A Son’s Measure of His Father

But let me also put another perspective on it. He would sometimes go two or three years without having a drink. So 99 percent of the time, he was a man of honor, of integrity, he was the old style World War II, Herman Wouk, "Winds of War" naval officer—

Like Pug Henry.
Yes, he was just like Pug Henry in almost every way. The pre-World War II naval officer corps—this was true in the Army as well—had its strengths and its weakness. One was that they were so small that everybody knew everybody and therefore it was kind of like a large men's club. They had really high standards, and they were apolitical and all that. But at the same time, they were very insular, very insular, and there wasn't the kind of racial diversity or gender diversity or ethnic diversity [there is now]. Admiral Rickover at the Academy was ostracized because he was Jewish. I remember in my class at the Naval Academy, there was one African American graduate in my class, and that was the class of 1958. So their strength was that they had very high standards of honor and leadership, duty, honor, country, but their perspective was based on the professional Navy. That was their lives. The big event was the Army-Navy game—you know, my God, "We've got to beat Army." Well, I'd love to beat Army, but I didn't cry when we lost.

Your dad was not a political admiral by any means —
No, but my mother was very politically astute. When my dad was head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, she would go over to hearings, and she liked that environment very much.

And she would fix Carl Vinson breakfast.
Yeah, Carl Vinson used to come by for breakfast very early in the morning—around 6:30, I think she said. Vinson had also known my grandfather. Again, it was kind of a small group of people in Washington, D.C., and in the military. You and I know about the Army-Navy Club, and I think I've been there five times in my life, but that was a gathering place. It was over on Farragut Square, and they'd be down there all the time.

Your grandfather seems to have been hugely important but almost ghostly in a way.
I can only remember, in World War II, seeing him once or twice when I was very young. And he died as soon as the war was over. But my father had extreme admiration for my grandfather and really revered him and always wanted to please him. You can get into a lot of psychobabble, but also, my father had just turned 16 when he entered the Naval Academy. Very young. That's very young to enter that world. Some of his classmates were 21, so he always had this social awkwardness which my mother never had—she can charm anyone. But he really looked up to my grandfather with intense admiration. My grandfather was much more gregarious, outgoing, popular—he was just an extrovert.

© 2008