by Larry Berman
As in previous assignments, Bud made the most of the tour. His major professional accomplishment was running three major fleet exercises as well as Exercise Baseline, designed to establish a minimum for communications readiness by collecting data to determine the current effectiveness of communications and the relative performance of individual types of equipment. “That took a massive amount of planning; it took a massive number of observers from Washington and from the fleet support activities. We put in about three months planning for it and an intensive week or ten days running the exercise, and then a massive reconstruction report afterwards.”7
Being based in San Diego meant Bud and his family had a chance to spend time with his brother Jim’s family. Bud invited Jim to go with him on a fleet exercise. They were at sea for a week, and Jim was able to observe Bud at his eighteen-hour-a-day job running the operation. Jim came back and wrote a letter to the family saying that, having observed Bud, he could now understand why he had such a conservative persuasion—he was too busy to find time to read. Bud wrote him a little note about the systems analyst, who decided to find out how a flea could hear. He put a match on the table, pulled one leg off the flea, and said, “Jump over the match,” and the flea jumped over the match. He pulled another leg off the flea and said, “Jump over the match.” The flea jumped over the match. The third leg, the flea couldn’t do it. His conclusion was the flea hears out of his right rear leg.8
Bud never had the chance to deploy with his flotilla, because Nitze and CNO Dave McDonald wanted him back in Washington. The navy secretary was quite dissatisfied with the navy’s performance in the analytical area, especially in studies requested by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. There was no real understanding of the importance of systems analysis. Nitze convinced CNO McDonald to start a systems analysis operation with Zumwalt at its head. “Dave McDonald said to me when he brought me in that he was tired of fighting Nitze and now he was going to join him on systems analysis which was largely a response to the planning, programming and budgeting cycle that McNamara had put in.”9
Bud returned to Washington to head OP-96, the newly created Systems Analysis Division of OPNAV (the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations). His charge was to establish the division and develop it into an effective organization. This required hiring staff as well as organizing functional duties. Bud defined the mission of his new office to be one of generating a better understanding of requirements and problems and a more effective presentation of those requirements in major program areas that were likely to influence the combat capabilities of naval forces. As the first director, Bud would heavily influence the combat capabilities of U.S. naval forces through the next generation. The major analyses completed under his direct supervision included studies on fleet escort, antisubmarine warfare force levels, tactical air power, surface-to-surface missiles, and war at sea. Additionally, Bud contributed to the restructuring of the Center for Naval Analyses to ensure that completed studies reflected greater thoroughness, comprehensiveness, and accuracy.
While in Systems Analysis Bud gave much attention to justifying a naval base on the island of Diego Garcia. His staff undertook a political-military study and were able to demonstrate by a calculation that it took several carrier task forces to support an effort in the Indian Ocean without Diego Garcia and only one with. “I fought for Diego Garcia in ISA; I fought for it again in Systems Analysis; and then I finally got it done when I was CNO, at a time it was considered just a far-out kook idea,” recalled Bud.10
The major challenge for Systems Analysis involved the F-111B, a project Secretary Nitze had inherited from his predecessor. Secretary McNamara had endorsed the development of one fighter aircraft adaptable to the air force, navy, and marines. The term McNamara used for the airplane was “commonality”—features that would be more cost-effective, a key phrase in the lexicon of the McNamara whiz kids.11 Naval aviators objected to the concept, believing that the air force version was too big and too heavy to operate from aircraft carriers. Zumwalt was tasked with conducting a systems analysis study of the F-111B for the navy.
Secretary Nitze found himself in the middle, between a navy bureaucracy that was at best lukewarm and at worst actively hostile to the plane and a secretary of defense who regarded the slightest expression of doubt toward the program as an attack on him personally and a sign of disloyalty. Because the air force managed the program, there was often interservice friction, because members of the air force management team felt that the navy was dragging its feet or intentionally trying to make the program fail.
