When my field of defense acquisition comes up in present national debates about equality, it tends to be in terms of resources/national priorities or spillover effects and police equipment (see Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop or Spencer Ackerman’s upcoming Reign of Terror), or questions of minority owned small business promotion policies. I hope to write some on those topics in this coming year, but for now am thwarted from applying my quantitative analyst lens by my slow writing and a backlog of old reports I need to publish.
In the meantime, Rueben Green makes a compelling case for removing the name of renaming the carrier USS John C. Stennis:
Stennis, on the other hand, almost singlehandedly derailed the cultural changes being attempted by then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, as Zumwalt detailed in his memoir, On Watch. Stennis was vehemently opposed to black equality, and spent his entire career, both as a Mississippi prosecutor, judge, and state senator attempting to ensure it did not happen. He ordered congressional subcommittee hearings on “Permissiveness” in the Navy, led by Louisiana Senator Eddie Hebert, in a thinly veiled attempt to thwart Zumwalt’s initiatives. . .
During a meeting on the topic, requested by Zumwalt, Stennis told Zumwalt, “Blacks had come down from the trees a lot later than we did.” The subcommittee ignored the mountain of evidence Zumwalt presented that showed systematic and pervasive racism in the Navy. Zumwalt still prevailed, however, with his seminal directive, Z-Gram Number 66, on equal opportunity, but the battle continues.
Green goes into additional detail and draws on his personal perspective as an African American naval officer (he’d written about the topic in his memoir Black Officer, White Navy). I think he makes a very compelling case as, like the critique of Woodrow Wilson in the context of the Public Policy school, this is based primarily not just on Stennis’ beliefs and words, but his use of power to the detriment of those serving in the U.S. Navy and civil service respectively.
I did a little searching and the most prominent defense of the name comes from columnist Sid Salter who lays out the case for the positive parts of Sen. Stennis’ legacy, in particular his role as a champion of the carrier program and opposition to Joseph McCarthy. However, neither Salter, nor the family members quoted in other articles I’ve skimmed, present any evidence to counter Green’s case.
Robert Farley, whose post first brought the Green piece to my attention, adds on a useful practical point in favor of renaming; “Nobody outside the United States knows who John C. Stennis was (most people inside the U.S. have no idea), and acknowledging the political role that aircraft carriers are intended to play demands an appreciation of how names affect the reaction of foreign audiences. “ An obscure name can educate, of course, but this is a name choice that seems aimed at a Congressional audience rather than the sailors who will serve on it or the friends and rivals who will note its presence in nearby ports or waters.
Finally, there has been some backlash to the recent resignation of a Boeing communications executive who had written a piece in 1987 that he renounced as “embarrassingly wrong and offensive.” I’ve skimmed the piece and agree with his current assessment. In particular, re: Personnel Management, I’d note that if male members of our military cannot be trusted around female colleagues, then they also cannot be trusted to interact with the local population on overseas deployments, interaction which is often core to counterinsurgency, hybrid conflicts, or maintaining alliances. Regardless, I don’t know any specifics of the Boeing case beyond what was reported, but I don’t think the two cases are comparable. Green easily clears the bar set by the Yale Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming. Green’s case against Stennis doesn’t just rely on Stennis’ views and the terrible Southern Manifesto he signed along with all other Southern Democrats; it comes down to specific things he did with power that are directly relevant to the CVN-74’s ability to fulfill its mission today. The process to rename it should begin post-haste.
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