Thomas Todd Interview

              John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis.
Cold War Oral History Project
Interview with Lt. Cdr. Thomas D. Todd by Cadet William C. Butt, June 17, 2004
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
About the interviewer:
Cadet William Butt ('05) plans to commission in the U.S. Air Force. A native of Bedford, Virginia,
he is a history major.
Butt: My name is Cadet William Butt and I’m here with retired LCDR Todd on June 17, 2004. It is
4:10 in the afternoon. Thank you very much for being here today.
Todd: Thank you. It is my pleasure.
Butt: You enlisted in the Navy in 1953. Is that correct?
Todd: That’s correct. March 10th to be exact.
Butt: Why did you choose to enlist in the Navy?
Todd: I grew up on a small dairy farm in northern New York and my parents couldn’t afford to
send me to college. It was sort of a tradition in Edwards, a small town of 1,000 people, for young
men to enter the military service. About 70 to 80 percent went into the Navy. I just followed that
tradition. My primary goal was to secure governmental support through the Korean G.I. Bill to
attend college.
Butt: And while you were enlisted you worked in aviation electronics?
Todd: That is correct. I went through Aviation Electronics School at NATTC (Nagval Aviation
Technical Training Command), Memphis, Tennessee – it’s right near a little town called Millington
2
– for a period of 27 weeks from August 1953 until April 1954. After graduation, I was transferred
to a naval auxiliary air station near Pensacola, Florida called NAAS Saufley Field. This base was
where naval cadet pilots were trained in formation flying.
Butt: What types of aircraft did you work on?
Todd: I worked on the SNJ trainer. It was a prop-type aircraft, two-seater. I worked on the line,
where my job was to identify the piece of equipment that was malfunctioning, remove it, and
install a new unit in the aircraft. Then I sent the bad radio, or whatever, over to the repair shop
where others performed the actual repair work. I was there for about 18 months.
Butt: And after that you attended college?
Todd: No, in late August, early September, 1955, I was transferred to NAS Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. It’s on the southeastern corner of Cuba. It’s frequently referred to as Gitmo. Initially, I
worked at NAS McCulla Field on the eastern side of the bay, then some time prior to Christmas in
1955 I was transferred over to NAS Leeward Point. Leeward was a jet airfield on the west side of
the bay. On March 6, 1957, I was released from active duty. I was an aviation electronic
technician 3rd Class. I started college in September at Michigan State University in East Lansing,
Michigan. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Sociology, Anthropology in June
1961.
Butt: And you received your commission in 1961?
Todd: Yes, on the 27th of October after 16 weeks as an aviation officer candidate. That was at
NAS Pensacola, Florida.
Butt: And then you were in aircraft maintenance after that?
3
Todd: Well, not right away. I attended Basic Naval Aviation Officer School there in Pensacola for
a few weeks, and then in late January 1962 I reported to NATTC Memphis, Tennessee for
instruction at the Navy’s Aircraft Maintenance Officers’ Course. I graduated on June 22 of that
year. In the service, when you get to your first operational command, you may be assigned a job
for which you weren’t trained. That was my fate. I reported to VR-22, NAS Norfolk, Virginia in
July 1962. At that time MATS – Military Air Transport Service – was a joint Air Force/Navy
Command. We were a Navy squadron flying C118’s marked Air Force on the side of the planes.
Strange. Anyhow, the squadron legal officer was departing, and that’s where I was assigned.
Now, initially I had the title of assistant legal officer. The new legal officer was a pilot and gone
frequently on flights. When he’d return, he would stick his head in, ask how things were going.
I’d say, “Fine.”
He’d reply, “It’s all yours,” and leave.
Consequently, in substance, I was the legal officer! So, except for three weeks that fall – when I
worked half days in Maintenance – my training went one way and I went the other. Finally in July
1964 I became the legal officer in title as well as in fact. But there was an ordeal the legal office
had to endure first.
I had a confrontation with a senior officer. This was the only time it ever happened, but if I had to
do it over, I’d do it the exact same way. It was March 1964, the squadron had just completed its
annual operations and administrative inspection, and the legal office had obtained the second
highest grade of any division within VR-22. When I first arrived in ’62 the office was disorganized.
The departing legal officer had a photographic memory; his organization was all in his head.