Bud needed help, and the one person he knew was best able to handle the task for Systems Analysis was Charles DiBona, a lieutenant commander assigned to the undersecretary of the navy as a special assistant. Charlie had recently completed a tour in Alain Enthoven’s Pentagon systems analysis office, and he was a Rhodes Scholar who had stood number two in his Naval Academy class.12 Bud was told it would be impossible to get DiBona because his current boss, Robert Baldwin, undersecretary of the navy, would never release him. When Bud asked, he was told “not no, but Hell, No!” Bud went to see Paul Nitze to say, “You’ve given me an impossible job, unless you will pry Lieutenant Commander DiBona away from Bob Baldwin,” which he did. “I then, using Admiral McDonald’s authority, brought together a team of eight or ten people.” “I spent my first weeks giving Bud Zumwalt tutorials in systems analysis,” recalled DiBona, who helped structure the studies, which required technical insight into cost-effectiveness analysis.13 “We worked night and day, weekends, literally 18 hours [a day],” recalled Bud.14 He and DiBona worked most of Labor Day weekend in 1966, “with me dashing back and forth from painting my house—he remembers me coming in with my glasses covered with paint specks—and he did the more detailed calculations, and I would come in about every three hours to go over and check-sight where he was at.”15
One briefing with Secretary Nitze on the F-111B captured the essence of the two men’s working relationship. As the briefing was ending, Charlie raised his hand to say, “The admiral got a little screwed up on one point.” He then corrected the point and everyone left the meeting pleased. Afterward, Charlie asked Bud, “How’d we do, boss?” Bud replied, “Charlie, we did great, but the next time I screw up, raise your hand and say, ‘an additional insight into the matter is . . .’ ”16
DiBona took the lead on the F-111B.17 The most constant problem with the plane was weight growth, which affected all aspects of flight performance, especially navy carrier suitability. The numbers showed that if one assumed that the F-111B could land on and take off from an aircraft carrier, which is what McNamara had directed them to assume, then there was no viable alternative that could beat it in terms of cost and effectiveness. “But we were all convinced that the F-111B would not be able to land and take off of an aircraft carrier,” said Bud. It was DiBona who convinced Bud that a footnote needed to be added with some type of explanation noting that “notwithstanding the study assumption, there was considerable doubt as to the cost-effectiveness, that an alternative should be brought along, an alternative which used the same engine and the same avionics as the F-111B and the same missile system, which is what made it such a lethal system.”18
This decision to search for an alternative airframe created problems within the navy, beginning with the new CNO, Admiral Thomas Moorer, who had replaced Admiral McDonald. Bud needed Moorer’s approval on adding the footnote. He found the new CNO on a golf course playing a round with Rear Admiral Jerry Miller. Both men were aviators and suspicious of black shoe admirals like Bud. “When I briefed Tom Moorer on what the outcome showed, his face fell, but when I told him what our footnote was going to say, he said, ‘Okay, I buy it.’ ”19 Jerry Miller began hitting the grass with his golf club in frustration, vehemently disagreeing with Moorer’s decision, believing that Zumwalt should tweak the data to come out with a different conclusion, one that showed the F-111B was not cost-effective. All Bud needed to do was massage the data by making som
e slight changes in estimated performance here and there. “But we had done all those estimates carefully and, under a kind of umpire system, to make sure that they would not be criticized. Then to go back and change them would have been not only dishonest but stupid,” recalled Bud. “Jerry just hadn’t been close enough to the problem to see that this was one where there was both a tactical reason for the study and a strategic reason for the sake of OP-96, in the long haul, to do things honestly.”20 When Zumwalt became CNO, Miller thought he would never get a third star or any fleet assignment. “I had obviously not incurred the favor of the civilian hierarchy, much of it because of the F-111B.”21
With Moorer’s acquiescence, Paul Nitze was able to tell McNamara, “Here’s the study that proves you’re right, but just in case you’re not, give us some money for the alternative.”22 McNamara was able to do that: to justify the F-111B while at the same time preparing for its failure. The sequel is that the F-111B was finally killed, and the preferred alternative, the F-14, was put forward. Bud’s study team then presented Bud with a plaque, REAR ADMIRAL E. R. ZUMWALT, JR., FIGHTER PILOT, 270 F-111BS KILLED.
