager would have a counterpart in OpNav, the program coordinator, who reported to the chief of naval operations.
Within days, I had drafted a directive for the CNO’s signature that created the aircraft carrier program coordinator in OpNav (OP-03V) and the Aircraft Carrier Program Manager Office in the Naval Material Command. This was the format prescribed by the then-cognizant directives of the Navy. The CNO called the Bureau of Naval Personnel to order Rear Admiral Holloway into both positions.
Most of the substantive decisions in the carrier program would be made by the CNO and the OpNav staff in the operational area and by Admiral Rickover and his Naval Reactors for technical matters. Rickover was in the process of developing a two-reactor nuclear propulsion plant to replace the eight-reactor propulsion plant that had been used in the Enterprise. Rickover, of course, wanted his part of the nuclear-power carrier program to be carefully tied in to the overall effort, so he made his own engineers available to OP-03V. They were the best in the world, and Rickover was willing to spend his own money — Congress ensured that he always had plenty — to be certain that components of carriers other than the nuclear propulsion plant, such as the catapults, ammunition elevators, and electrical systems, were properly engineered and manufactured and performed up to the standards Rickover had imposed for nuclear work.
It was not difficult, with Moorer’s backing, to quickly have the new entity, program coordinator for aircraft carriers, organizationally located as a special assistant to the deputy chief of naval operations for fleet operations and readiness, with authority to report directly to CNO. The OP-03V principal would be supported by a staff, the size of which would be ultimately determined as the program took form. The initial authorization was for a rear admiral as OP-03V, with one captain, one commander, a lieutenant commander, and a GS-6 typist. Office space in an already overcrowded Pentagon was not easy to come by, but a broom closet, literally, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon was converted into a small office space with the promise that additional facilities more appropriate to the rank of the incumbents would become available in six months. With the files from the carrier vulnerability study in hand, the infant organization was able to start work. The next step was to ensure that all correspondence coming into OpNav carrying the words “aircraft carrier” or the letters “CV” in the subject title, would be routed to OP-03V for action. The uniformed members of the staff, the captain, commander, and lieutenant commander, all had been hijacked from the carrier study group. These individuals, experienced in the protocols of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, visited the deputies of the Offices for Air Warfare, Operations and Readiness, and Planning and Programming and made copies of their file correspondence relating to all aspects of aircraft carriers. At this time, the first Xerox machines were arriving in the Pentagon, and this made the task of duplicating the records much easier. Within weeks after Admiral Moorer had given the okay, OP-03V was up and in business. This was due largely to the fact that the CNO set the example. He himself was busy dealing exclusively with our office on carrier issues, and the rest of OpNav had to follow his lead or be left behind.
OP-03V IN BUSINESS
OP-03V had more clout than its assets would indicate. Four officers and a secretary sitting in two small rooms, one of which was still furnished with a large sink for cleaning mops, were putting their trademark on a lot of important correspondence. Our reputation was waxing. One day, leaving a conference in the office of the SecNav concerning contracts with Newport News, the sole shipbuilder capable of producing nuclear-powered carriers, I was walking down the E ring returning to my office and was joined by the assistant secretary of the navy for financial management, the very competent Barry Shillito. We chatted a few minutes about the recent decisions that had been made concerning the carrier program, and Shillito said, “I’m so glad to see that we have a program manager for this very important component of the Navy. One of these days I would like to come up to your spaces and take a look at the operation.” I knew that what Shillito had in his mind’s eye was a large loft with dozens of engineers and analysts in green eyeshades poring over drawings and spreadsheets concerning the design, construction, maintenance, and current operations of the Navy’s aircraft carrier fleet. I had no objection to visitors coming up to the fifth floor premises and being exposed to our primitive environment. I had learned from Rickover that one’s colleagues — who are always one’s competitors — do not get covetous if your working spaces are as shabby as those of OP-03V. But people seldom visited the fifth floor of the Pentagon.
A major crisis and test for OP-03V occurred in the spring of 1970. Senate Democrats, led by Senator Walter Mondale (later a Democratic Party candidate for vice president), mounted a determined campaign to cut the defense budget and reduce the size of the armed forces. Their initial targets were budget line items with high costs. The nuclear-powered carrier was their principal target. Also joining in this movement were a coalition of House and Senate members who were persuaded that the Navy should be limited to small (twenty-five-thousand-ton) carriers and light, inexpensive aircraft to “reduce fleet vulnerability” and reduce overall defense costs.
Senator Mondale introduced an amendment to the 1971 authorization bill to the effect that there be no further authorizations for the construction or advance procurement of another nuclear-powered attack carrier until a joint subcommittee of the House and Senate Armed Service Committees could conduct a comprehensive study of the past and projected costs and effectiveness of aircraft carriers and task forces and, through review of the need for the current force level of fifteen aircraft carriers, justify conclusively to Congress the nation’s need for a fleet of large carriers. This amendment, of course, became the law.