Back on the line since 15 August, having relieved the Chicago, we had a VIP visitor on 19 August.
The Honorable John W. Warner, Undersecretary of the Navy, arrived via helicopter and spent several hours on board. Likely on tour of Navy units in the Vietnam area, he had a special reason to visit Biddle.
In ceremonies on the foredeck, he presented the Biddle with a Meritorious Unit Commendation. The award was for Biddle‘s previous service in the Gulf of Tonkin, specifically 3 March – 15 July 1968. Warner shook hands with crew members who had served on the earlier deployment and took a tour of the ship.
My journal noted that on 18 August, I “spent the night making a chart for the secretary’s visit.” The entry for 19 August reported that Captain Olsen had forgotten Warner’s name in his introduction. Also, Warner “never saw my chart.”
If anyone can help with the ID of the sailor at left in the photo above, please do.
Here’s a gallery of other cruise book photos from the visit.
Warner wasn’t a big name at the time. In his early 40s when he visited, he had had an interesting career to that point, however, but with much more to come. He enlisted in the Navy just before the end of WWII. Discharged in 1946, he left as a Petty Officer Third Class. He graduated from college and entered law school in his native Virginia. He interrupted his law studies to enlist in the Marines in 1950 and served as an officer in the Korean War.
Married to a wealthy banking heiress, Warner invested money and time in both of Richard Nixon’s presidential campaigns. When Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, he appointed Warner to the undersecretary post.
Warner became Secretary of the Navy in 1972 and served in that position until 1974. The Warners had divorced in 1973 and John Warner married Elizabeth Taylor in 1976. They divorced in 1982. He was elected U.S. Senator from Virginia in 1978 and served in the Senate for 30 years. He chose not to run for reelection in 2008. The USS John Warner (SSN-785), a Virginia-class submarine, was commissioned in 2015.