The Navy's New Team

President Johnson last week named a new top command team for the U.S. Navy in world hot spots. The men and their missions:

> Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., 57, new U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), succeeds retiring Admiral Harry Donald Felt (TIME cover, Jan. 6, 1961) as chief of the largest military command in the world, spanning 85 million square miles and including the hot war in South Viet Nam. In midshipman days, quiet-spoken Admiral Sharp was tagged with the nickname Ole and he still carries it--along with a reputation as "the old-shoe admiral." But, says one fellow officer, "he has a voluminous memory, a mind like a sponge" and, when provoked, "can really explode." His specialty: providing clear, precise answers to complex problems.

>Vice Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, 52, new Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, succeeding Sharp. Alabama-born Tommy Moorer, known in Pentagon corridors as "the man you always send for when you have a tough job," is already an odds-on favorite with many a top officer to become Chief of Naval Operations one day. "Hell," says one, "you could tell that when he was still at the academy." Assigned to the Pentagon in late 1960, Moorer sometimes exasperated Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his computer-minded whiz kids (whom he was fond of calling "the numbers-racket people"), and sometimes confronted them with analogies like this: "Arnold Palmer played golf the other day. In terms of your weapons-analysis system, he used his 5 iron three times, his driver 18 times and his putter 38 times. Well, according to your system, if he wants to play even better golf, he should go out and get more putters."

>Vice Admiral Roy L. Johnson, 58, new commander of the Seventh Fleet, patrolling the Chinese Communist mainland, succeeds Moorer. A handsome, icy-cool carrier officer, Johnson served aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, the U.S.S. Yorktown and the U.S.S. Hornet. Promoted to flag rank when he was only 49, he became the first skipper of the U.S.S. Forrestal when it was the largest carrier in the world. "He set the pattern of how these ships should be operated," says one top Navy officer, "and it has stuck ever since."

> Rear Admiral William E. Ellis, 55, new commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet (Mediterranean). Bill Ellis is a flyer's flyer, a tough combat pilot who has collected a chestful of ribbons that include the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. The men and officers of the Sixth Fleet can expect a stern disciplinarian and a "hard charger." In fact, says one fellow officer ruefully, "He charges so hard sometimes that he steps on the feet of his subordinates."

> Vice Admiral William E. Centner Jr., 56, new commander of the Taiwan Defense Command on Nationalist Chinese Formosa. A taut, efficient planner and a professional perfectionist, Gentner demands that his subordinates be thinking men as well as fighting men, regularly flew "guest lecturers" out to speak aboard the big carriers when he was boss of the Sixth Fleet. Though Bill Gentner probably won't need it, there will be plenty of advice available to him on Formosa. U.S. Ambassador Jerauld Wright is a retired four-star admiral.

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