On Watch; A Memoir

New York: Quadrangle, The New York Times Book Company, 1976. Presumed First Edition, First printing Interesting anomaly as verso states First paperbound edition. Hardcover. Good/Good. xv, [1], 568 pages. Illustrations. Maps. Chronology. Appendices. Glossary. Index. DJ taped to boards. Some wear to DJ. Slightly cocked. Signed Bud Zumwalt on the half title page. . Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. (November 29, 1920 - January 2, 2000) served as Chief of Naval Operations. As an admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations, Zumwalt played a major role in United States military history, especially during the Vietnam War. A decorated war veteran, Zumwalt reformed Navy personnel policies in an effort to improve enlisted life and ease racial tensions. In 1939, he was accepted to the United States Naval Academy. As a midshipman at the USNA, he was a Company Commander (1941) and Regimental Three Striper (1942). He graduated with distinction and was commissioned as an ensign on June 19, 1942. In January 1944, Zumwalt reported for duty on board USS Robinson. On this ship, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for "heroic service ... in action against enemy Japanese battleships during the Battle for Leyte Gulf, October 25, 1944". From December 1963 until June 21, 1965, he served as executive assistant and senior aide to the Honorable Paul H. Nitze, Secretary of the Navy. In September 1968, he became Commander Naval Forces Vietnam and Chief of the Naval Advisory Group, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) and was promoted to vice admiral in October 1968. Zumwalt was the Navy adviser to General Creighton Abrams, Commander, MACV. Derived from a Kirkus review: An informally elegant memoir and policy critique by the 1970-74 Chief of Naval Operations. Zumwalt, since his retirement a prominent advocate of a "tough" stand toward the Soviets, makes it clear that he is an inveterate cold warrior but no traditional right-winger. A disciple of the sophisticated Pentagon advisor Paul Nitze, Zumwalt gained an acquaintance with intelligence matters and foreign policy debates denied to most Navy brass. The book consists of a series of witty, extensively documented reconstructions of bureaucratic intrigues and alleged US failures. Zumwalt, considered by the Navy majority a young whipper-snapper because he allowed longer hair and upgraded minority-group members, zoomed downward on the Washington "rollercoaster" when the Nixon administration became a "wreck." A formidable enemy of Henry Kissinger from 1971 on, Zumwalt claims that the Secretary of State believes the Soviets have unbeatable superiority in conventional arms and the US must make the best of a bad deal. He further insists that the Kissinger years brought a combination of secrecy and weakness which undermined NATO, Congress, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff while handing the Soviets a triumph at SALT I. The book also indicts Kissinger's "fatuous and ignoble" effort to "let Israel bleed just enough" during the 1973 war to "soften it up" for his later diplomatic maneuvers. His criticisms of '60s and '70s wheelers and bumblers are persuasive. One of the major documents to be published.