232 Arthur

Voiceover: This program is sponsored by the United States Naval Institute. (Theme music) Voiceover: The following is a production of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Bringing citizens and citizen soldiers together through the exploration of military history, topics, and current affairs, this is Pritzker Military Presents. Clarke: Welcome to Pritzker Military Presents featuring Admiral Stanley R. Arthur, former Vice Chief of Operations, US Navy Retired, for an exploration of his career in the US navy with interviewer Dr. Edward Marolda. I’m your host Ken Clarke, and this program is coming to you from the Pritzker Military Museum and Library in downtown Chicago, and it’s sponsored by the United States Naval Institute. This program and hundreds more are available on demand at PritzkerMilitary.org. Admiral Stanley Arthur is a distinguished and highly decorated naval officer who was commissioned in the US navy in 1957 and earned his wings as a naval aviator in 1958. He became one of the most highly decorated aviators of the Vietnam War. He completed 514 combat missions, a feat that earned him eleven separate distinguished flying crosses and over fifty separate air medal awards. In 1990 he took command of the United States Seventh Fleet and had oversight of the naval forces central command. In that capacity he led US and multi- national forces in Operation Desert Storm. (1:55-2:22 is a repeat of the previous phrases) He was appointed Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the second highest commissioned United States Navy by President George HW Bush with confirmation by the senate in 1992. Admiral Arthur’s previous assignments include commanding officer of attack squadron 164 onboard the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, the commanding officer of combat store ship USS San Jose, the commanding officer of aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, and as commander of carrier group seven. His staff tours include assignments with the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, the rapid deployment task force, central command, and the bureau of naval personnel. He also served as deputy chief of naval operations for logistics. A highly decorated officer in his thirty-eight years of service, Admiral Arthur's awards include the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, and more. Admiral Arthur attended Miami University on a naval ROTC scholarship, graduating in 1957. He later earned a second bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School and received his master's degree in administration from George Washington University. He was inducted into the Naval Aviation Hall of Fame in 2008. Interviewing Admiral Arthur today is Dr. Edward Marolda. Dr. Marolda served for many years as US Navy senior historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command, and was their acting director of navy histories and the chief of the histories and archives division. He earned a master's in European diplomatic history and a Ph.D. in US history at George Washington University. He has authored numerous books on the history of the US Navy; recent works include Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia, Naval Airwar: The Rolling Thunder Campaign, Ready Seapower: A History of the US Seventh Fleet, and he coauthored the award winning Shield and Sword: The US Navy and the Persian Gulf War. A US Army veteran of the Vietnam War, Dr. Marolda spearheaded the navy's oral histories initiatives and partnerships through the United States Naval Institute Oral History Program. Please join me in welcoming to the Pritzker Military Museum and Library Admiral Stanley R. Arthur and Dr. Edward Marolda. Gentlemen, thank you. (Applause) Marolda: Thank you, Ken. It's a pleasure to be here tonight and to discuss the distinguished career of Admiral Stanley R. Arthur. We spent some fifty hours, the admiral and I, at his home in Orlando, Florida covering his entire life, not only his navy career, but pre and post times as well. It was your--your time in the navy was certainly a time of great importance to the United States in our history; a time of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, various other crises. It was a period of the Cold War and our confrontation with the Soviet Union. And it was also a time of very great social change in the United States in our society, problems but solutions as well. The--one of the things that I, in talking with you and learning about your past and your glorious career, everyone I talked to in preparation for the interviews made it clear that they all respected your integrity, your personality, and your down-to-earth common sense. It’s a cliché, but I think it's appropriate in this occasion that you are a sailor's admiral. And we got that from everyone I talked to. And one of the attributes that you also have, of course very essential to a good leader is personal bravery, bravery in combat. And in that regard there's one episode that if you