When he departed, his organized system went with him. So, naturally, I was proud of what the
office had achieved in the last 20 months. Due to change from C-118 to C-130 aircraft the
4
squadron had increased from about 85 officers to over 135. Ground billets were needed for these
new officers when they weren’t flying. In the Officer’s Ready Room I was introduced to a LCDR
(pilot type), new to the squadron. He said, “I’m the new legal officer.”
I went back down to the legal office and informed the enlisted personnel. I instructed them to
continue the outstanding job they were doing, and to give the LCDR their full support. Later that
day the LCDR officially assumed control of the office. It was very clear that he intended to run the
office when he wasn’t flying status.
Immediately everything went to hell. Our new legal officer, without ever a by-your-leave – that is
within 24 hours – had discarded all the programs and procedures I had established, and within
the first week had chewed out every enlisted man in the office with screaming and offensive
language. His leadership was tyrannical, completely devoid of tact and diplomacy. The
treatment of the men was particularly offensive to me. About three weeks after he took over, the
LCDR called me into the inner office, his office, and said to me, “Lieutenant, I hope that you and I
can work together.”
I replied, “Commander, I will do whatever you tell me to do. I will do it in the most competent
manner that is possible. I will show proper respect for you at all times, but if you expect me to
show the initiative I’m capable of, forget it. You’ve completely alienated the people in this office,
and the treatment of the enlisted has been particularly offensive. Sir.”
He stood there, lost for words. A few weeks later he had occasion to write my fitness report.
Needless to say, it wasn’t very good. When the administration chief petty officer saw it, he
immediately opened the window in the wall beside his desk and handed it to the executive officer,
saying, “Commander, I think you’d better read this.” He did.
5
CDR Knoop looked at the chief, tore it up and said, “I’ll write him a new one.” And the new fitness
report was outstanding! I’ll always be very grateful to CDR Knoop for his support.
It was just a few days, maybe a week or two, later, I was locking the office door at the end of the
working day (working hours were from 7:00am to 3:30pm). CDR Knoop was about to get into his
vehicle, parked in front of the Legal Office. He inquired, “How’s it going, Lieutenant?”
I came to attention and asked, “Commander Knoop, may I speak off the record, Sir?”
He answered, “Yes, you may.”
I told him what had happened.
The Commander said, “Hmmm, I think we can take care of things.”
A few days later, July 13th, the LCDR was transferred to operations, and I was officially the
squadron legal officer.
The thing to remember, if you go into the service, is this: there are ways to get around the chain
of command, but you’ve got to do it the right way, at the right time. You have to learn, in any
bureaucracy, the informal structure of authority and responsibility – the deviations, in other words,
from the formal structure. It takes from three months to six months to learn what the difference is.
Then you can operate much more efficiently. But remember, if you succeed, all well and good; if
you don’t do it right, then you’re in trouble. CDR Knoop was a tremendous individual.
Butt: He sounds like it sir.
6
Todd: He shared an office with the commanding officer, Captain Hoel. I was in their office half a
dozen times a week. I was the only junior officer in the command that had open access to them.
I was very glad that I was assigned to the legal office. I discovered I had a talent for working with
people. I showed respect to everyone, even to Todd’s Bad Boys. That was the title which many
used in referring to those who got into trouble. When you show respect to others, people
appreciate the fact, and show respect in return.
Butt: And after the legal service, sir, you moved on to air intelligence?
Todd: Yes I did. I realized that being a non-lawyer, I had no future in JAG. That would be the
only place to go if you’re really going to do anything with legal. I loved political science, I loved
history, I loved international relations, geography – studying people. I told myself, you made a
mistake when you went the aircraft maintenance route. You should be in intelligence, because
that is where you would be playing to your strength – where I’d be most competent, most happy,
and could make the best contribution.
The Navy was looking for a relief for the assistant air intelligence officer on the U.S.S. Coral Sea
– CVA-43 – an aircraft carrier. The Midway, the Hancock, the Roosevelt, and the Coral Sea were
all members of the last class of non nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, built around the end of
WWII. The U.S.S. Coral Sea was home ported at NAS Alameda, California. Because of the
short time frame, the Navy elected to bypass the joint Air Force/Navy Air Intelligence School at
Lowry Air Force Base near Denver, Colorado. Instead, I was sent to the Navy’s Photo Recon
Course in Pensacola, Florida. It was the summer of ’65. By this time I was a lieutenant, same as
an Army captain. After course completion I was ordered to NAS Alameda, on the east side of
San Francisco Bay, to attend the Navy’s five-week Air Intelligence Course.
