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Hare didn’t think Vinson was likely to change his mind, as Bud recounted. “Once he has made it up he has never known him to be willing to change it easily. . . . Vinson has his thinking pretty well in concrete but if he finds out about this point he may have a tendency to water down his venom.” Hare offered to help, but warned Bud that “the haircuts have been bugging people ever since it came out.” Bud reminded Hare that Admiral Moorer had actually endorsed this policy before Bud even became CNO!
Bud Zumwalt and John Warner were soon on a plane to Milledgeville, Georgia, for lunch at a local Holiday Inn with Eddie Hébert and the eighty-nine-year-old Carl Vinson. Vinson wanted Zumwalt to get a “good scrubbing” from the committee.116 Bud tried breaking the ice by recalling something that happened when Vinson had chaired the House Armed Services Committee. Bud was working for Paul Nitze. Vinson had been invited to give the graduation address at the Naval Academy. Bud and Nitze drove there with Vinson, and during the ride, Vinson told them that when he really wanted to do a job on people, he would put Mendel Rivers in charge; when he was really mad at someone, he would appoint Porter Hardy of Virginia to the committee; and when he wanted to make certain that the person would get really scarred up, he would add Eddie Hébert to the unholy three. Vinson loved the story, repeated it, and winked at Hébert.
Prior to lunch, Vinson asked many questions, making clear that what had really gotten him riled up and made him call Eddie Hébert about holding a hearing was the black-power salutes on the pier beside the Connie. “He said as he saw that he couldn’t help remembering the [original] Constellation as the first ship in our history to score a victory and he resented the comparison.”117 While in Milledgeville, Fred Buzhardt informed Bud that a group of retired admirals had been calling reporters to say that “you are being fired and Chick Clarey is replacing you.”
Bud could sense the fat hitting the fire. Following his meeting, Bud wrote Vinson, “As I attempted to describe to you during our conversations, order and discipline do in fact prevail within the naval establishment at large. Although our record is by no means perfect, the overwhelming majority of Navy men and women are indeed dedicated to their country and its purpose and have discharged their individual responsibilities with honor, valor and dignity.”118 Bud enclosed a signed copy of a book, Riverine Warfare: Vietnam, and two documents—one a report on Project Sixty and the other a copy of his letter to flag officers at the two-year point of his tour. Bud confided that he had the feeling of “being shot at from both the extreme right and from the liberal groups for exactly opposite reasons. A lot of concern on the liberal side as to why in these episodes the blacks were charged and, on the other hand, you get the very right side that is concerned as to why more decisive action wasn’t taken more quickly in the case of the Connie. Just a symptom of the tough times we are going through.”119
Bud was scheduled to be the first witness at the hearings. A day before the hearings, his testimony was being rewritten so that the phrase discipline and order always preceded the word race. Daniel Z. Henkin, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, counseled Bud not to be defensive and to stay on script. Bud called Hébert in order to review the main points of his testimony—the importance of combat effectiveness, good order and discipline, and human-relations goals. Hébert warned Bud that “we should not emphasize trying to bring in any particular ethnic group—we want effectiveness—we want the best man for the job.” Bud joked that “I feel like the man [who] said to Abraham Lincoln when he was being ridden out of town on a rail—if it weren’t for the honor of this thing, I’d just as soon walk.” Hébert said he had faith in Hicks, who was neither right nor left, and a fair person. “The whole thing was we cannot emphasize we want the ethnic groups or the minority groups to take over,” said Hébert.
As Bud Zumwalt left home to testify before the Hicks committee, his daughter Ann left a note in his briefcase: “Dearest Daddy, I just wanted to wish you very good luck today. What words of easement can one speak of? I only hope those who dramatically oppose you will eventually see the role and importance your thoughts and you are, and what your and mommy’s vision is doing as a unifying force to the service of man.”
Chairman Hicks opened the hearings by saying the focus would be on “whether or not these incidents indicated a permissiveness which had led to a breakdown of discipline.”120 This sounded like little more than a plan to place blame on the CNO for increasing the number of blacks through reverse discrimination, lowering standards, and reducing the quality of recruits. “We cannot overlook the possibility that there may exist at this time an environment of—for lack of a better word—permissiveness, wherein all that is needed is a catalyst. Perhaps perceptions of racial relations in the cases provided the spark,” said Hicks in his opening statement.
Bud appeared twice before the subcommittee, the first time during its opening session on November 20 and later in mid-December when the committee returned from California, after visiting the Constellation and holding hearings there. In the first session, Bud tried putting the incidents in perspective, emphasizing how proud he was of the navy’s performance since the massive Easter invasion when he had been required to commit unprecedented forces from a greatly reduced base. The navy had over 650 ships, many operating under wartime conditions, “unmatched elsewhere in our society for rigor and danger. . . . Their hours of work have been extreme, their separation from home and family long, and time with loved ones short.”