could talk a bit about, I think our audience would enjoy learning about it. During the Vietnam War there was an operation called Iron Hand, and that was to go after the enemy's radio and surface to missile air batteries. If you could talk about your experience in Iron Hand. Arthur: Well, the Iron Hand mission was a SAMs suppression mission. The SAMs had been new to us and the game and the early stages of the game when the SAMs appeared the first guys that had to face them didn’t really have a weapon that could counter. Basically they fired rockets or dropped widespread ammunition type bombs to try and get the SAM sites themselves, but we had no way of shutting down their radars. The Shrike missile came along, and so within the A4 community, the attack community, we had-- certain squadrons were designated to be primary mission Iron Hand. My early days, first two employments was with VA55, and we were an Iron Hand certified squadron. Later on when I commanded 164, laser guided bombs was our real ace in the hole, but Iron Hand was the secondary. What we did as an Iron Hand were planes on either side of the formation with the Shrike missile, our job was to--if the same radars came up we sped ahead, fired the missiles, and tried to get the radars down. Marolda: Can you describe the tactic that you employed to not be hit by the SAMs? Arthur: Well, if the SAMs had launched, the best thing to do was make sure you had them in visual range. If you could see them, you could outmaneuver them. If you couldn’t see them, they had the advantage. So as soon as you got a SAM warning the first thing you did was make sure your eyes were out of the cockpit and you picked up where the SAM was. And as long as you could keep it somehow close to the nose, wait for an appropriate time, which becomes the key to the game, make a hard break usually down away from the SAM, and although he could turn--he could pull more Gs than you could, he was much faster, so he still--we could still turn inside. And you could escape. If you pulled your nose up and slowed down, then the SAM had the advantage to you. So it was always trying to get the missile on the nose. Marolda: Well, we're fortunate that you survived that. Arthur: We did. Marolda: You obviously did. A number of your colleagues did not. It was a tough mission. Arthur: It was. Marolda: But again a demonstration of your personal bravery in combat. Stepping back to the early days when you were born on the 27th of September 1935 in San Diego, California. Arthur: Just a couple days ago. Marolda: (Chuckling) A few days back. If you could talk about your early experiences, your home life. It was during WWII, a very exciting time. And where you went and your education. Arthur: Well, my parents were both from a small town in southeastern Ohio, the town of Jackson in Jackson County. My mother was raised on a farm out in the county, and dad was raised in town. His dad was a grocer. Dad, when he graduated high school, went into the navy, enlisted in the navy, came to Great Lakes, and then was assigned to a four-stack destroyer out in San Diego. On one of his leaves back to Jackson County to see his parents he found Mom, and they ran away and got married, and came back to San Diego. And I was born, as you say, in '35 in the Balboa Naval Hospital there in San Diego. Our daughter Erin, many years later, also born Balboa Naval Hospital San Diego. So we're in San Diego, and when I’m five years old, 1941, not yet my birthday, and Dad's ship was out in Hawaii. Mom, my sister and I got on Mattson liner and sailed to Hawaii and had the ticker tape homecoming there at the port in Honolulu, had my fifth or sixth birthday there on Waikiki beach, and a few days after my birthday Dad's ship deployed through the Panama Canal and went to the Caribbean to-- Marolda: You spent most of the war years, though, in Ohio, in Philadelphia as well. Arthur: As soon as Dad's ship left Hawaii the navy forced Mom, my sister, and I to leave since we were no longer sponsored dependents on the island, or territory, of Hawaii. And we went back to the family farm in Ohio and started out--I started first grade in church school in Hawaii and ended up in a one-room schoolhouse out in the country in southeastern Ohio, a little shock for a guy that was on the beach one day and in the snow the next. So we spent most of the war years in Jackson. Dad came back for some training during the middle of the war. We went to Norfolk, and then he deployed back out to Guam and the Pacific. And then after the war with first duty station dad was with great Lakes. And we spent a year up there and then went to Philadelphia, and later on he retired from the navy after twenty-two years in Philadelphia. Marolda: Did he have a significant influence on your development? Arthur: Dad made a very major decision in my life relative to development. In high school senior year, football season was over. School wasn’t very interesting, so I thought I ought to be doing something more useful, and so I sidled up to Dad. I knew