TALKER FOR LUNCHEON WITH ADMIRAL ZUMWALT AT 1:00 P.M., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1970

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4
Release Decision: 
RIPLIM
Original Classification: 
S
Document Page Count: 
3
Document Creation Date: 
January 11, 2017
Document Release Date: 
May 3, 2011
Sequence Number: 
1
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
November 6, 1970
Content Type: 
MEMO
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PDF icon LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4.pdf259.53 KB
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No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4 MEMORANDUM THE WHITE HOUSE SECRET/SENSITIVE MEMORANDUM FOR HENRY A. KISSINGER FROM: Al Haig November 6, 1970 SUBJECT: Talker for Luncheon with Admiral Zumwalt at 1:00 p.m., Friday, November 6, 1970 Although your luncheon meeting today is primarily a social get- together, you may want to raise the following subjects with Admiral Zumwalt: -- Tell him you have been most impressed by what you have heard about the program he has launched to boost morale and keep talent in the Navy. (See article, on left flap, from current issue of TIME.) Ask him to elaborate on some of the present-day problems of motivating young people for service life. -- Ask for his thoughts on possible Defense Department organizational changes resulting from the Blue Ribbon Defense Panel study. -- Ask him what changes in Naval force structure he would make if the Navy's budget were increased by $1 billion; decreased by $1 billion. -- Discuss the possibility of establishing a greater American presence in Malta; including the need for repair facilities, possible home-porting of Sixth Fleet ships, 'effect on stability of Maltese Government, need. for best possible. U. S.. representa- tion, and possible ways to stimulate Maltese acceptance of an increased presence (e. g. approaching the Maltese community in San Francisco). -- Since both you and Admiral Zumwalt have talked to Lee Kuan Yew, you might ask Admiral Zumwalt how he evaluates the political /military impact of possible Soviet use of facilities in Singapore and whether he favors an effort to establish a U. S. base there.. SEC RET /SENSITIVE No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4 No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4 SECRET/SENSITIVE - 2 - --- Ask for his assessment of the implications for Hemis- pheric Defense of Allende's election in Chile and measures we should consider taking. -- Tell him that a NSSM is being prepared calling for an inter-agency study of the Indian Ocean, and ask for his candid views on What measures should be taken, if any, in light of Soviet naval expansion into the Indian Ocean and British withdrawal. -- Ask Admiral Zumwalt to explain the advantages and disad- vantages of the possible reconfiguration of aircraft carriers for a dual attack and anti-submarine warfare role. -- * Admiral Zumwalt may ask whether you are planning to talk to Vice Admiral Rickover. Tell him you have made several attempts to meet with Admiral Rickover and expect to see him after your return from Florida. Ask how he feels about Rickover!s ideas. -- Ask Admiral Zumwalt whether he feels we can effectively combat the Soviet Y Class (Polaris type) submarine threat. SECRET /SENSITIVE No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4 rv6V - i;er?ec;nn Cn f nr there hnve hewn cev- mer flefen%e Secretary Robert McNa- . ARM No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LOC-HAK-432-6-1-4 conscious, experts in Zingi,pg Zumwalt, U.S.N. ~.,incers to aviators and fleet enlisted their.,wn language. His studies now con- Navy, traditionally the nation's most class-conscious service. There was its highest officer, his bushy eyebrows knit in concentration, his head tilted to catch each word, as some 1,000 sail- ors at the San Diego Naval Station met, with him to sound off their gripes ?--some general, some highly personal -about military life. Quietly and sym- pathetically, Admiral Elmo "Bud") Zumwalt; responded to each. Clarence Burris, a black cook whose wife had died of cancer and whose three Baugh- ters now need his presence, pleaded for a shore assignment, since his ship was about to sail. Zumwalt immediately ordered aides to arrange a change of duty. As he stepped from the stage, the sailors rose and cheered. A tall petty officer blocked his path. "Thank you, Admiral," he told Zumwalt, "for treating us like people.'!