Bud reasoned that discipline and order were the sine qua non of an effective fighting force and that conversely the effectiveness of the force is the essential measure of its good order and discipline. If the question was how best to ensure that discipline and maximum effectiveness are maintained, the answer was obedience within the context of an evolving society dedicated to humane goals and equal opportunity. An environment with no draft, an all-volunteer force, the greatest combat stress and longest extended deployments since World War II, and a base of shrinking resources required that commanders instill “intelligent obedience” in military personnel. Black sailors entering the navy from a society that discriminates expected to find the same in the navy. The navy had to make every effort to ensure a state of good discipline by eradicating all vestiges of prejudice.
Two other people spoke in defense of Bud’s programs, Admiral Bernard Clarey, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, and retired admiral U. S. Grant Sharp, Jr., commander in chief, Pacific, 1964–1968. “These equal opportunity programs have to go on and they have to be implemented,” Sharp told the committee. Hicks told Clarey that what had transpired on board the Constellation was “deliberate mutiny” and wanted to know whether Clarey agreed. “Yes sir, certainly that was collective insubordination in my view.” Hicks was incredulous at that type of nuanced language. “Well that might be a nicer way of saying mutiny. They didn’t exactly try to take over the ship, but they decided it was going to run the way they wanted it to run.” Clarey rejected the very premise. “I see no evidence of a breakdown of good order and discipline. On the contrary I see a great deal of evidence that the overall level of discipline in the fleet is as high as at any point in history.”
In the second session with Bud, the questioning quickly became nasty, and Bud became much more vigorous in defending his personnel policies. He was not going to deny that there was racism in the navy. Hicks then used letters and examples to mock the abolition of Mickey Mouse regulations, citing “sloppiness and unbuttoned jackets.” A petty officer had told him, “If I can’t tell a man to get a haircut, I can’t tell him to do anything.” Representative Daniel accused Bud of putting his head in the sand: “You absolutely refuse to face reality. We went aboard the Constellation and it looked like a pigpen. It was absolutely filthy. . . . You are letting small minorities disrupt this great record in the public mind of those people performing so well.”121 Throughout the session, all three committee members kept referring to Bud’s November “berating” of the admirals. One committee member
saw a link between recent cases of sabotage aboard certain ships and the racial incidents, alleging destruction of government property by minorities running rampant.
In California, the committee did everything possible to maneuver Captain Ward into admitting that the human-services officer on the Constellation was responsible for the breakdown in discipline. Ward refused to bite, insisting that his officer played an important and constructive role, giving the example of black sailors being addressed as “boy” by petty officers. Chairman Hicks insisted that the term boy had “nothing to do with color, race, or anything else.” Congressman Pirnie told Ward that blacks should be grateful for even being allowed in the navy. They were “lucky,” because standards had been lowered and they now had better jobs than they might otherwise have had. Ward interjected by saying that his Human Relations Panel would never say such a thing, because it implied blacks were inferior. “If he doesn’t pass the test, isn’t he?” asked the congressman.122
Commander Cloud’s testimony was especially important. He was black; the committee, entirely white. Cloud came out swinging, reminding the committee that the navy was the last armed service to comply with executive orders banning segregation and that many of the sailors had fathers who had served in World War II, when the navy was known as a place where blacks could rise no farther than steward’s mate. Their fathers held the view that “the Navy is the most biased, segregated branch of the service there is, so if you have to go into a service, don’t go into the United States Navy.” Cloud reminded the committee that Truman’s 1948 mandate that the armed services integrate had had only limited effect on the navy. He testified that at the time he enlisted in 1952, he could not use base facilities at many installations, including Pensacola. “The black, no matter what you say, feels the pressures of segregation more in his attempts to secure housing and education for his children than he does anyplace else. The Navy, up until recently, has condoned, basically, segregated housing, [and] medical as well as school facilities.”123
The pressure on Bud during this period was most obvious to those closest to him. In late November, Mel Laird sent a birthday greeting: “I find it hard to believe that the 49-year old Admiral I swore in as CNO in 1970 is now 52. The time has passed fast. . . . Of course, when you have as many ‘balls in the air’ as you do, you are bound to drop one or two. Sometimes those that are dropped get all the emphasis, and the successes are somewhat overlooked. On this important day in your life, your 52nd birthday, I want you to know that I measure your performance as CNO by the countless successes. Keep those ‘balls in the air,’ Bud. You are a fine leader. You have my full confidence and backing.”124 Laird then went public with a strong statement of support, insisting that Bud would finish his term. Dan Murphy saw this as the best evidence that “Laird and his people are all behind you.”125
Some of Bud’s support came from the unlikeliest quarters. In a handwritten note of appreciation for visiting him in the hospital during the pressure-packed days of the hearings, Admiral Rickover said, “Please accept my best wishes during this troublesome period. Nothing is actually as bad as it seems at the time. I believe the worst is over and that the Navy will be the better off to have its problems aired.”126
Bud also received a call from former secretary of defense Robert McNamara offering a strong possible defense. “Tell them McNamara told him some time ago he regretted he had not enacted in advance the movement to get racial equality—say it!”127 Bud refused to put any of the load on McNamara, telling him that “this was an effort to turn the clock back.” He informed McNamara that he had a group of active admirals “whose sense of law and order has permitted them to go in revolt.” McNamara agreed that “we can’t turn it back.”128
Sometime during the Hicks hearings, two officers visiting the Pentagon presented Bud with a poster depicting a black kitten clinging desperately to a narrow rod with the caption, “Hang in there, baby.”129 Bud told his family, “I just keep leaning forward.”
