H.Appleby: Thanks for the advice.
On a side note,
Sir David Frost died last Saturday. The reason I'm mentioning his passing is to point out that in TTL, we don't get his famous interviews with Richard Nixon. Thus no
Frost/Nixon.
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Military Infighting
On June 9th, 1961, one hundred million Americans gathered around television sets to watch astronaut John Glenn blast off into space and become the second man to orbit the Earth. The flight demonstrated the power of American technology to break free of the planet’s atmosphere and send a man around the world three times. It instantly made Glenn a national hero and enabled the President to declare days later that the United States would have a man walking on the surface of the Moon by the end of the decade. However, just as the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 had overshadowed Harriet Quimby’s historic first female flight across the English Channel, Glenn’s flight drew public attention away from another technological demonstration. On June 8th, Bell Laboratories gave the first public demonstration of their latest research and development project: the Bell Rocket Belt. A low-power rocket propulsion device, the BRB had been designed to allow individuals to safely travel across small distances. The Army, always interested in finding ways to improve the mobility of their soldiers, had provided the funding for the jet pack program in 1959. Two years later, the people at Bell Laboratories were confident enough in their BRB to give an open demonstration of what they had developed so far. They invited the Secretary of Defense, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the top military officers to attend the demonstration at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Before a crowd of several hundred people, a test pilot activated the three-foot-tall hydrogen peroxide rocket belt and lifted himself off the ground. He reached an altitude of four feet and flew smoothly over a distance of one hundred feet before landing twenty seconds later. The demonstration that a man could achieve flight all by himself wowed the audience. Of course, as impressive as it had been, it was the space flight the very next day which turned the BRB into a technological Quimby - impressive but easily outdone.
For Maxwell Taylor, watching the rocket belt demonstration provided a nice distraction from all the drama back in Washington. As Chief of Staff of the Army, Taylor was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which served as America’s top military brass. Theoretically, it was Taylor’s job to work hand-in-hand with his colleagues to ensure that the United States military was a cohesive force ready at any given moment to deal with any problem that threatened America’s strategic interests around the world. Unfortunately, the reality was quite different. Instead of being a cohesive force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a chaotic body of clashing military chiefs. Instead of working hand-in-hand, two of the three military services spent more time fighting each other than they did planning to fight the enemy. Chief of Naval Operations Hyman Rickover and Chief of Staff of the Air Force Curtis Lemay were constantly at each other’s throats, completely unable to get along and find common ground in which to cooperate. They were incompatible as partners because they were both strong-willed, driven by vision, and had nothing but outspoken contempt for anyone who disagreed with that vision. The inter-service feuding between the Navy and the Air Force was driven by their deeply-held beliefs that their respective services was more important than the other and that any attention that wasn’t paid exclusively to them was an immediate waste of resources and personnel. This bitter rivalry between Rickover and Lemay hamstrung coordination between their two services, giving the United States military an Achilles’ heel it could ill-afford in the midst of the Cold War. For his part, Taylor tried to steer clear of the war within the Joint Chiefs of Staff as much as possible and focused all his energy on running his little Army kingdom as best he could.
For Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lyman Lemnitzer, it was a deeply frustrating time. As the highest-ranking military officer in the country, it was Lemnitzer’s job to coordinate the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Instead, he had his hands full trying to referee the constant feuding between Rickover and Lemay. In the summer of 1961, Lemnitzer even started complaining of headaches he was suffering from his highly stressful job. His wife was alarmed at the toll being Chairman was taking on him and became fearful that the job was actually killing him. Not helping his awful headaches was what he considered to be
“indifference” on the part of the Commander-in-Chief.
“Talking to the President about this is useless,” he complained privately.
“No matter how many times I try to explain to him the dangerous situation this infighting poses to our ability to deal effectively with military problems, he refuses to take whatever I say into consideration.”
According to Lemnitzer, Jackson’s biggest weakness as President was his refusal to second-guess himself once he had made a decision. Having put Rickover and Lemay in charge of their respective services, Scoop proceeded to turn a blind eye towards their rivalry. He dismissed the Chairman’s pleas that he take the lead in bringing the Army, Navy, and Air Force together into being one cohesive force. His response was always to point out that inter-service disagreements were inevitable because
“everyone thinks they can win the war all by themselves.”
Jackson told Lemnitzer that he was worrying too much and that he should simply just accept the natural tension as being part of the job.
