(Soviet Echo II-Class nuclear Guided Missile Submarine)

I had been sweating my part of the eulogy. Not hard, but it was something I needed to do and hadn’t got to. The pressure had some off, and as you probably know I work better with a deadline staring me in the face. Well, the deadline is here. The funeral is in two hours and the biggest blizzard of the decade is bearing down on us.
 
In the original plan, there were to be remarks at the chapel, with the family and the mourners all there, the caisson waiting outside with the patient horses and the Sailors all in a row, and the long brown casket with the American Flag laid on top, blue field with stars over the heart of the man below.
 
I don’t mind the public speaking. Never have. The problem was what to say.
 
My close relation with Rex went back really only to the quest to recognize Jack Graf, and by association the intelligence personnel of Naval Forces Vietnam. I was Rex’s boots on he ground here in Washington as he worked the professional associations, the Office of Naval Intelligence and The Navy Memorial downtown.
 
His gentle persistence paid off, though I do not think that there will be a ship or a building named for Jack. His portrait, engraved on steel, now hangs downtown. The Expeditionary Warfare Command now names its Sailor of the Year in Jack’s honor.
 
He will be remembered, and that is entirely Rex’s doing. Nowhere, in any place, is Rex associated with the effort. As he so often did with his charitable works, he is only listed as “Anonymous.”
 
With the number of funerals today, and the threat of snow, the chapel personnel were insistent with Earl Jr. that things stay on message and on time. Accordingly, the remarks will be made later, at the reception.
 
Framing the effort was all I intended to do, and thus it is the morning and I had not seriously thought about what to say.
 
Earl Junior sent me a note that came from Ted yesterday. To frame his remarks, I need to tell you a bit about him. Ted was a Naval Academy grad. A Destroyer sailor. Defense Intelligence School. Soviet submarine analyst in London. Command at sea of an ocean going minesweeper, including a nine month deployment to Vietnam…Then on to DC and The Naval Intelligence Command, as a brand new Naval Intelligence Officer.
 
Ted retired as a two star in 1995. His last three tours were as J-2 JCS, Deputy Director DIA and fifty-fifth Director of Naval Intelligence.
 
He would have been here, snow or no snow, but he broke his leg last week and cannot walk, much less drive from Johnstown, PA. He wanted to contribute to the ceremony, though, and asked Earl to tell a story for him to illustrate the impact that Rex had on him as a young officer, and the confidence he had in his people.
 
Earl is not a military man, and wanted to ensure that the acronyms were said properly. He asked me to do it, and this is what I am going to say on The Cocktail Porch at Army-Navy Country Club later this morning.
 
“To remind you of my place in Rex’s life, I worked very closely with him from 1971 to 1973, as a LCDR and a brand new intelligence officer, coming directly from command at sea. Something I didn’t know until very recently is that we had identical experiences early in our careers.”
 
“We both had command of ocean going minesweepers (MSO). Previous command at sea experience among Intel officers is very rare. When I retired, among 1400 Intel officers, I was the only one to ever have had command at sea. Rex was the most significant intelligence mentor in my career, though at that time, I don’t think I knew what a “mentor” was.”
 
“This story is a combination of Vietnam and the Cold War. It involves intuition from former seagoing officers, delegation of authority and the avoidance of what probably would have been the biggest crisis our Country faced since the Cuban Missile crisis. To my knowledge, it has never been exposed.”
 
“Why not? The Soviets were mightily embarrassed and The US didn’t need to rub their faces in the dirt. It all happened underwater.”
 
“This could never happen today. There are too many layers of command, and it is a Joint World.”
 
“Rex had guts. He believed in creativity and delegating authority and for those of us involved, less than two dozen, he made it clear, “I’ve got your back.” The timeframe is spring of 1972.”
 
“The North Vietnamese Army was moving south . With avid support from Admiral Zumwalt, Rex set up The Naval Intelligence Reaction Team (NAVIRT) in his Pentagon front office spaces. Three of us ran the team, a combat Marine Officer, a combat tested naval aviator and myself. The CNO gave Rex an unlimited budget. The  CNO’s guidance was: “Do anything you can to screw up the North’s advance, in support of engaged Navy and Marine Corps forces.”
 
“We were supported by the best and brightest analysts Suitland had offer, including Rich Haver and Denny Harman.  One night, around midnight, I got a call and all that was said was, “You gotta get in here right away.”
 
“The previous morning, May 9, 1972, President Nixon authorized the naval mining of Haiphong Harbor from our aircraft carriers, to prevent seaborne supply to North Vietnam. Several minutes before was I called, the NAVIRT received an urgent message from one of our submarines, deployed off Vladivostk, the Soviets main naval base in the far east. The message said, in so many words, “Four Soviet nuclear powered Echo-2 class submarines have conducted an emergency deployment and are heading south toward Vietnam at high speed.”
 
“This class of submarine carried long range, including nuclear, cruise missiles. These subs were specifically designed to kill aircraft carriers. The possibility of detecting and tracking all four of these submarines before they got in missile range of our carriers was very slim. The chances at least one could get through was high.”
 
“I huddled with Denny and Rich. We discussed this issue for a short period of time, because we knew we had to get the message off to the White House.”
 
“When it came to military matters, regardless of his other problems, we knew the President had resolve and could do the unexpected. So when we sent the message off to the White House, we also send along a military recommendation how to resolve this pending crisis.”
 
“I had said, “We can tell the Soviets we know how many of what class of submarine deployed, and when.That’s true and they will confirm that. The fact that we have no idea where the subs are now, they don’t know. So we call their bluff in a most provocative way. We tell the Kremlin “We know where all four submarines are now and if they don’t return to base, immediately, we will sink them.”
 
“The President bought the recommendation. The message went off to Moscow on the Hot Line and the subs turned around.”
 
“After the message went off to the White House, it was about 6:00 AM, Rex came into the office for an update, his first stop every morning. I explained what we had done, adding that if we waited to coordinate this through the “Navy Staff, got the CNO to sign off on the recommendation, brief the JCS, get the Chairman’s concurrence and then get State to coordinate, that could take a whole day.”
 
“We felt time was of the essence. He began to laugh, saying something like, “That’s what I am trying to teach you guys, “Think. Then act, if necessary” He added, “You’ll get no back-lash.”
 
We didn’t.”
 
I don’t think it is possible to have a better professional eulogy than that, and that I what I am going to go with this morning.
 
It is not snowing yet.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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