Bud’s attention was diverted from the hearings to Vietnam on the morning of November 30, when he attended a JCS meeting at which the president and Henry Kissinger planned to brief the chiefs on the draft treaty being negotiated by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in Paris.130 The president began the meeting by saying that on May 8 he had laid down three conditions for peace; one, a cease-fire; two, return of American prisoners of war and an accounting of the missing in action; and three, assurance that the people of South Vietnam will have the right to determine their future without the imposition of a communist government or communist coalition. “The proposal made by Hanoi on October 8 meets these requirements but now Saigon and some in the U.S. say this is not enough. The facts are, however, that if the American people knew all the details of what has been offered, they would never continue to support a prolongation of the war.”
Bud was one of the first to recognize the depths of Nixon’s deception. “The President’s discussion of the status of the cease-fire increased my sense of being on a strange planet. I could not help reflecting that the crews of Kitty Hawk, Hassayampa, and Constellation had not been able to deal with the Vietnam War from armchairs in a quiet study. It was perfectly obvious to all of us at the time that the promise of massive American assistance to South Vietnam and of prompt U.S. retaliation to serious truce violations were the critical elements in securing the cease-fire and that the fulfillment of these promises would be the critical element in maintaining the cease-fire. Yet the administration never really let the American people—or Congress—in on this non-secret, apparently on the assumption that the critical element in persuading Americans to accept the terms of the cease-fire was to allow them to believe that it meant the end of any kind of American involvement in Vietnam no matter what happened there after the cease-fire was agreed to. Not even the JCS were informed that written commitments were made to Thieu [President of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu]. There are at least two words no one can use to characterize the outcome of that two-faced policy. One is ‘peace.’ The other is ‘honor.’ ”131
The Hicks committee completed its work in December, and the chairman pledged to release a final report in early January. Rumors that Bud was being fired because of violence and unrest in the navy pervaded the news. Under the headline REPORT SAYS ZUMWALT IS ON THE WAY OUT, the December 17, 1972, Washington Star quoted Congressman William L. Clay (D-Missouri) that President Nixon had decided to reassign Zumwalt. “You can quote me as saying Kissinger told Zumwalt he was going to be fired.” Human Events predicted that Bud’s “knuckles would be rapped” for going too far too fast. The story sourced Representative Harold R. Gross (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Foreign Affairs committee. “If Admiral Zumwalt is so liberal and soft that he cannot enforce discipline in the Navy, he should get out or be tossed out.”132 Bud lamented that “the pros are coming out with favorable articles and they are hurting me because they are too liberal and the antis are coming out with the other stuff in rebuttal.”133
Conservative columnist Max Rafferty took aim at Zumwalt in a column titled “Wave of Tolerance Swamping Navy”: “A Navy that is rotten with rebellion, palsied with permissiveness and disintegrating with disobedience is far more dangerous to our national security than having no Navy at all.” The column was sent to Zumwalt with a letter: “If you were any kind of man you would resign. You don’t belong in the Nixon camp anyway. You’re a Johnson type rinky-dink.”134
Bud’s supporters also surfaced, in force. Retired lieutenant R. P. Leavitt of Hartsdale, New York, wrote, “If the President replaces you, at least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have been a man just a little ahead of his time at a time when ‘time is out of joint.’ If the rumor proves to be true and you lose the battle, it will be just one more instance in which later times recognize a man who, if heeded, could have greatly eased the transition from past to clearly predictable future. I feel strongly that you personally embody the whole future of the volunteer Navy in these changing times.”135
Lieutenant General Robert E. Pursley, who had been outside the door when Bud first arrived in Washington for his CNO interview and was now commander of U.S. forces in Japan, offered support. In a “Dear Bud” letter on December 18, 1972, he wrote, “Times are never easy for those who are too innovative, imaginative, and energetic. . . . I know there has been turbulence during your tenure as CNO. I want you to know that at least one of your most avid supporters, this old ‘fish’ here, views the activity in an affirmative context. Recognizing that taking hard knocks is not the most pleasant pursuit imaginable, I hope you will continue to press on and will continue to be the uniformed leader who commands our highest respect. You have mine, Bud.”136
While waiting for the Hicks report, Bud received a note from Howard Kerr. Four years earlier, they had arrived together on day one in Vietnam. “I believe that the position you have taken is nothing less than Lincolnesque. What is at stake is nothing less than the quality of our commitment to our service, our country and our fellow man—And these are not divisible. You are running with the tide of history. I am proud to know you and serve you.”137 Another former Vietnam hand, Bob Powers, wrote that he had heard on Armed Forces Radio that the critics were having a field day. “What I really want to say is that there are many who haven’t lost the faith. If there is anything I can do, I would be eager to respond.”138