what the answer was if I sidled up to Mom, so I sidled up to Dad thinking he'd give me the okay and said, "I'm quitting school, and I'm gonna enlist in the navy." And he says, "Mm-mm, nope, you're gonna finish high school, and by the way there's an NROTC exam tacking place in about a month. You better sign up to take it." Marolda: He wanted you to become an officer even though he had been enlisted. Arthur: First he wanted me to--you could not go into life without a high school degree. I said, "I can get a GED." He said, "Not the same. I want you to get the degree, and then while you’re--since you’ve got to do that, you might as well apply for this thing." And it worked out. I got a scholarship, and off I went to Miami University. Marolda: And you got your ROTC commission in 1957. Arthur: In 1957. A week later Jenny Lou and I got married. She still had a contract with the high school. She was a secretary with the high school at the time. She stayed in Jackson, and I went to Pensacola. And after her contract was through at the end of the summer she joined me down in Pensacola; we started our adventure. Marolda: For flight training as the purpose-- Arthur: --Flight training, yeah. Marolda: I think it's amusing to me you mentioned you had a fear of heights at that point, and you’re entering a career in naval aviation. Arthur: Yeah, I still have that little problem. We were at Gettysburg. When we were in Philadelphia Dad took us out to Gettysburg, and I always want to go to the highest place. There’s always, you want to get there. I want to get there. And I wanted to go up in the observation towers, and Dad said, "Okay, here we go." And of course in those days you didn’t have elevators and that sort of thing, so you had to walk up. So he's walking up the ladders, and the next thing he knows I'm not beside him, and he looks back, and I'm on all fours crawling up. And he says, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, I'm a little scared I might fall." He says--he just kept going, and I just kept crawling. So I--Jenny Lou still laughs when we get in a glass elevator and look outside, and I'm standing in the back, and she's in the front. But in an airplane it's okay-- Marolda: You got over your fear, I think. Arthur: Yeah. Marolda: If we could move on to your Vietnam experience, we already talked about your involvement in Operation iron Hand. But you started out in antisubmarine warfare work and then transitioned into jets, jet aircraft. Arthur: Yes. Marolda: How did you make that transition? Or why did you make that transition? Arthur: Well, I started after flight training. When I came out of flight training we were flying the S2F antisubmarine carrier base aircraft, twin engine reciprocating. And a great mission, a real thinking game, playing poker and chess with submarines is a very interesting game. Did a couple of cruises in the S2 and then after PG school went to a VX1 development squadron for ASW weapons and sensors and flew lots of tests to work with ASW systems. And then payback tour for ships company-- ended up as assistant navigator on an ASW carrier. And while there, the Vietnam War kicked off. I had always wanted to be in the single engine flying game, and I said, "Well there's a war going on, and I bet they probably need some replacement pilots," and threw my name in the hat, and the next thing I knew I got short toured off Bennington and-- Marolda: Off you go. Arthur: Off I went to jets. Marolda: What was your opinion about the Vietnam War? This is the very beginning, 1964, '65. Arthur: Well, you know, the domino theory was the name of the game in those days. You know you got-- Marolda: One country after the other would fall. Arthur: --one country after the other, and it's got to stop some place. I sort of bought into that theory as well and said, "Yeah, this is probably as good a place as any to"--it's quite remote from our country, and--and I'd been in the Pacific most of my time, so you know, and not in that area, so it was probably the right place, right time to make a stop to it. So we, I think all of us, were pretty much convinced that this was the right thing to be doing and that it was important business to be done. Marolda: You served with many, many folks while you were out there in Operation Rolling Thunder, which was of course the bombing campaign from 1965 to '68. Arthur: Right. Marolda: And then the linebacker strikes in 1972. And you were executive officer of VA164 and then commanding officer. But throughout that period you had many folks that you worked with. Who were the most inspirational that you can recall? Arthur: Well, my first skipper in the jet business in VA55 was Bob Kirksey. He retired as a vice admiral, and Bob is no longer with us now. A real gentleman. He earned his silver star in a previous cruise prior to us--me joining the squadron. And here I am, a transition guy, and the fact that there were five of us lieutenant commanders at that time who were transition people who had come out of different communities, sea