Admiral Zumwalt Quotes

Zumwalt was frequently and widely regarded as a sailor’s admiral. Extreme loyalty to subordinates was one of the hallmarks of his career. Particularly when he commanded at sea or in combat, Zumwalt drove his people hard but also did what he could to share their experience and make life a little easier on them. As commander of all US naval forces in Vietnam, he was a frequent visitor to both frontline combat units and hospitals, and his efforts to improve life for his sailors ran the gamut from delivering cases of beer in his personal helicopter to spending real time with wounded sailors in hospitals.

Then Turner was selected to work with the whiz kids under Robert McNamara in the 1960s, when systems analysis was all the rage. When Admiral Elmo Zumwalt became the new chief of naval operations in 1970, he put Turner in charge of new initiatives in his first sixty days. Through it all, Turner became convinced the military was hidebound and desperately needed new thinking. He once used systems analysis to study naval minesweeping and showed how it could be done better and faster from a helicopter than from a ship.

As he had been at several key points earlier in his career, Zumwalt was “deep-selected” for the position: vaulted over the heads of many seniors and peers. Like the papacy, the CNO’s job tends to be obsessively watched, and the watchers tend to have a strong sense of the likely candidates for elevation when the top job comes open. Zumwalt was not on any of the watch lists, even as a dark horse; when

Always what the Navy calls a “deck plate leader,” someone who is highly visible and close to his subordinates, Zumwalt as CNO continued to listen widely and well to sailors and officers throughout the service in the belief that they knew best what changes needed to be made.

Poignantly, much of Zumwalt’s post-Vietnam advocacy was directed at securing public recognition and benefits for US service members harmed by exposure to Agent Orange and other defoliants. Zumwalt became firmly convinced that both his son Elmo III’s cancer and his grandson Elmo IV’s severe learning disabilities were attributable to effects of Agent Orange. Though he never recanted his decision to order the use of defoliants, Zumwalt (and Mouza) never fully forgave himself for his son’s death, either.

Bud Zumwalt, Tom Moorer, and Mel Laird fought back against the back-channel system with a “three tiered spying operation” targeted at Kissinger and aimed at ascertaining what was being withheld.26 Secretary of Defense Laird was especially taken aback upon learning that he had not even been told about the start of the first secret meeting in Paris on August 4, 1969, between Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy. The president did not want either his secretary of defense or the Joint Chiefs to know about the meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, Laird decided to make use of the top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to monitor White House back-channel activity. The NSA is the Department of Defense’s communications espionage agency; the DIA is its all-source military intelligence agency. Laird told each of the military men he selected to spy on the White House that “they’d better be loyal to me.” He promised each four stars after four years and kept his promise.27 From this deal, Laird got all the information he needed about Kissinger’s contacts with foreign governments, his secure telephone conversations, and the back-channel messages on his secret conversations in Paris with Le Duc Tho and on the SALT negotiations.28 “Henry was very smart, but Mel was smarter,” observed former secretary of state George Shultz. “Mel enjoyed the bureaucratic in-fighting and was a match for Henry.”29 NSA operatives intercepted all back-channel messages, and the U.S. Signal Corps tracked White House conversations. The Special Air Missions branch of the air force controlled the planes that Kissinger used for his secret trips.30 Laird often knew Kissinger’s destination before Henry did, which is probably the reason Laird reportedly had advance knowledge of Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing. Laird never let Kissinger in on the fact that he had this information.

Bud Zumwalt, Tom Moorer, and Mel Laird fought back against the back-channel system with a “three tiered spying operation” targeted at Kissinger and aimed at ascertaining what was being withheld.26 Secretary of Defense Laird was especially taken aback upon learning that he had not even been told about the start of the first secret meeting in Paris on August 4, 1969, between Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative

Xuan Thuy. The president did not want either his secretary of defense or the Joint Chiefs to know about the meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, Laird decided to make use of the top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to monitor White House back-channel activity. The NSA is the Department of Defense’s communications espionage agency; the DIA is its all-source military intelligence agency. Laird told each of the military men he selected to spy on the White House that “they’d better be loyal to me.” He promised each four stars after four years and kept his promise.27 From this deal, Laird got all the information he needed about Kissinger’s contacts with foreign governments, his secure telephone conversations, and the back-channel messages on his secret conversations in Paris with Le Duc Tho and on the SALT negotiations.28 “Henry was very smart, but Mel was smarter,” observed former secretary of state George Shultz. “Mel enjoyed

the bureaucratic in-fighting and was a match for Henry.”29 NSA operatives intercepted all back-channel messages, and the U.S. Signal Corps tracked White House conversations. The Special Air Missions branch of the air force controlled the planes that Kissinger used for his secret trips.30 Laird often knew Kissinger’s destination before Henry did, which is probably the reason Laird reportedly had advance knowledge of Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing. Laird never let Kissinger in on the fact that he had this information.