- Although he was promoted to Chief of Naval Operations only four months ago, Zumwalt already has demonstrated that Defense Secretary Melvin Laird acted shrewdly in selecting him over 33 senior admirals. Zumwalt is proving unusually well-equipped in both incli- nation and experience to tackle the two most pressing challenges now facing all of the armed services: to retain and at- tract more volunteers at a time of wide! spread youthful antagonism toward the military, and to maintain U.S. security despite the curtailment of defense budgets. Electric Feeling. At 49, Zumwalt is the youngest G.N.O. the Navy has had. In his last assignment, as commander gf U.S. naval forces in Viet Nam, .he toured, almost daily, the coastal bases, .ships at sea. boats and barges of his "muddy water" navy. While he plotted overall strategy to check enemy ship- ping and water-borne infiltration, he gave junior officers and chiefs consid- erable leeway with tactics for their own vessels. He also heard out their com- plaints and came away convinced that to- day's servicemen have "an absolute right men. In most cases, the wives of the men were invited. to make suggestions, too. Z-Grams. The chance to bend Zum- wait's car is no mere exercise in ca- tharsis. Out of all the suggestions he has heard, he has so far circulated more than 800 as "greenstripers"-of- ficial green-bordered papers calling for reaction from selected commands. Of these, 65% have been turned into "Z- grams," which are direct orders from Zumwalt to effect changes in the ser- vice. Already famous throughout the fleet, they are aimed mainly at elim- inating many seemingly minor, but unsettling, irritations of military life. The best-known Z-gram sets a goal of 15 minutes as .the maximum time vince him that more of the nation s nu- clear deterrent must be moved to sea with longer-range, submarine-carried missiles. His Navy must produce a ship- to-ship missile, as the Russians have done, and it must improve its anti- Zumwalt concedes that some of the 18 working carriers could be eliminated. He proposes making the remaining flat- tops serve a dual role, carrying an- tisubmarine aircraft as well as jet fight- ers. Rather than keeping aging ships afloat, Zumwalt prefers to put money into the development of new forces, in- cluding more nuclear-powered ships, hy- drofoils and vertical takeoff aircraft. He is-especially interested in all aspects 'of electronic warfare and surveillance, con- tending that if there is a World War ZUMWALT An ear for af!, even wives. any sailor should have to wait in any line for anything. Others expand lib- erty for men in port, permit them to wear civilian clothes at all shore in- stallations, create a pilot program to fly their wives and children (at their own expense) to ports where their ships stay. Another offers a Pentagon computer to match up sailors wishing to exchange duty stations; men used to have to engineer their own swaps. Z. grim 3x permits beer-vending machines in enlisted men's quarters and alcoholic III, the relative mastery of electronics will determine the outcome. Decorated for World War II service aboard a destroyer in the Battle for Leyte Gulf, Zumwalt also commanded a river gunboat that sailed up the Yangtze River to help disarm Japanese forces.in Shanghai. There he met an-at- tractive White Russian girl from Man- churia, Mouza Coutelais-du-Roche. who is now his wife. Trim and fit in body, Zumwalt is also a disciplined logician. He won speech and debating laurels at the Naval Academy (where he ranked 34th in his class of 615, but 175th in con- duct). An eclectic thinker, he prefers reading contemporary political, socio- ulist disdain for those traditions that-de- . beverages in all barracks with individual mean low-ranking personnel. The result rooms. is what the civilian-edited Atavy Times Kremlin Scholar. Even as he moves calls "an electric feeling throughout the to take some of the starch out of Navy whale Navy." One Zumwalt technique, life, Zumwalt has also taken charge as at San Diego, has been to visit modernizing its forces to meet its t naval installations to hear out his men. ditional missions. He does not like Already he has met with some 30,000 Administration's insistence that the fl of them. He has also initiated what he be cut by about 30% . (from rougl{ calls, a bit stuffily, "retention study 900 to 600 ships); but if it must groups"---personrcl from selected cat- done, he wants to decide how to do egories who spend a week at the Pen- A former director of the Pentago ttapn to exchange grievances, then pre- Naval Operations Systems Analy stet them to 7ttntiu?att in an hnc,r-Inn, (mum- hc: was ccl,+c_trcl to art+ttc with f to be treated better than they have been "--they have volunteered for an un- popular war." As C.N.O., Zumwalt has effectively applied his philosophical bent---an un- usual blend of suave intellectualism in the Maxwell'Taylor tradition and a pop- No Objection to Declassification in Part 2011/05/03: LUC-HAK-432-6-1-4