The Choice

With Admiral Arleigh Burke's term as Chief of Naval Operations expiring this August, Pentagon and press speculation about a successor for weeks had covered almost the whole range between John Paul Jones and the coxswain of the Harvard crew. But last week, when the new CNO finally got nominated by President Kennedy, he turned out to be the admiral who had been the leading and most logical candidate all along: Vice Admiral George Whelan Anderson Jr., 54, commander of the U.S.'s Mediterranean-based Sixth Fleet.

Anderson is a remarkable combination of military politician, diplomat, public relations expert, disciplinarian, moralist--and experienced Navy airman. He has flown Navy aircraft ranging from aged PBYs to new jets. He has commanded carriers, task forces and fleets, handled wartime air logistics in Honolulu and Washington, piloted postwar swivel chairs at General Eisenhower's SHAPE and as Admiral Arthur Radford's assistant on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Policing the Police. The son of a Brooklyn realtor, Anderson was a bright kid who skipped grades, got out of a Jesuit high school early to enter the Naval Academy as a skinny (6 ft. 3 in., 115 lb.) youngster of 16. He finished 27th in his 1927 class, then plunged wholeheartedly into naval aviation. His rise to high rank was steady, up to a third star as deputy to Pacific Commander Felix Stump in 1957. Then he abruptly asked for a reduction to two-star rank so that he could command a carrier division and meet an old tradition that an admiral's flag is not really earned unless it is flown at sea.

Soon returned to three-star rank as commander of the Sixth Fleet, Anderson's political-diplomatic talents were put to the test as his 60 ships, 200 planes and 30,000 men roamed a million square miles to remind friendly and sometimes faltering governments that U.S. power was close at hand. At the same time, the Sixth Fleet under Anderson often served as a huge floating embassy of good will. His sailors were under taut control ashore: "A drunken liberty is a wasted liberty." Anderson sent high officers in civvies to police the S.P.s who were supposed to police the sailors, cut the fleet's VD rate in half partly by sending medics to feed anti-VD pills to prostitutes. A Roman Catholic, he urged his men to go to church: "I think we all need a lot of divine assistance." He also encouraged them to go, toting cameras, to such uplifting places as the Parthenon, the Holy Land and the Oberammergau Passion Play. Since Anderson hates profanity, his was the Navy's sweetest-talking fleet (at least when he was on the premises).

Low Lights & Fizz. Aboard his flagship, Anderson was a gracious host to many world political figures. He was always careful to court them with such niceties as dimming the lights when their national anthem was played. Only a social drinker himself, he kept them more or less happy by serving a fizzy grape drink that looked and popped corks like champagne, yet did not violate the Navy ban on shipboard alcohol.

While generally proud of his personnel, Admiral Anderson held few illusions, once observed: "Twenty-five percent of the crew is the very finest. A very small percentage, maybe two, five, or ten, are moral bums. In between, we have untested adolescents on whom we must rely to run our complicated weapons systems. Some officers are also delayed adolescents."

Anderson can be expected to push the Navy viewpoint vigorously on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He once said: "I would rather be a captain in naval aviation than a lieutenant general in the Air Force." But Anderson is no obstructionist. Says he: "It would be unhealthy if everybody agreed on everything, and when there are differences on important issues the highest civilian authorities should make the decisions."

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