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Mon Mar 17, 2008 at 03:49:59 PM EST

Navy Friend, Colleague of Admiral Says

Senator
McCain's Father Would Be Rolling Over In
The Grave
By Bruce Wilson

George E. Lowe has served in the US Navy, in a presidential administration and done
award winning writing on the theory of nuclear deterrence. According to Lowe, in the
early 1960's he was in a secret naval intelligence group under Senator John McCain's
father, Admiral John "Godamn!" McCain (known for his cursing) working against
would-be Christian and secular 'fascists' in US government and especially in the
military. Lowe has strong praise for the late Admiral and also told me, in an interview
on Sunday, that Senator John McCain's father "would be turning over in his grave" at
his son's association with the American Christian right and elements in US
government who want to fight preemptive and preventative nuclear war. [ see
inside for several minute audio excerpt from interview].
Here is George E. Lowe's biography, from Lowe's 2-volume 2000 book series "It Can
Happen Here: A Fascist Christian America" :
GEORGE E. LOWE was born in Scranton, PA (1928) and educated in the public
schools of New York/New Jersey/PA. He graduated from Grove City College
(BA-1950) and U. of Chicago (MA-1953) and taught at all levels of American
education (1950-93). Served over 30 years in the Federal Government (1953-
88), including US Naval Air Intelligence Officer ( Japan, Hawaii & the
Pentagon), Foreign Service Officer (African Affairs & Paris Embassy), and Civil
Servant (OE/ED). Author of The Age of Deterrence, Little, Brown (1964), It Can
Happen Here: A Fascist Christian America, Xlibris, (2000), two Vols. And many
articles on military policy, nuclear weapons, education, and the environment.
Speechwriter in Navy Dept. (1961,65)/Department of Education (1981-88).
Married in 1954, with two daughters and three Jack Russell Terriers. Hobbies
are cooking/baking, book collecting, traveling, and bird watching. Splits the
year in Stuart, Florida and Port Medway, Nova Scotia.
Mr. Lowe has graciously given me permission to reprint extended excerpts from his
series, and the following text is from from George E. Lowe's "It Can Happen Here",
Volume 1, page 74-79 :
With the encouragement of Dr. Walter Johnson and Dr. Robert W Osgood I
went to Washington, D. c., just after Christmas 1959, armed with a letter of
introduction to the Navy's History Office (Admiral Eller) from my oId boss at
COMFAIR JAPAN, Admiral Fitzhugh Lee, USN. I was determined to research and
write my doctoral dissertation on "The Changing Views of the US Navy on
Limited War." It wasn't long before I discovered that the Navy's Office of
History under the kind Admiral Eller was living back somewhere in the 19th
Century Age of Sail before jet aircraft, nuclear subs, or the A-and H-bombs.
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Still I continued my re- search at the Navy library in Main Navy and at the
Army library in the Pentagon.
However, through my research on limited war I was gradually introduced to a
cross section of selected Navy commanders, captains and admirals, mostly on
Admiral Burke's personal staff, who presented me with a very unique inside
view of the Pentagon. I was astonished that they discussed the real political-
military topics of the day with me that I had read previously only in
newspapers and textbooks for the University of Chicago's history or political
science classes:
• limited versus total war
• nuclear deterrence and deterrents
• conventional versus atomic warfare
• the Joint Chiefs of Staff versus a single Chief of Staff
• the current four military services versus a single service
• heavy bombers versus CVAs
• Polaris versus Minuteman
• solid propellants versus liquid-fueled ICBMs
• balanced forces versus counterforce
• the powers of the Secretary of Defense versus the JCS
• the relationship of the JCS to the Commander-in-Chief
• the 1947 creation of the Defense Department, the CIA, and USAF
• the military versus the peaceful uses of space
• the proper role of airpower: close air support or strategic bombing
• guerrilla and unconventional warfare
• defense socialism
• preventive and pre-emptive war and national policy
• bomber and missile gaps: real or hoaxes?
• "the revolt of the admirals" in 1949
• the role of Congress versus the President in defense policy, (war and war-
making, authorization and appropriations for weapons)
• the U-2 and spy satellites
• the role of the media and specific weapons systems
• the peaceful uses of Antarctica
• the true nature of the Communist threat: aggressive war or national
bankruptcy ?
