Zumwalt

by Larry Berman

  On March 16, in a telephone conversation with Haig, Bud asked if there was any news on his relief. Haig leaked the selection by saying, “Yes, but don’t let me put any time on it. He doesn’t know this fellow. He did know his father and doesn’t seem to have any problem with the nomination since all the principals concurred. However, he does want to review the whole spectrum with Secretary Schlesinger.” Bud was pleased that the choice was James Holloway and not Ike Kidd. “Jim Schlesinger told me as late as the day before the White House made its final decision that President Nixon was still deliberating as between Jimmy Holloway and Ike Kidd, believing that he really wanted someone who would turn the clock back,” said Bud. “But apparently, he finally concluded that he should support the Secretary of Defense’s choice. Thus, by this slender thread, the Navy’s programs would survive into a new era.”38

  When the selection was announced, Holloway was described by associates as an “enlightened traditionalist,” not likely to turn back many of the Zumwalt reforms.39 Writing in the Chicago Tribune under the title “The New Navy Chief: A New Big Z,” Bill Anderson thought that Holloway’s appointment was likely to reassure junior people who were ready to leave the navy had Ike Kidd been selected.40

  Bud immediately sent his successor a handwritten note: “Dear Jimmy, I am honored and proud to be succeeded by one so wise and capable. I will leave with absolutely no concern for the future of the navy. . . . I pledge you my total cooperation in the turn over and in the years ahead.”41 Meeting shortly afterward with his preferred choice, Worth Bagley, Bud offered the following candid assessment: “Worth, I will tell you what my feelings are. My feelings are that Jimmy doesn’t think as big as you and I do. You are going to have to help him enlarge his horizons, there is going to be a certain amount of reluctance on his part because he tends to think in terms of the narrow interpretation, more like Admiral McDonald’s approach. . . . I found his counsel to be wise and mature. And the way in which he has handled Ike I think has been adept. I think he feels the system is one that he can let work in his favor than to stress in the way I have.”42

  The announcement of Holloway’s nomination brought heightened awareness that Bud’s navy career was almost over. Arleigh Burke wanted Bud to know that retirement was likely to bring mixed emotions. “Memories come flooding in of associates and associations precious from Midshipmen days on. You can’t help missing the day to day dispatches and the day to day knowledge of naval matters. The mantle will fall on other shoulders and you will be both relieved by the sudden lack of pressure and saddened by a certain remoteness from the line of scrimmage. But a whole new world will be opening up for you to challenge. May you and Mouza have a happy civilian life and thoroughly enjoy the opportunities that have not been available in Navy life.”43

  One of the most sensitive issues during the CNO transition centered on housing for the CNO’s staff. Shortly after Gerald Ford became vice president, Secretary Warner, without consulting anyone in the navy, hatched a plan to take the CNO residence at the Naval Observatory from the navy and designate it the official home of the vice president. Ford liked the idea and used his extensive contacts on the Hill to have legislation introduced. Upon learning about this, Bud called his friend John Marsh in the vice president’s office to say that as CNO he planned to oppose the loss of this house. Marsh reassured Bud that Ford would understand and there would be no hard feelings.

  Throughout the hearings and in the process of reconciling House and Senate versions of the bills, Ford was always civil and straightforward. The Senate version called for the house to become the permanent home of the vice president with staffing support provided by the navy. The House version called for it to be temporarily the home of the vice president with staffing support by the General Services Administration. Bud decided to visit Ford to suggest a compromise whereby the navy would provide the staffing support but the house would be statutorily described as the temporary home of the vice president. Ford readily agreed to the deal. “Had I been dealing with the President, Kissinger or Haig on a similar issue there would have been threats, nasty calls to my superiors and all kinds of paranoid expressions,” wrote Bud.44

  In his first transition meeting with Holloway, the issues of housing and the promotion process were at the top of the agenda.45 Worth Bagley was to be the vice CNO. Bud did not feel Worth should live on the Navy Yard because he needed a home to accommodate his family and young children. The perfect home for Worth was currently occupied by none other than Vice Admiral Ray Peet. “If we bump Peet of course that is going to be immediately seen as harassment because Peet doesn’t play ball with us but I think it has to be done,” Bud told Holloway, who concurred in the recommendation.