planes, ASW carrier, ASW to be an attack pilot. And he embraced us as, you know, he welcomed us, made us feel a part. We weren’t really strangers. And he took each one of us on our first combat missions and said, "Here's the way I want things to work." And it was good guidance, and it was something that--a lot of lessons learned. It turned out that his EXO, Jeff Wellings, was another great guy who had brought a little bit more humor to the game and gave us a little laughs along the way. Next skipper, Fred Lawler had worked a lot with marines prior to us coming, so he knew what they were facing over the beach, and we had some interface with those. And we had Jeff Monger who was the skipper of a Hancock who had a very distinguished career as the time went on, so-- Marolda: You lost some squadron mates as well. Arthur: We lost some squadron mates. And that's always the one thing that you really never forget. Marolda: Yeah. Arthur: But great people, and great people doing a tough job. Marolda: You pretty well escaped unscathed throughout your wartime career, but you had one episode when your plane started to develop some trouble, and you had to divert to Da Nang. Could you describe that? Arthur: This was when I was EXO in 164, the Ghost Riders, and we were--this was part of the time after the big movement south. The North Vietnamese came down in the south. And so we wee doing a lot of strikes in areas where we hadn’t been much before, or been much earlier in the war, but all of a sudden we're back in the old valleys--when the war started. Wingman and I were on a target, and I came off target, and I could smell oil in my--around my oxygen mask. And so I had the wingman check me over, and he says, "Yes, you're venting oil from the vent," which normally meant that the engine was losing a little bit of oil. "Can’t see if you’ve been hit or not. Don’t see anything that would say that you’ve been hit, but I'm not sure." so I said, "Okay, well we'll take a divert to Da Nang just in case." And as we flew along the oil pressure started going, and the weather in Da Nang was--they had an overcast, and north of Da Nang is a mountain, Monkey Mountain. And you used to have to come in over the mountain and then dip down. And of course we were above the cloud deck, and I didn’t want to come down any earlier than I had to. And so we're getting a radar vector into the runway, and finally when I was assured that we were past the mountain then I would come down through the clouds. And as I came down through the clouds, lost the engine, and broke out. Marolda: So you’re coming in on air, basically. No engines. Arthur: Yeah. No engine and getting ready to eject, but when I came out of the clouds I'm over the bay, and the bay had five or six ammo ships out in the bay. And I said, "Ooh, I don’t want to jump out here and have an airplane go into one of the ammo ships." and then I looked at the runway again and said, "I think I can make it." And sure enough, I could. Marolda: Did your CO praise that decision? Arthur: I got a DFC. It was against NATOPS. After ten thousand feet, the rule was-- Marolda: Against navy safety. Arthur: Yeah, after the safety ranks, you lose your engine under ten thousand feet, the only thing you’re supposed to do is pull the ejection. But I thought I could make it. Marolda: It worked out for the best. Arthur: And it worked out. Marolda: In wrapping up your Vietnam experience, what did you take away from that many years of--in combat? Arthur: Well I--one of the things--when I flew my 500th combat mission the Seventh Fleet commander came down to mark that event, and as I told him at the time, I said, "You know, the sad thing is my 500th mission and my first mission were within a half a mile of each other." Marolda: Hitting the same targets. Arthur: Hitting the same targets. And I said, "That's--you know, after all this time, that's sort of disheartening." It was a long war, lots I thought we did the job we were supposed to do. We took a lot of losses that we shouldn’t have. We needed to tighten up our operational business much tighter than it was. We learned a lot along that line. And we also learned that we really needed some people to write rules of engagement a little bit better than what we had to work with there. Marolda: Alright. After Vietnam you went on to other activities including commanding officer of San Jose, a store ship. Arthur: Yes. Marolda: Then the Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier. You were on staff of the pacific fleet and you served in the Pentagon as well during this period. And that's a lot to cover, but-- in the short period of time, but what stands out with your service on those two ships in particular? Arthur: Well, first of all, San Jose, wonderful ship, wonderful mission. It’s a floating Walmart in today's vernacular. We raced around with the fleet, gave them all their groceries. Ice cream. Marolda: Very important. Arthur: Some fuel, spare parts, and electronic stuff. So you had very clear-cut mission. The ship was--it