• the utility of arms control and disarmament policies
I soon discovered and was positively amazed that lying behind all these
contemporary political-military issues was the conviction, by this cross section
of high ranking Navy and well placed active duty naval officers, that there
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existed in the enemy camp some- where in the Pentagon-a real cabal. This
cabal consisted of neo- Fascist US Air Force officers, RAND Corporation
intellectuals, weapon-dependent corporations, media supporters and
columnists and their political allies in both major parties.
There was in fact, we believed, a Fascist conspiracy already in motion to
radically change American defense policy, service roles and missions, and
deterrent weapons systems so that the very struc- ture of our democratic-
republican system of government and free society would have to change as
well. (See Seven Days in May, Kneble & Bailey,I962 and Balance of Power,
James w. Huston,1998, for left and right political perspectives on the threat to
our demo- cratic-republic.) Recall that President Kennedy, in the spring of
1962, read Seven Days in May, a novel about a military coup against an
American President that high ranking military officers (not Navy-Marine)
regarded as weak and pacifistic. A friend of JFK asked him if he believed it
could happen here and Kennedy re- plied that he "thought it could." (May and
Zeiikow, The Kennedy Tapes, p.ll).
These Navy admirals and captains were so convinced that I was as true a
believer in this Pentagon Air Force fascist cabal and conspiracy as they were
that they moved me to the Naval Station in Anacostia. There I would be
protected from prying and spying Air Force officers. The admirals also gave
me a desk in CHINFO and some DOD bus tickets to help defray my research
expenses as I tried to understand the complicated Pentagon internal struggle
over the use of nuclear weapons in foreign and defense policy. Forty years
later I'm still trying.
In early September 1997 the Russian General and Presiden- tial Candidate
Alexandr Lebed claimed and shocked the world by stating that one hundred
suitcase-sized one kiloton atom bombs, developed by the Soviet KGB in the
1970s, were missing from the Russian nuclear stockpile. The Americans and
Russian governments promptly denied the story, but doubts remained. Then
in early October 1997 the new Spielberg movie studio released "The Peace-
keepers" in which George Clooney and Nicole Kidman save New York (and
America) from a renegade Balkan terrorist's Russian back- pack atomic bomb.
And the issue of nuclear terrorism is now cen- ter stage as a key threat to
American security interests. (President Clinton told the May 2000 graduates at
the United States Coast Guard Academy that "the revoluton in commonplace
items like telephones will eventually also mean that biological, chemical and
even nuclear weapons will be able to be put in packages small enough to
transport easily.") (New York Times May 18, 2000) Two years later, October
12, 1999, in the midst of a Republi- can attempt to embarrass President
Clinton over Senate ratifica- tion of the stalled Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the
verification of "small" atomic weapons tests emerged as a political issue in
Campaign AD 2000. A CIA report on the difficulty of distinguishing betWeen
very small nuclear blasts of tactical atomic weapons and natural events was
seized upon by George W. Bush's defense adviser Rich- ard Perle as a reason
not to ratifY the nuclear test-ban treaty. Thus "rogue states" (Iran, Iraq, and
North Korea) - "nuclear" missiles, SDI-National Ballistic Missile Defense,
deterrence and deterrents, and "defenseless-naked American civilians" have
become key po- litical issues in the election of AD 2000 as were the bogus
"missile gap" in 1960 and Goldwater's nuclear extremism in 1964.
During Easter vacation 1960 I went back to Chicago by train, liberated our
1948 green Dodge from Chicago's winter icepack, and played with our many
Siamese cats. I also reported my strange Navy-Pentagon experiences to Dr.
Johnson who was very excited over my discoveries. We discussed broadening
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my dissertation topic to include these many new defense issues with which I
was now involved. Dr. Johnson's advice: Keep good notes, prepare an aide
memoir, write it up, and get it published.