“I do hope we never find ourselves in a war with the Soviets and the Chinese, Mr. President,” the Chairman once retorted after yet another fruitless meeting on the subject. “
What I’m afraid of is that if war should happen to break out, two of our services will use it as an excuse to lob bombs at each other instead of at our enemies.”
Taylor had little difficulty running the Army, his integrity and intelligence making him a highly-respected leader. Gruff and always chomping on a cigar, Lemay ran the Air Force with an iron fist. He made it very difficult for anyone to challenge him and live to tell about it. The Navy on the other hand was embroiled in a political civil war between Rickover and seemingly everyone else. Sharp-tongued and highly critical, Rickover made enemies everywhere he went and put in no effort at all to win people over to his side. Either you allowed him to do whatever he wanted or you got ran over by him if you dared to express opposition. When he wasn’t busy fighting Lemay over the appropriation of resources and personnel, Rickover was busy ignoring Secretary of the Navy John F. Kennedy (1917-1968). Theoretically, JFK was the highest ranking official within the Department of the Navy and Rickover was his deputy who had to answer to him. In reality, Kennedy often found himself completely frozen out of Rickover’s decision-making process. The Chief of Naval Operations had nothing but utter contempt for his civilian boss and found it insulting that
“I should answer to that stupid playboy who has only gotten anywhere in life because of his father’s money.”
The facts that JFK was well-educated, had commanded a patrol torpedo boat in the Pacific during World War Two and had seen combat, and had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for his book “Profiles in Courage” meant nothing to the dismissive Rickover. He deeply resented the idea that he had to answer to anybody aside from the President; having Jackson’s full confidence, the Chief of Naval Operations proceeded to cut Kennedy out of the loop as much as he could. This derisive treatment infuriated JFK, who considered it to be a blatant violation of the long-held principle of civilian control over the military. He also took it very personally:
“That S.O.B. thinks that anyone who doesn’t sail around in a submarine isn’t worth anything!”
Like Lemnitzer, Kennedy found that any complaints he took to the President about Rickover fell on deaf ears. Instead, he confided all his anger to his younger brother Robert (1925-2003). RFK was the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, having been appointed to his brother’s seat after JFK had resigned to become Secretary of the Navy. A freshman member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (which was also home to a first-term Republican Senator from California named Richard Nixon), Robert had voted for Rickover’s nomination but now deeply-regretted having done so. It filled him with rage that his dear brother was being treated so horribly and that nothing was being done to rein Rickover in. When Senator Kennedy secured an appointment with the President, he didn’t mince words.
“You’re a friend of Jack’s,” he forcefully reminded him.
“How can you be okay with this terrible treatment he’s getting?”
Bobby went on to urge Scoop to make clear to Rickover that
“my brother is in charge and that his views will govern. You need to make him know who is boss.”
The President conceded that Rickover was a very difficult person to get along with but defended his Chief of Naval Operations by stating that his brilliance and can-do attitude made up for his personal defects. When it became clear to Robert that Henry was standing firmly behind Hyman with no intention of reprimanding him, he left the meeting fuming. If there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate above all else, it was insults to his family. He therefore vowed to seek revenge against Jackson...an ominous vow considering he had played a key role in the Oppenheimer Scandal of 1954 which had hurt his own political party in the name of exposing weakness.
(Massachusetts Senator Robert Francis Kennedy was merciless towards anyone who crossed him...even towards the President of the United States)
To say that Hyman George Rickover had enemies is putting it mildly. He was a walking controversy who possessed the Midas touch of turning people against him. As it turned out, he had one group of enemies even Jackson couldn’t ignore. The navy officers who had hunted down German submarines in the Atlantic and had destroyed the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific during World War Two were now the Admirals in the United States Navy. Their experiences during the war formed their convictions that carriers and cruisers should form the heart of the world’s most powerful navy. They took a dim view of nuclear submarines, which they considered to be merely support vessels. Not surprisingly, the choice of Rickover as Chief of Naval Operations didn’t sit well with them. They saw him as an unbearable heretic with dangerous ideas. Equally unsurprising, Rickover didn’t like the Admirals either. He saw them as Old Guards who were dangerously out of touch with reality.
“The days of ships blasting each other to pieces are over,” he would often say in his typical blunt manner.
“There will never be another Trafalgar or Jutland. Never.”