was a new ship, beautifully designed for the task that it had to do. The equipment on the ship was superb; the people were superb. Right size crew; you got to know everybody. And so it was--and it was a nice handling ship. You could--I loved handling the ship. The carrier-- contrast a very new ship, I went to the next oldest aircraft carrier in the fleet at the time, the Coral Sea. Again, one of the midway class carriers, and probably the prettiest class of carrier ever built, low profile, very striking lines. Great, sturdy ship, very old, worn out. Crew kept it together. It was--again for an aviator, you know, finally being up on the bridge and watching guys that you wish you were still back out there doing, but watching them grow and watching them be able to take on the task was a very rewarding experience. Marolda: Jumping ahead a number of years, you then became, as it was mentioned earlier, commander of US Naval Forces during Desert Storm in 1991, and what was your prior connection to the Middle East? I know you had a substantial connection. Arthur: Well, after I left Coral Sea I went to the staff there at CINCPAC Fleet Staff, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, and I was the fleet ops officer to begin with as a captain, and then when I was selected for admiral they moved me up to be the plans and policy guy, the N6 on the staff. About that time this--the Iranian hostage extraction attempt went afoul. I was part of the planning cell on the CINCPAC fleet staff that had to answer questions to the group that was planning that evolution. And so after that failure then there was a big shift in--we need some new organization, and the rapid deployment joint task force was formed under PX Kelly to begin with. And I ended up being the navy component commander to that staff. I'm still a captain in charge of nothing. But so I had my hat as plans and policy guy on the SINCPAC fleet staff and the navy component commander for the RD2DTF. Marolda: Was the navy enthusiastic about that-- Arthur: The navy was not-- Marolda: --position? Arthur: --enthusiastic at all. (Chuckling) So I was-- Marolda: Elaborate on that. Arthur: I was the lone man in the woodpile. The navy was afraid--pacific command had always had--the body of water that pacific command was in charge of extended all the way to the African coast. So you know, the Middle East, the sector that looked down towards the Indian Ocean was still all in pacific command's area of responsibility. And so they saw this as an attempt to take away turf from basically the biggest CINC in the world, CINCPAC, and also sort of deemphasize the maritime mission as to be a more land-based mission. After WWII the navy had always maintained a presence in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and so the navy of all the services had been in the region for forever. And so there was a little bit of turmoil there relative to the navy guy being RDGTF and com at East Four and in Bahrain. So the navy was not in support of a new body of interest showing up on the scene. So the navy told me, "Your job is to convince everybody that the navy will be there when they need us, but we don’t need a fleet designated for the RDGTF." Marolda: But the fact that you had been there--this is in the 1980s--probably has something to do with you being assigned as Com US naval forces. Arthur: When-- Marolda: 1991. Arthur: Yeah, I think when they came time to--the CNO really wanted to get Admiral Mauz who was Seventh Fleet commander and who was a first responder when the Kuwait was invaded, and they said they needed--they thought they needed someone more senior to come down to Bahrain. They sent the Seventh Fleet commander down there, and I was already scheduled at that time to relieve him. General Schwarzkopf said, "No, we're not gonna relieve any commanders. Who's here now stays here." But CNO really wanted Hank Mauz to come back for a very important job, and the army guys knew me and the marines knew me from the RDGTF days, and I think enough people whispered in Schwarzkopf’s ear that, you know, there wasn’t an unknown quantity that was gonna come out to relieve Hank Mauz, so I think that probably helped. Marolda: You served under General Schwarzkopf, who was central command, the commander to central command. And a very colorful figure often referred to as Stormin' Norman. Arthur: Yeah, right. Marolda: Could you describe your relationship with General Schwarzkopf? Was he storming with you? Arthur: Yes. (Laughs) Before that as an RDGTF, when we first--when RDGTF transitioned to be CINC com, its first commander was an army general as well, and--Bob Kingston, who his name was Barbed Wire Bob. And-- Marolda: Barbed Wire Bob. Arthur: Barbed Wire Bob, and he could really cut a mean path. So I had run into army generals before, and Schwarzkopf was--Stormin' Norman was a good reflection. The great thing about both of them--and I loved working for both of them--was even thought hey had a low flash point and come off the governor in a hurry, if