22
Elder Statesman
On 30 June 1978 I turned over my duties as chief of naval operations of the U.S. Navy to Admiral Hayward in a traditional ceremony at the United States Naval Academy. The proceedings were right out of the Landing Force Manual, which both Tom and I wanted, rather than one of the choreographed affairs that are more like family reunions than a military evolution.
Secretary of the Navy Graham Claytor was the senior official present, and the participation of this distinguished gentleman and very much admired public servant brought dignity to the ceremony. Secretary Claytor had been selected for secretary of the navy on the basis of his distinction as a railroad utilities executive. I considered Claytor a good friend, and we enjoyed a warm and understanding relationship. He had served as a line officer in the Navy in World War II in destroyer escorts and had come away from his active-duty days with a feeling of respect for the officers with whom he had served and an appreciation of the character of the U.S. Navy. I sometimes felt that he was disturbed by some of President Carter’s eccentricities as far as the military was concerned, but he was a loyal team player and saw to it that Carter’s and Secretary Harold Brown’s policies were properly administered. As a result, the good relationship between the uniformed Navy and its secretariat remained both correct and cordial.
Following the ceremony, Dabney and I drove to Arlington in our “privately owned vehicle” to our home on Ridge Road, which my father had built as a commander in the Navy in 1936 on his first assignment in the Navy Department. I took a month off to “unwind without unraveling”—a phrase that Admiral Rickover in particular enjoyed. I purchased a thirty-eight-foot sailboat through my daughter, who was a yacht broker in Annapolis — a fancy deal that involved putting the boat in the charter service in the Virgin Islands with no money down. The added benefit was that the law allowed me to use the boat in the Caribbean for thirty days each year for cruising. That was the introduction to a hobby that was to provide enormous satisfaction for the next thirty-five years.
I was fifty-six years old when I retired, and I fully intended to have a second career in a full-time job, but in the acrid atmosphere of the post-Vietnam era, and the restrictive policies on military retirees “double-dipping” (employment in any sector of the defense industry during the next two years) or any semblance of lobbying, opportunities for a second career in an employment that I would consider appropriate and personally satisfying were pretty much eliminated. So in the first month after retirement my wife and I enjoyed a quiet, comfortable sojourn, enjoying the sailboat and building a new home in the woods and on the water in Annapolis, Maryland. Then came the time for public service.
THE NAVAL HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
In August 1978, I received a phone call from former CNO Adm. George Anderson, who was on the board of the Naval Historical Foundation (NHF), asking if I would serve as president of the organization under Adm. Arleigh Burke, who had agreed to take the chairmanship of the board. I demurred on the basis of being too busy, but when George asked, “Too busy doing what?” and pointed out that all retired senior officers were busy, I agreed to take the job. It turned out to be a truly satisfying experience, and I am still there as chairman to this day. The close association with the Naval Historical Center, the Navy Museum, and the Navy’s historians reopened an old interest in history that I had largely set aside during my last ten years of active duty. With the NHF I found both the work and the people with whom I was associated to be most enjoyable.
ASSOCIATION OF NAVAL AVIATION
Less than a week later, Adm. Tom Moorer, former CNO and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called to ask if I would relieve Adm. Mike Michaelis as president of the Association of Naval Aviation (ANA) under Moorer, who was then serving as chairman. Again my attempt to evade the draft was fruitless and again I committed myself to an organization to which I was deeply committed — and still enjoy in my role as chairman of the board emeritus.
The Association of Naval Aviation had been established in the early 1970s by Vice Admiral Pirie, under whom I had served in 1958 as executive assistant. Later Admiral Moorer as CNO, had been wholly supportive in ensuring that the ANA was on solid ground and created a fulfilling, well-defined need for an advocate’s voice for naval aviation in the nonmilitary environment.
The association was effectively organized and professionally managed, with offices in the Hilltop section of Falls Church, Virginia, and a full-time compensated executive director, a very able retired naval aviation captain who was responsible, in a large way, for the successful inauguration of this organization. In those days, the Association of Naval Aviation was remarkably productive, with a slick bimonthly magazine published by ANA with important material concerning naval aviation provided by the Pentagon in each issue, plus extensive news of the activities of the more than fifty local ANA “squadrons” around the country. Additionally, the foundation published an annual yearbook of naval aviation which was the compendium of facts and information about the state of naval aviation in the Navy that year, with individual articles prepared by senior active-duty and retired naval officers, including the CNO. The annual convention of ANA included a dinner that featured speakers of special significance, including President George H. W. Bush, who had been a charter member of ANA on the basis of his experience as a TBM carrier pilot in World War II. For more than two decades, the association has maintained a display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum that replicated a pilots’ ready room on board an aircraft carrier. This was one of the more popular exhibits at the museum because of its concomitant utility as a theater.
Among the more spectacular projects of ANA was the association’s sponsorship of the premiere of the movie Top Gun in 1985, a black-tie affair at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with the stars of the film (Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis) in attendance, followed by a lavish reception in one of the hangars at National Airport (now Reagan International Airport). Drinks and a complete buffet dinner were served in the milieu of Navy planes — Tomcats, Intruders, and Hornets — on display.
I had played a substantive role in the creation, production, and premiering of this film. A Washington lawyer who represented Paramount Pictures in the capital, and a friend of mine through the Metropolitan Club, had given me a copy of the original script proposal for a movie about the Navy’s air-to-air gunnery school, taken from an article in Sunset magazine. I wrote up a brief critique of the scenario, listing all of its inaccuracies and explaining why the Navy would never approve the script.
My comments got to the producers, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who after several iterations of my recommendations, decided to come to Washington to talk to me. For our initial session, I rounded up some especially impressive young naval aviators — including several former Vietnam prisoners of war and Vice President Bush’s naval aide, a tall, clean cut, well-decorated F-14 pilot. He was known among his contemporaries as naval aviation’s “Poster Boy.” After a couple of sessions, the producers actually got excited about the idea of a movie featuring carrier aviation and the Navy’s fighter school. When I brought Secretary of the Navy (SecNav) John Lehman into the discussions and captured his enthusiastic support, full cooperation of the U.S. Navy was assured.