As head of Systems Analysis, Bud came face to face with his old nemesis, Admiral Rickover. Tasked with undertaking a major fleet-escort study, Bud had convinced McNamara that escorts should be built until there was greater protection for carriers. Once that agreement was achieved in the major fleet-escort study, it was possible to do detailed, numerical calculations and show that more major fleet escorts were needed.23 Zumwalt wanted a separate analysis under the major fleet-escort study, one that became known as the endurance supplement, to provide calculations on additional endurance. Forrest Petersen, a nuclear propulsion–trained aviator-captain, was given the job of running the endurance study. He had extensive nuclear training and was scheduled to be commanding officer of the USS Enterprise.
When Rickover got wind of the endurance study, he called Petersen to say that if he wanted a future in the nuclear navy, he had better produce the right results—ones that showed the escort needed nuclear propulsion. If the endurance study didn’t produce these results, Petersen could forget the Enterprise assignment. “He came to me after a week or two and said that Rickover was really leaning on him to come up with dishonest answers. We both agreed that if he didn’t in some way accommodate Rickover, that Rickover would ruin his career.”24 Bud knew he could not defeat Rickover; his only chance would be to find some type of middle strategy. Bud sought the counsel of Vice Admiral Bernard Ambrose “Chick” Clarey, director of navy program planning and budgeting. They agreed to let Petersen work the study and see whether or not honest calculation would justify nuclear escorts. If it did, there would be no problem; Rickover would assume that Petersen had carried out his order, and his career would be saved. But if it didn’t, then they would have a much tougher problem. As Bud saw the situation, there was “Navy planning and Rickover planning.” Rickover planning usually prevailed.25
Fortunately, Petersen’s study justified a need for a certain number of major fleet escorts to be nuclear propelled, and the endurance supplement to the major fleet study endorsed that number.26 Rickover’s biographer observed that “Zumwalt and his colleagues developed the ‘need’ for a supplement to the study that would address warship endurance; in the supplement, nuclear propulsion could be addressed, and very favorably.”27 Petersen’s career was saved!
Rickover outmaneuvered Zumwalt on two new submarine designs, the Glenard P. Lipscomb and the SSN-688 Los Angeles class. The Lipscomb had an electric drive, meaning that it was quiet but slow. The SSN-688 subs were faster but far noisier. Both of these designs had been initiated by Rickover. Both the navy and the Department of Defense had questions: Was the Lipscomb or the SSN-688 worth the additional cost compared to the currently deployed Sturgeon? Should both quiet and fast submarines be built? If so, how many of each type? How should they be deployed?28 Systems Analysis was created for precisely this type of study of new weapons systems. Bud understood this, but so did Rickover, which led him to farm out his own analysis, which unsurprisingly touted data proving unequivocally that both types of submarines were needed. This was the typical Rickover fait accompli. No one had been previously informed of these studies, and Zumwalt knew why. Bud protested but lost.29
During the early-morning hours of January 31, 1968, approximately eighty thousand North Vietnamese regulars and guerrillas attacked over a hundred cities throughout South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive involved coordinated attacks on thirty-five of forty-four provincial capitals, thirty-six district towns, and many villages and hamlets. For weeks prior to their offensive, enemy forces had been filtering into Saigon.
The front page of the February 1 New York Times showed a picture of the U.S. embassy in Saigon under assault. Guerrillas had blasted their way into the embassy and held part of the grounds for nearly six hours.30 The goal was to demonstrate that not only could the countryside not be pacified, but now South Vietnam’s cities, including Saigon, were not secure. The offensive set in motion a remarkable sequence of events, including discussion as to whether tactical nuclear weapons should be used at Khe Sanh, where a fierce diversionary battle waged. General William Westmoreland, the head of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), requested authorization from President Lyndon Baines Johnson for an additional 206,000 troops, which would bring the U.S. troop commitment to almost 750,000.
