Six Who Served – Walter S.Topp

On President’s Day, let’s take a moment to remember the six American presidents who also served in the U. S. Navy.

Of the 45 men who have been president of the United States, six had previously served as officers in the Navy: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter. All served during World War II, although Carter did not graduate from the Naval Academy until June of 1946, ten months after the war ended.

As naval officers, they had a variety of experiences. All except Carter served in the Pacific theater during the war. Kennedy and Bush won medals for their actions in combat. Johnson did too, but he was recognized for his actions as an observer. Kennedy, Nixon and Ford all volunteered to leave stateside assignments where they could have remained. As a prospective pilot, Bush was headed for combat the day he enlisted. Johnson’s time overseas was brief, as he was a member of Congress before entering active duty in 1941 and in July 1942 President Roosevelt barred members of Congress from serving in the military. Carter entered the Naval Academy in 1943, when there was no reason to think that the fighting would end before he would graduate.

As presidents, they were something of a mixed bag. Three were democrats, three were republicans. Although Kennedy generally gets good marks, none of the naval veterans are typically included in the top tier of U. S. presidents. Johnson and Nixon achieved significant successes, but those successes were overshadowed by catastrophic failures later on. All six left office prematurely. Kennedy, of course, was assassinated. Johnson declined to run for a second term. Nixon resigned, and Ford, Bush, and Carter all lost bids for re-election.

Though unable to win second terms, Ford, Bush, and Carter are generally remembered as dedicated and honorable public servants who damaged their own re-election chances by taking politically unpopular actions that they believed were in the best interests of the United States.

Gerald Ford was a well-respected and well-liked Congressman from Michigan when he became vice-president under Richard Nixon. When Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment for obstructing justice, Ford became president. But Ford fatally damaged his re-election prospects when he pardoned Nixon.

Ford knew that the pardon would be unpopular, but he hoped to avoid a long, divisive trial that would compound the damage that the Watergate scandal had inflicted on the country. But while Ford expected to be criticized for the pardon, even he must have been shocked when his approval rating dropped from 71 percent to 50 percent overnight. While not the only reason for his defeat in 1976, Ford’s pardon of Nixon is always considered one of the key contributors.

George H. W. Bush served in Congress and was U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Director of the CIA before becoming vice-president during the Reagan administration. Upon his election as president in 1988, he quickly realized that the U.S. economy was slowing, causing the federal deficit to rise alarmingly. Although he had famously promised not to raise taxes, he believed a compromise on taxes was necessary to avert economic disaster. Although supported by many moderate republicans, Bush knew that conservative republicans would oppose any tax hikes and that he would pay a political price. But the pushback from conservatives was fiercer than Bush expected, and his popularity fell by more than 20 points. Most historians believe that the tax hike was a major reason that Bush was not re-elected.

Although Bush’s action crippled his later re-election campaign, his budget bill was instrumental in reducing federal deficits and making possible federal budget surpluses during the Clinton administration.

Jimmy Carter is the only Naval Academy graduate to have served as president. After commissioning in 1946, he remained on active duty in the Navy until 1953, when he resigned to take over his family’s business following the death of his father. At the time, Carter was slated to become the engineering officer for the nuclear power plant to be placed in USS Seawolf (SSN 575), the U.S. Navy’s second nuclear submarine.

Having served in the Georgia state legislature and as governor of Georgia before becoming president, Carter had no federal government experience beyond the Navy when he took office. His election campaign was built around his status as a political outsider, not beholden to Washington’s entrenched elite.

Many politicians have campaigned as political outsiders, but Carter wasn’t kidding. He detested the deal-making and horse-trading that modern politics seems to demand and for most of his term he refused to do it. Even when he tried, he was terrible at it. In Carter’s case, there was no single, defining incident where he placed the good of the nation above his own political fortunes. Instead, he made a conscious effort to ignore political considerations in virtually every action of his presidency.

Stuart Eizenstat, one of Carter’s key advisors, wrote, “… in Carter’s view of the presidency, what mattered was ‘doing the right thing,’ and believing in a just reward upon returning to face the electorate.”

Carter’s aides greatly respected his determination to ‘do the right thing,’ regardless of political consequences, but they also recognized how his reluctance to consider the politics of a policy crippled his presidency and obscured his very real accomplishments. For Carter, there was no ‘just reward.’

Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter have all seen their reputations rise in the years after they left office. Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Bush’s commitment to reducing the federal deficit, and Carter’s steadfast refusal to participate in politics as usual demonstrated a commendable willingness to place the nation’s interests above their own.

Did service in the US Navy reinforce their sense of duty and their willingness to risk their political future for the sake of an unpopular action? Perhaps. It is worth noting, though, that many presidents have taken politically unpopular positions for the greater good without having served in the military.

But each of these presidents considered their naval service to be a defining event in their lives, and it is not unreasonable to assume that their experiences in the Navy shaped the way they perceived their role as presidents.

“I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: ‘I served in the United States Navy.’

President John F. Kennedy, 1 August 1963, in Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy.
[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 1 to November 22, 1963 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 620]

February 18, 2019