  Peet’s years of hostility toward Bud quickly surfaced. He refused to move into his new assigned quarters, a much smaller home than the one he currently occupied. When Bud ordered Peet to move, Peet refused to acknowledge the order. Bud threatened to charge Peet with disobeying a lawful order. On June 11, Bud told Peet, “You know it’s this sort of thing, Ray, that I think is really, really going to cause an awful lot of concern within the Navy for your personal MO.” In a conversation the next day with Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements, Jr., Bud explained that Holloway had made a decision that his new vice chief would move into Peet’s place and Peet would move to a smaller home. “Ray, when he got these orders from a Vice Admiral, refused to carry them out and said he would have to consult with Jim [Schlesinger].” Clements replied that he was “100% in accord with you,” and warned Bud that “you’ve got to keep your guys under control and all I can say is I am sympathetic to you and you do what the hell you have to with that guy.” Bud told Clements and Schlesinger that he would initiate charges against Peet. “We just can’t run a building in which everybody decides whether or not they are going to carry out orders. That’s right before a coup.”46

  It all came to a head on June 20. Peet had received a direct written order from Bud, but still refused to move. “I consider that disobedience of an order,” said Bud, who accused Peet of playing “Jim Schlesinger against us.” Peet was defiant. “Bud you have done some pretty raw things in your time—you know it and I know it.” “None that I am ashamed of,” replied Bud. “You write all the written directives you want, Bud,” replied Peet, who insisted he would not relocate.

  In the end, Peet did move, insisting that he had behaved the way he did just to jerk Bud Zumwalt’s chain. Knowing that Bud was a lame duck and aware just how far he could string out the charade, Peet had some fun at Bud’s expense, giving little thought to how his behavior reflected on himself.

  On June 5, 1974, the president, Mrs. Nixon, and Alexander Haig joined Bud for the graduation ceremony at Annapolis. This was the first time since the Kennedy administration that a president had attended graduation ceremonies at the academy. It was an especially poignant occasion for Bud, because in the audience was Admiral Chon for the commissioning of his son, Truc.

  Bud was allotted three minutes to speak, introducing the president. In his remarks, which had not been cleared by the White House, Bud took a minor detour, noting the great pride he felt in looking out at the class of graduates representing the first wave of diversity. By 1976, the CNO predicted, 131 years after the Naval Academy was built and 200 years after the nation’s founding, “this Naval Academy will be truly representative of the nation at large.” Bud next went to the precipice. “Mr. President, this is the class which has had the watch as those barebones defense budgets which you have submitted to Congress, described by you as such, have been cut. . . . This class observed defense budget cuts of two billion, three billion, five billion, and three and a half billion. And as a result, you and I have had to see this Navy reduced from 976 ships to the lowest figure since 1939—508.”

  Nixon privately seethed, but he also had important points to make in his own remarks that were certain to antagonize Bud and his ally Scoop Jackson, who had recently sponsored legislation that would deny favored-nat
ion trading status to the Soviet Union unless it lifted restrictions on Jewish emigration. Declaring that his policy of détente was aimed at reducing the chances of nuclear war, Nixon charged that critics were foolish to insist that the United States press the Soviets on domestic matters. More than three hundred members of the House and seventy-nine senators had endorsed linking U.S. concessions with free emigration. The president warned that there were three alternatives to détente—a runaway nuclear arms race, a return to constant confrontation, or a shattering setback to the hopes of building a new structure for world peace.47

  The next day, Jim Schlesinger told Bud, “You are in the dog house again. . . . They are so paranoid over there it is just unbelievable.” Schlesinger told Bud that “he had gotten his ass chewed out several times from Kissinger and Haig,” and the president had even accused him of “disloyalty and not keeping the Pentagon in line and so forth.”48

