"This remarkable man changed my life and [the lives of] untold others forever. More important, he changed the Navy, and hence the nation, for the better." 

So said Capt. Rosemary Mariner, USN (Ret.), a former naval aviator, in an "OpEd" piece in the 9 January 2000 Washington Post reflecting on the death of former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. "It wasn't until I became a middle-grade officer that I fully appreciated just what [Zumwalt] had achieved and at what tremendous personal cost," Mariner said. She had "personally benefited" from Zumwalt's decision to improve career opportunities for Navy women, Mariner said, but the late CNO's "most significant accomplishments" were "forcing the naval aristocracy to control rampant racial discrimination" and preparing the Navy to carry out its Cold War missions "under harsh post-Vietnam fiscal constraints and the realities of an all-volunteer force." 

Zumwalt was among the best-known of all the post-WWII CNOs, and by almost any measurement the most controversial. A surface sailor who had served in eight destroyer billets and on the battleship Wisconsin, Zumwalt was tabbed early in his career as "flag material" and was personally selected by Paul R. Nitze to serve on his staff when Nitze was an assistant secretary of defense--Zumwalt moved with Nitze when the latter became secretary of the Navy in 1963. 

When President Nixon nominated Zumwalt in 1970 to be chief of naval operations he was the youngest ever to reach that post. He started with a flurry of so-called "Z-Grams" (some later recalled or significantly modified) that shook up the Navy, initiated numerous reforms, pleased (for the most part) the junior ranks, and infuriated many of the "traditionalists." History was to prove Zumwalt right on most but not all counts, as he himself admitted. By the time he retired the Navy personnel picture was much improved, the naval bureaucracy was more effective in fighting its budget battles both in OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) and on Capitol Hill, and the building blocks were in place for a smaller but much more capable fleet better able to cope with the burgeoning Soviet naval threat. 

The challenges Zumwalt faced as CNO were, it is now recognized in hindsight, among the most daunting encountered by any to hold that office in the post-WWII era. He was the first, for example, who had to cope with the difficulties inherent in implementing the all-volunteer force concept. He also was the first to see U.S. supremacy on the high seas challenged by a (Soviet) fleet superior in numbers, much improved technologically, and extremely hostile in intent. He also faced, as did the other service chiefs at that time, the problem of modernizing his forces in an era when, because of Vietnam, an anti-military bias permeated the land and, partly as a result, defense funding was being significantly reduced. 

Perhaps the most balanced assessment of the Zumwalt era was provided by Rear Adm. William Thompson, USN (Ret.), a former chief of information who considered Zumwalt his "best friend." The U.S. Navy "had long been recognized as a traditional, ultraconservative organization resisting change from sail to steam, and from smooth-bore to rifled guns," Thompson said in an e-mail to Sea Power. Some earlier Navy leaders even were opposed to "the annulment of flogging," Thompson pointed out, and others wanted to "ignore the presidential edict to abolish personnel segregation and integrate the armed forces." 

Zumwalt's selection to be CNO "had an abrupt, cyclonic effect on the naval establishment," Thompson said. "This brilliant, articulate, charismatic leader blew away the cobwebs that stifled naval thinking." He "took the actions needed to initiate major new weapon systems ... and changed the personnel structure by eliminating the segregation of Blacks, Filipinos, Hispanics, and other minorities and opening all avenues of U.S. Navy endeavor to all naval personnel, including women. He also gave direction to naval strategy. ... 

"When the dust settled after his departure, the Navy was much better armed and trained. ... Our contemporary Navy is the benefactor of his initiatives."