Tet became the decisive battle of the war because of its effect on American politics and public attitudes. The intensity of the war and the capacity to sustain it were controlled not by America’s superior technology, but by the enemy. There was no breaking point, no crossover point in the enemy’s will to continue the struggle indefinitely. On the evening of February 27, CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite told the nation that the war was destined to end in stalemate. “We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . . For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in stalemate. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”
Addressing the nation on March 31, 1968, President Johnson called for a partial bombing halt and asked Ho Chi Minh to join him in working toward a peace through negotiations. The United States was “ready to send its representatives to any forum, at any time, to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end,” said the president. Then, in a dramatic gesture toward national unity, the president renounced his chance for reelection, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
As the reverberations of Tet rippled through the Pentagon, CNO Thomas Moorer decided he wanted Bud Zumwalt out of the systems analysis job. A few factors were in play, some personal and others business. In the wake of the F-111B study, Moorer came to realize that he was unable to control the conclusions of studies coming out of the Systems Analysis Division.31 First, the output was not supporting the cost-effectiveness of the nuclear-propelled ships that Moorer and Rickover favored. Of more significance was the fact that studies being conducted in Systems Analysis by Burt Shepherd and others were questioning the effectiveness of the bombing campaign. As an aviator, Moorer understood that with the data at his disposal, Bud Zumwalt constituted a threat to aviator dominance.
Other reasons were more personal. Paul Nitze had now replaced Cyrus Vance as deputy secretary of defense, and the Zumwalt family had been spending just about every weekend on Nitze’s 2,500-acre farm along Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. When young Elmo first saw the property, he felt that this is how aristocracy must have lived. The Zumwalt family had their own guest house on the property, a home more palatial than anywhere the family had ever lived.32 Mouza loved “the wonderful hay rides through the snow from our house to your house on the farm many Christmas seasons.”33 Each evening in the main house perched majestically over the Potomac, Bud a
nd Paul would sit on the brick back patio, smoke cigars, and talk.34 And this was where Moorer’s concern really began. Moorer had always been troubled about Zumwalt being too close to Nitze, but with Nitze ensconced as deputy secretary of defense, Moorer realized that Nitze’s protégé and Moorer’s subordinate was privy to McNamara’s thinking well before the CNO. It gave Bud an advantage over Moorer, who resented Bud’s access to the inner strategic thinking of the Johnson administration.
A paranoid Moorer decided he needed to move Bud, but Moorer was astute enough to know that it had to be achieved in a way that would not suggest to Paul Nitze that Bud was being fired. Moorer’s vice CNO, Bernard “Chick” Clarey, came up with a near-perfect solution. It was nearly time to replace Rear Admiral Kenneth Veth in Vietnam, and Bud Zumwalt could be sent as relief. There was only one problem with the Moorer-Clarey plan: all of the component commanders under MACV had at least three stars, with the exception of the navy component commander. Admiral Veth had two stars, because he was simply not at the same level as his peers. Bud blamed Moorer because, as an aviator, Moorer recognized that air strikes brought glory to the navy, so that’s where the best people and resources went. Admiral Moorer was not going to waste resources fighting the war inside Vietnam. The army owned that war. This disparity was duplicated down the chain of command in the navy, whose task-force commanders were 0-6 captains (a rank below the counterpart army 0-7 brigadier and 0-8 major generals), so the navy was downgraded in the eyes of the whole MACV structure. In a structure dominated by the army, rank was very important.
Knowing that Zumwalt would never take a two-star assignment and that the new secretary of the navy, Paul Ignatius, and Paul Nitze wanted to see Bud get three stars, Moorer upgraded the job to a three-star position.35 “I’m just absolutely confident that they both thought that was the graveyard where I would end up. . . . I believe the reason Moorer wanted me in Vietnam was that no rear admiral had ever left Vietnam and obtained another job that led anywhere. This was Moorer’s way of getting rid of me: Promote the son of a bitch and no one will ever hear from him again.”36