  In a meeting that same day, Tom Moorer confided to Bud, “I think that Schlesinger is glad that you are leaving.”49 Moorer confided that he had gone up for breakfast with Bill Clements and learned that Schlesinger was supposed to have breakfast with Kissinger but Kissinger canceled it because of an article in a newspaper in which Schlesinger said he had no idea what Kissinger had decided on a deal with the Israelis. “So Henry apparently told him he should watch his ethics and he told Henry if there was anyone that could give him a job—or a lesson on the lack of ethics Henry was the man—after that he hung up and he came in there and said we take no more guidance from the State Department.” Bud predicted that George Brown, the incoming JCS chairman, is going “to find himself right in the middle of the dogfight you used to ride out.” Moorer replied, “Except worse,” because Laird circumvents, unlike Schlesinger, who confronts, and “they are basically two different people.” The two admirals then joked that even though Brown was bringing in a new team, the same old problems would show up, and then “they are going to say, What do we do now, Momma?” joked Moorer. Bud replied, “Right and we can go fishing.”50

  The limitation of underground nuclear weapon tests, also known as the Threshold Test Ban, sought to establish a nuclear “threshold” by prohibiting tests having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons (equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT). The negotiating strategy adopted by Kissinger forced Bud to take a position that antagonized the White House. The Russians had proposed it for inclusion in an agreement that would be discussed in the June 1974 meetings in Moscow. Bud worried that Kissinger would bite on the bait for a threshold or upper limit on the size of nuclear devices that could be tested. It seemed unobjectionable and would easily pass Congress and be approved by the people. But there was one big catch—the Soviets had already deployed dozens of missiles with larger warheads and tested many more warheads than the U.S. The proposal was a ploy to ensure Soviet superiority.

  When the chiefs opposed it, Kissinger railed against them for their skepticism about Soviet intentions. On June 17, 1974, with little to lose, Bud wrote a lengthy memorandum to the president, headed “Strategic Arms Limitations.” Knowing that if he sent it directly to the president, the White House staff would bury it, Bud routed the memo via the secretary of defense, increasing the chance that it might get to Nixon. Before sending the letter, Bud wanted to express his views personally to the president, but Schlesinger told him it would be like shooting off your foot. “Every time you go in there and say that to the President, Haig goes violent. Haig worries the Army budgets will be cut and the Navy’s will go up. Kissinger goes violent, his worry is that it will bungle up the appreciation people have for détente, to understand that really what’s happening is the Russians are gaining military superiority, and the President goes wild.”51 Schlesinger wanted Bud to accept the fact that “you’re having zero impact and all you’re really doing is just outraging them.” Schlesinger warned Bud that “they are all paranoid over there, they will resent very strongly the fact that you are making these arguments, they don’t want to admit that these circumstances are coming to pass and they can’t afford the political risks.”52

  In the memorandum, Bud maintained that no subject was of greater importance to the long-term security interests of the United States than SALT. As CNO he reminded the president that he had a statutory responsibility as his naval advisor “to provide you with my military judgment on the current state of the SALT.” SALT I had shifted the strategic balance to the disadvantage of the United States rather than equivalence in strategic capabilities. “The reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the Soviets’ behavior thus far is that they are not now disposed to negotiate a comprehensive permanent agreement on terms compatible with the national security of the United States.” Bud advocated true equivalence as the only acceptable negotiating outcome. Anything else would be politically unacceptable because “the U.S. public will not willingly accept a position of inferiority, with all the military risk and loss of international influence that entails. The Soviets should be made to understand that their failure to agree to strategic equivalence will drive the U.S. in the direction of expanded strategic programs, which will inevitably destroy the atmosphere and domestic political support essential for a policy of détente. In my judgment, failure of the United States to convey this fundamental fact to the Soviets runs the risk of producing both an unsatisfactory SALT outcome and the ultimate destruction of détente.”