you really felt strongly about an issue all you had to do was make sure that you could find an opportunity to get them away from their staff where you could go one-on-one with them with no other eyeballs or ears and talk through the issue. But if you ever tried to take him on in front of an audience, you’re gonna lose, and you’re gonna lose bad. Marolda: You had one dustup in regard to the sinking of tankers, several tankers, that you thought you had the authority to do and he differed. Arthur: We did. We had a very extensive--in the run-up to the war we had a very extensive regurgitation of the rules of engagement. It went on and on, and we kept trying to rewrite the rules of engagement. And I was always upset from the standpoint that the final chop on the rules of engagement was left to Chuck Horner, the air force component commander because there was so much of the rules of engagement relative to the air campaign. But as I kept telling General Schwarzkopf, I said, "Those rules of engagement really have to come under your name. There's a lot of things going on out here that, you know, we really need you to be the guy that issues these things, and we all need to have the right amount of input to some of the things." Well, the issue of sinking ships came up. Sec Def Cheney and Colin Powell were both coming out to the theater right before the war started--we started the war, or kicked off the campaign I should say. And one of the things that they wanted to see was that the navy was prepared to sink any Iraqi shipping no matter where. And I said, "Rules of engagement, this is a key because this is a big change. You know, anybody's allowed to have free reign of the sea. If it's in their territorial waters that's one thing; if it's outside their territorial waters you still want me to sink them onsite?" "Yes." Marolda: (Laughs) Arthur: I said, "Okay. Let's make sure the rules of engagement say that. The rules of engagement are gonna say that." Well, unbeknownst to me that at the last run-up few hours before the air campaign kicked off they issued a new set of rules of engagement that said no on anywhere anytime. There were special occasions. We had one Iraqi ship that was--we could count on them sending our ray counts as we launched the aircrafts from the Persian Gulf and going into Iraq. He'd call out the numbers where they thought they were headed, what the makeup the strike group was, and we--we knew that it was going on, and every now and then they'd shoot at a couple planes as they went by, so I just said, "Okay, that's enough." We sank him. Well, next thing I knew, I was gonna be court martialed. (Laughs) Marolda: Well, that didn't happen. Arthur: It didn't happen, and we found out that the message traffic although it was an op- immediate message, it took five days to get to me, so I was off the hook. Marolda: What would you say was the navy's greatest accomplishments during Desert Storm? Arthur: I think the greatest accomplishment was the run-up to the war where we did do the interception of the ships going into Iraq and sort of screening out the ones that were bringing arms in and stuff. We did an amazing rescue of embassy group out of Somalia right before the war started, and very few people really knew what happened there, but it was a precursor to the stuff that we see today where the embassy was gonna be overrun. All the other embassies in the capital had already sent all their people into the American embassy, and we were able to get them all out and safely and get them to a safe point of departure. We supported the air campaign toe-to-toe with the air force with our six carriers. And I thought we also were able to have both support for our General Boomer's marines ashore as well as all the marines I had afloat, so I thought that the navy acquitted itself quite well during the campaign. Marolda: On your return to the states for the parades that were held in New York City and Washington D.C. you went to the Vietnam Wall. I was--I thought that was--why did you do that? Arthur: The wall to me--as you reflect too, being a Vietnam veteran, we all came back to very different country when we came back. We were not recognized for the job that we had done. We were mostly criticized for the job that we had done. I know when I came back I came straight back to Washington, we weren’t allowed to wear our uniforms in town but one day a week. And so--and when the wall was announced as the tribute to the Vietnam War it didn’t strike me, you know. It had no big statue or anything. And so I was a little hesitant to go, and I didn’t want to be disappointed. But I thought, well, all of us involved in Desert Storm in the leadership, we're all Vietnam veterans who sort of shook hands and said, "We're not gonna let the same thing happen again to us. We're gonna have more input to how we do business." And so went to the wall, and it was just an absolute mesmerizing experience. I mean, it's just one of those things that you just never, never forget. Marolda: Has that impression