Dr. Johnson was convinced that I had stumbled onto some very important if
somewhat bizarre activities in the Pentagon, which I should learn more about
and hopefully include them in my ex- panded and modified dissertation. What
really amazed Dr. Johnson and myself was that there could be in the spring of
1960 so many Navy admirals worried about a military coup, pre-emptive war,
and a Fascist takeover of America led by General LeMay's SAC, the US Air
Force, RAND, and their industrial, political, and media allies. I returned to
Washington after Easter, continued living at the Navy BOQ, and expanded my
research as Dr. Johnson had suggested. Soon after I was approached by a
newly-minted Admiral, R. E. M. Ward, Deputy to Rear Admiral John "God
damn," "Jr." McCain, Director of the very important OLA (Office of Legislative
Assistance), the liaison with all congressional committees for naval
authorizations and appropriations. I wrote speeches for Navy- friendly
senators and congressmen-Republican and Democratic alike-as requested by
Admirals McCain and Ward.
One spring day Admiral Ward asked me if I would like to go back on active
duty and serve as the unofficial "historian" for a new office, OP-05D, being
established by the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations), Admiral Burke. Recalling
Dr. Johnson's advice, I said, "I'd love to." and I was back in the Navy again.
Admiral Ward then listed some of the topics on which this new office, OP-05D,
would be researching. Some of the proposed Navy policies and position
papers were:
0 How to prevent a single military service and a Praetorian Guard?
0 How to derail a German-Prussian-like General Staff?
0 How can we create an alternative Grand Strategy for America that would
head off or prevent: thermonuclear World War III, Fortress America, a Garrison
State, national bankruptcy, an unlimited arms race, and American Fascism?
0 How can we devise a second-strike deterrent strategy for the Polaris ballistic
submarines and sell it to the American people?
That evening I called my wife in Riverdale, Illinois, told her to pack up the cats
as we were moving to Washington, and I was going back into the Navy on
active duty. She was delighted to leave the prairie and the terrible Chicago
weather. Once her grade school was out in June, we'd drive our Dodge and
cats back east to a new adventure. I was pleased as punch with Admiral
Ward's offer. My lifelong anti-Fascist crusade could now begin in earnest in the
most unlikely spot of all-the very heart of the Pentagon. Dr. Johnson, still
enthusiastic but more puzzled than ever, encouraged me to keep researching
my dissertation with its new emphasis, "Deterrence and Deterrents in the
Navy."
What I hadn't understood completely at the time, because partisan politics
were never mentioned by the professional naval officers I was dealing with,
was that Admiral Burke and his advisers were watching closely the 1960
presidential campaign unfold. They were preparing intellectually and shoring
up their arguments in case Senator Jack Kennedy defeated Vice-President
Richard Nixon in November 1960. They feared that Kennedy would appoint
the Navy's bete noire or, rather bete bleu, the anti-Navy and very US Air
Force-biased, Senator Stu Symington (the first Secretary of the newly
independent US Air Force), as the new Democratic Secretary of Defense. In
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addition, there was Senator Lyndon Johnson who was an advocate of an

expanded bomber and missile strategic force. LBJ was also known as a sharp
critic of Ike's restrained bomber missile response to the Russian Sputnik of
O~tober 4, 1957.
And then there was himself, JFK, a young, ambitious politi- cian, a true World
War II naval hero of PT-IO9 fame. But his defense views on topics of prime
importance to the future of the Navy and America (which many naval officers
found difficult to separate) were largely unknown. There was also Senator
Henry "Skip" Jackson who was a personal friend of Kennedy. Jackson was
smart and very knowledgeable about defense matters. He was a liberal
Democrat and called by the Navy the "Senator from Boeing." Jackson was thus
not believed to be a true believer in, or supporter of, the Boeing-Air Force's
competing strategic weapons system, The Polaris, about to be tested off the
coast of Florida. Lockheed built the Polaris missile that would directly compete
for Pentagon strategic dollars with Boeing's bombers and missiles.
In retrospect I now realize the Navy had a great deal to worry about if the
Democrats won in 1960, and it made institutional sense for the Navy to
prepare for this worst case scenario and con- tingency. Three powerful
Democratic senators-Symington, Johnson, and Jackson-were thought to be
pro-Air Force and anti- Navy, and anyone of them was a potential Secretary of
Defense. In addition, the Democrats' presidential candidate, Senator Kennedy,
was an unknown quantity on most important defense issues. . .
For more, here is an excellent June 10, 2005 Buzzflash interview with George E. Lowe