  Turning to a familiar theme, Bud told the president that “it is absolutely essential that we be totally forthright with the American public about the true state of affairs and what is required to attain an equitable agreement. If the public is accurately informed, I am confident that it will appropriately respond. The signal we must convincingly convey to the Soviets is that the US people will unhesitatingly support whatever programs are necessary to ensure that the Soviets do not gain permanent superiority in strategic capabilities.” Bud’s position was that détente should be approached on a businesslike basis whereby the Soviets got what they needed from the United States in the form of trade and technology in return for being reasonable about parity in the strategic field.

  Taking a parting shot at the Kissinger back channel, Bud observed that the U.S. negotiating positions had been developed without any real coordination with key elements of the government. “I think it essential that our procedure ensure that you receive in clear and undiluted fashion the judgments of both your political and your military advisors before reaching key decisions on U.S. positions. From my observation, the system as presently operated fails to assure you of such balance in the consideration of major SALT issues, hence runs the risk that positions potentially detrimental to the country’s long-term security may be adopted. To rectify this situation, I would recommend strongly that you periodically confer directly with the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and solicit their advice on these subjects of such far-reaching national importance.”

  A few days later, Bud wrote a memo to Schlesinger: “Negotiating Leverage for Salt II.” He urged that “the appropriate leadership from both parties in both bodies of Congress be briefed by the President on the status of SALT II negotiations prior to the President’s departure for Moscow, and that at that time, he submit a request to them for a budget supplement providing for significantly increased strategic expenditures. I strongly recommend that the President ask that these leaders obtain a joint resolution from the House and Senate prior to his departure, expressing support in principle for these increased expenditures as an alternative to be examined if the Soviets do not accept a satisfactory SALT II.”53

  Bud had by now learned from one of his well-placed sources that at the NSC meeting, “The President shook his head and indicated in certain words that he was not too happy with Zumwalt.”54 Nixon believed that his CNO was not being realistic and that he, the president, was entering negotiations from the perspective that “we must go over with something between what the Soviets want and what we want.” He had to compromise and wanted the chiefs and his CNO especially to know that fur
ther expressions of doubt would be counterproductive. “The President stated that we cannot look at the problem academically; we must consider what we can do, not what we want to do.” Nixon took aim at Bud, predicting that “the CNO doesn’t want this type of agreement and will probably make this known. However, he, the President, has the responsibility.”

  Tom Moorer had been at the meeting and afterward sought out Bud, informing him what the president had said about his letter. “I am sure that he had been told that there was a disastrous letter in from Genghis Khan,” joked Bud. “Bud, I told them you did not concur with many aspects of this approach and that you so stated in a letter to the boss on the 17th. He kind of shook his head and indicated he knew all about the letter and was not too happy about it. That was about the thrust of it.”55 Moorer told Bud that Nixon simply asked, “Is that the same guy that took a cheap shot at me at the Academy?”56

  Bud soon received another report on the NSC meeting from Admiral Bob Welander. “The President indicated that he was upset with the CNO’s letter of June 17, asking, ‘What in hell does he want?’ ” The president “expressed the view that the CNO had taken a cheap shot at him to which he could later refer. The president further stated that he had noticed at Annapolis that the CNO was antagonistic toward him, implying that he had not supported the Navy.”57

  Bud still had a few more bullets to fire and arranged a meeting with Holloway and Bagley.58 “The reason that I am going into this, Jimmy, is because I really think it is kind of the first major brushing you are going to get and that Congress is really going to be looking you over when you have to go in there and testify on whatever they come home with from Moscow.” Bud warned Holloway that the president had not seen the last thirteen Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandums on SALT, because Kissinger made sure they never reached him. Kissinger had confirmed at the NSC meeting that there had been interim MIRV discussions between both sides. “That’s how they learned that the Soviets had already rejected an interim MIRV agreement like the one Schlesinger presented at NSC.”