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

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: Library of Congress
• 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
• Publication Date: November 6, 1970
• Content Type: MEMO

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
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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