on many folks, many veterans. Arthur: It was--I was really happy to do it. And I still--I would go back, but it's always hard to go back and face that wall. But it's good. Marolda: After your Desert Storm experience you served in various other positions in the Pentagon. Unfortunately we don’t have the time to get into each of those. But this was a time of great social change in the United States: the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement was very active. There was a sense of some antiestablishment in the streets by our young folks. And you were in the middle of that. And in 1992 you became Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the second in command of the navy, and had to deal with a lot of that. In fact you came in just after the infamous Tailhook episode in the Tailhook meeting in Las Vegas. What was the status, and there were investigations at the time, when you came in as VCNO? Arthur: When I came in as VCNO, there had been investigations going on with the Tailhook. The navy had done their investigation. It was not accepted by the Department of Defense. There were some charges back and forth that there had been some whitewashing done and this sort of thing, so there was a lot of antagonism within the building itself. And basically the navy was told to sort of back out of it, that it was now a DODIG investigation and they were in charge. First thing that happened with me was the DOD folks showed up at my door and said, "We need your help. We think flag officers, navy flag officers, are lying to us. We think the CNO"--Frank Kelso at the time, who had been out there and visited Tailhook at that time with John Lehman, secretary of the navy--"We think that maybe he saw more than he accounts for. And so we sort of want you to makes sure that everybody answers our questions." I said, "Look, you know, for the flag officers that know me," I said, "I can guarantee that they know; I don’t need to tell them not to lie. They know that if I catch them in a lie that their day in court is over, and so I'm not about to write another message to them and say 'Don't lie.' I trust them, and if they do lie I'm not gonna hide them. As for Admiral Kelso, I can tell you that if you think he did something wrong out there, then you're way off base. You just don’t know the man that I know." Marolda: Yeah. Arthur: And so we sort of started off on a shaky setting. Marolda: Your actions as vice chief to improve the lot of women and African Americans in the navy, what steps did you take, and do you think they had a positive effect on the current US Navy? Arthur: When back--going back a few years earlier when I was in BUPERS after my squadron tour, and I went to ICAF and then came over to NAVPERS my job there was head of the aviation lieutenant commander and below folks, their assignments, their career progression as they went through the navy. And at that time we entered the first women into naval aviation, sent them to flight training. In those days of course we had no combat exclusion on--no females could ever go on-- Marolda: They could not serve in combat. Arthur: They could not serve in combat. But we had a very--we saw the demographics that were facing us in the 80s and 90s and today's demographics that we were not gonna have enough males qualified to fly all of our airplanes, all the missions. So we looked at the missions, and we found that we have a lot of support missions in the navy with our airlift guys and some of the SAR helos. And so we had a full range of opportunities where they would never go to combat, and this if in fact the shortage of qualified males for combat appeared, fi we had a cadre of females already qualified to fly these--the non-combat missions, it was a natural mix. And quite honestly anybody--flying an airplane is a unique skill, and it's not gender dependent. And-- Marolda: Could you explain the--Lieutenant Rebecca Hanson. You had some difficulty with--she was in flight training, she was washed out, and it affected your career. If you can describe that-- Arthur: Yes. Rebecca Hanson was a young female in the training pipeline. And early in the training, in her training pipeline she had had a male instructor pilot that had made inappropriate advances to her. And so there was a sexual discrimination issue that was dealt with. The male instructor pilot was thrown out of the navy, and she was allowed to continue in the program. As she moved to the next stage of training, the next advanced part of her training, she started having issues with her airmanship. The issues, sort of in basic terms, was she could learn a skill one day and repeat it on that day; the next day it was gone. There was no learning curve. Marolda: So it was a valid thing that she shouldn’t be-- Arthur: So along the way they had had several reflies and stuff like this, and different levels within the aviation training command had looked at her record and said, "She's not fit to continue in the program." Marolda: How did that affect your career? Arthur: Well, what happened was that she got the interest of the congress, Congressman--particular congressman from her state and wanted it revisited at a much higher level. It kept bouncing back into the building, back to the secretary of the navy, and by that time as the vice chief I was sort of the senior aviator in the navy. And I went to the secretary with the CNO's blessing and said, "Look, I've been an instructor pilot. I know how to read the training command records. I will tell you I will go all through each one of here records, and I will be able to tell you whether they made a good call or a bad call." And but I said the issue that wants to wrap around this is, is this a result of that sexual harassment thing that went on before? I said, "That's already been settled. The guy's been thrown out of the navy. She was returned back into the training status. And so I'm not gonna review that part of the thing anymore. I'm gonna do this part." and as I went through I thought they all made a valid call. That did not set well with the congressman that was sort of watching over this. Marolda: So for the good of the service you decided to retire at that point? Arthur: At that point I had been nominated to be the CINCPAC to go out and be commander in chief pacific, which was great for me. Get me out of Washington and also back into the pacific where I’d spent most of my career. Anxious to go. They put a hold on the nomination. The incumbent had to leave the job to come back to another--actually he was gonna retire and come back to another job associated with the navy. And that was gonna leave that billet, which had always been held by a navy officer, open. Air force had always wanted that billet. And I, for good reason, I thought it ought to stay in navy hands, and I decided it was time to go. Marolda: You served the navy long and well. Admiral, can you tell us what had been your most inspirational--the most inspirational book that you’ve read? Arthur: Well, for me it's been Bridges at Toko-Ri. Both: By James Michener. Arthur: Navy pilots flying in the Korean War, flying Corsairs. The story that's now out, the book’s out by Tom Hudner, Medal of Honor winner who crash-landed alongside Ensign Brown, whose Corsair went into--did a crash landing, and he landed alongside of him to try to get him extracted from the cockpit. That movie and the book were--that's what I thought naval aviation was all about. And when we knew we were gonna kick off the air campaign for Desert Storm I sent a message out to the fleet telling them how proud I was of them, how sure I was that they were ready for anything that we were gonna ask of them to do, and closed it off with a line from that book that says, you know "where do we find such men?" And I added women at the end of it. And I thought it's sort of the circle. Marolda: Close the circle. Arthur: I sent Michener a letter apologizing for plagiarizing, and he sent me a nice note back saying that was alright. He was glad I used it. Marolda: At this point I think we'd like to go to some questions and answers from you and the audience. Arthur: Alright. Thanks. Marolda: Thank you, admiral. (Applause) 1: Admiral, thank you for being here and for your service. Did the navy and the air force have identical rules of engagement during Nam? Arthur: No. In the air-to-air game the air force had a much different system for IFF identification rules of engagement relative to how many, what required--what you were required to have before you could shoot. They had a capability that gave them two methods of identifying the target; the navy had one with our F14s.THe F14 was designed for the very long-range shots for somebody coming out to sea where we knew that the only body coming at us was a bad guy. So as soon as we could identify him with one piece of information that he was bad, he as a kill. You’re clear to shoot. The air force could not tolerate that. Their argument was there's a lot more aircraft in the air. You’ve got to have two methods to verify that he's hostile. And so they could shoot, we couldn’t. And so when Iraqis flew all their combat aircraft out of Iraq and landed in Iran, we had F14s that could have shot most up and down with the Phoenix because we had the long- range shot, but we weren't allowed to shoot at them. 2: Admiral, what was your favorite plane to fly? Arthur: Plane to fly? Well, the A4 Skyhawk. It was the grand, grand airplane. It was--all of us that flew it were probably like the WWII guys, the Mustang or Corsair, you know, were the planes to fly. Well the A4 was the plane to fly for us. It was just a marvelous little airplane. Nice and simple to fly, very rugged. Great hotrod. Marolda: Thank you very much, admiral. (Applause) Clarke: Thank you to Admiral Stanley Arthur and Dr. Edward Marolda for an outstanding discussion and to the United States Naval Institute for sponsoring this program. To learn more about the United States Naval Institute’s Oral History Program, visit USNI.org. 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