Rickover understood that in the modern era of ICBMs and strategic bombers, simply having a big navy sailing around wasn’t going to cut it. In order for the United States Navy to fight effectively in the Cold War, it had to fight with a Cold War mindset. The Chief of Naval Operations saw nuclear submarines as representing the future of naval warfare: surgical strikes. Nuclear submarines gave countries the ability to conduct devastating hit-and-run strikes against their enemies right in their own waters. The advantages that nuclear submarines offered formed the basis of Rickover’s conviction that they should form the heart of the world’s most powerful navy instead.
Rickover believed that
“good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.”
In order to get his
“good ideas” adopted by the Navy, he was driven to fight the Old Guard Admirals and force them to see things his way. His
“courageous patience” and the Admirals’ unwillingness to give in to him generated tensions within the Navy that built up throughout 1961. Those tensions finally erupted on Monday, August 14th when Jackson had a meeting with a senior Admiral who was the leader of the unhappy gang of twelve. Going into that meeting with the sense that it would have something to do with Rickover, the President invited Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze over to the Oval Office
“so you can see the continual griping I have to put up with in this job.”
The meeting started off predictably enough. The Admiral railed against Rickover, listing all the complaints about how he was absolutely the wrong man for the job. Jackson shot Nitze a bemused glance indicating that he wasn’t really hearing anything that he hadn’t heard before. That was when the Admiral uttered something so unexpected that it actually bolted the President straight out of his complacency:
“Mr. President, since you do not appreciate those who recognize the fallacy of having this unqualified man in charge of our proud service, you leave us with no other choice but to take what some may say is a drastic step.”
Scoop was silent as the leader of this gang of twelve issued him an ultimatum: either he recognizes his mistake and dismisses Rickover from his position or the Admirals would resign in protest and publically embarrass the President. He would have forty-eight hours to make his decision. The Secretary of Defense was flabbergasted at what he heard. This was a clear violation of the principle of civilian control over the military. The President was the Commander-in-Chief and therefore had ultimate authority over what the three services did and did not do. He would tell the Admirals what to do, not the other way around. Stunned beyond belief, Nitze looked squarely at Scoop and saw a stony expression on his face. Once the Admiral had departed the Oval Office, Jackson went off like a bomb:
“Who does that SOB think he is?! I’m the President of the United States! He can’t talk to me like that! He can’t tell me what to do!”
Nitze shared his boss’ fury at the spectacle which had just unfolded in front of them.
“This is completely unacceptable behavior,” he declared while crossing his arms and leaning backwards against the couch he was sitting on.
“Admiral Rickover serves at your pleasure, not theirs. They can hate him, but they can’t get rid of him like that. You’re the one who wants him there, Mr. President.”
The two men sat there and verbally discussed what the response to the Admiral’s ultimatum would be. Giving in to them was out of the question and having them resign in protest wasn’t going to be tolerated by the civilian leadership.
“He was wrong about one thing,” Nitze said to Jackson, who smirked sarcastically in return.
“He told you that you only have two options. In reality, there is a third option available to you.”
Since these Admirals were defiantly trying to exert their will over the will of the civilian leadership, that gave Jackson grounds to relieve the Admirals of their command and terminate them for trying to overrule his supreme authority. That's exactly what he proceeded to do.
(If Jackson had possessed the powers of Darth Vader, he could have handled Nitze’s termination advice like this)
Scoop never regretted his decision to fire the twelve Admirals after they had challenged his authority so directly. He felt that he had to make it clear that the ultimatum brazenly violated the principle of civilian control over the military and that it therefore warranted a strong response. It certainly made Rickover happy, for the firing decimated the Old Guard and enabled the rise of a new generation of Admirals who agreed with him that the United States Navy needed to operate in the 1960s using a 1960s mindset. They shared his opposition to the notion of fighting tomorrow’s battles using yesterday’s tactics. Some historians have praised Jackson’s response to the revolt, citing the need to firmly smack the military back into line. Others have been critical, using this episode as evidence in their arguments that Jackson was bad at judgment-making. They contend that the entire episode had been unnecessary and could have been avoided had the President been willing to show finesse. The most common complaint Jackson gets about his Presidency was that he was too decisive. Once he had made up his mind to do something, that was it. He would be committed to his decision and would rarely second-guess himself on the matter. In this case, once he had decided to appoint Rickover as Chief of Naval Operations, he stuck with it despite the problems that then ensued. Indeed, the firing of the Admirals did nothing to ease the tensions between Rickover and Lemnitzer/JFK. The stress between those two sides would continue to build until it too finally erupted in early 1962.