I graduated on the 24th of September 1965 and then traveled to Travis Air Force Base, north of
San Francisco. On the 29th I got on a flight to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines and we
7
stopped en route in Hawaii and Guam. In Guam, an Army officer, three civilians who were going
to Saigon, plus myself, decided to go over to the Officer’s Club and have a couple of beers while
we were waiting. We were supposed to be there for three to three and a half hours. After a
couple of hours, we caught a ride in a laundry truck going back to the airport. As we arrived, we
noticed that the plane had just completed loading. We raced through the airport, up the steps
and into the plane. The stairs were pulled away and the door closed. One of the civilians, who
had stopped in the terminal to buy a pack of gum, missed the plane.
After arriving at Clark Air Force Base, I had to wait a few days before I could catch the COD out
to the Coral Sea. I reported aboard the Coral Sea on the 3rd of October 1965 as the relief for Lt.
Schneider, the departing assistant air intelligence officer. The ship was in the Gulf of Tonkin – on
Yankee Station. That was my one aircraft carrier landing. I was sitting backwards so I couldn’t
see what was going on, which was probably just as well. I had the opportunity to become an RIO
– radar intercept officer – the back seater. Would be like your F14’s today, except it was F4
phantoms then. I could have gone that route, but the idea of landing on a carrier in the pitch dark
while it was raining, with my butt depending on the skill of the guy in front of me and the graces of
God, didn’t appeal to me I wasn’t convinced that was the way to have, shall we say, a long life.
The ship had been in combat then for quite a few months. I think it was the longest tour that any
carrier had had since the Korean War – ten or 11 months in length. The Pacific cruises at that
time were normally seven months long. From the third of October 1965 until the 18th, the ship
continued to operate in the combat zone, then we headed home via Subic Bay, Philippines, to the
United States.
Butt: What were your duties as the assistant air intelligence officer?
Todd: Well, when I first came aboard it was basically whatever the air intelligence officer told me
to do, because I was new on the job and in combat situations, they don’t have time to really break
in a newcomer to a regular routine. Once I got back to the States, the Commander had his
8
normal relief and my boss came aboard – Lt. Cdr. Crummer, Jim Crummer. He was a very soft-spoken
but pleasant individual, and while we were in port, basically, I handled whatever major
task he wanted me to do to get the Intelligence Office ready. My first boss was a brilliant
individual with a photographic memory. That plays to their advantage, but it’s hell on whoever
relieves them. So there was a lot to do. One of the duties I was assigned was aviation mine field
planning. I went to the Naval Station, Long Beach, right near L.A. to attend the Aviation Mine
Planning Course. I reported in there on the 10th of April, 1966 and I learned about planning a
mine field and the type of mines, etc. Later on I had a chance to put that to good use when
Carrier Airwing 2 came aboard and we had exercises near the Santa Rosa Islands off of San
Diego. All the ships’ training courses took place in those waters. Later on, during August of 1966
while en route to the Far East, I conferred with a mine field intelligence officer in Pearl Harbor.
The outcome: I planned a mine field for Hai Phong Harbor in North Vietnam.
After leaving Pearl Harbor, the ship sailed to Japan, and then to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
While en route to Japan from Hawaii, we were overflown by a Soviet recon turbo prop-bomber –
NATO code name, the Bear. This was standard Russian practice every time one of our carriers
crossed the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. A couple of our fighter aircraft would fly out, intercept,
and then escort the Soviet plane until it had left the area.
After leaving Subic Bay we were en route to Yankee Station off North Vietnam, when the ship
experienced a sudden and violent shudder. We limped back into Subic Bay. Underwater
inspection revealed that a blade had broken off one of the ship’s propellers – and we’re talking
about a very huge blade from a gigantic sized propeller. As a result, we slowly made our way to
Japan, because the American Naval Base at Yokosuka had the only dry dock in the entire Far
East big enough to hold the ship. Thus we enjoyed an unexpected ten more days in Japan.
After finally arriving on Yankee Station (the operating area off of North Vietnam), we commenced
combat operations for a total of 109 days, in periods of 35-40 days, 12 hours a day, seven days a
9
week. There was one period of 21 days that I never experienced the sun, because I was either
working, sleeping, eating or en route between those locations. I worked on the – it was the first
level under the flight deck. It was called the O2 level and that’s about two stories above the
hanger deck. That’s where I worked – right amid-ships so you could hear everything that was
going on up there. There is a lot of danger aboard an aircraft carrier, but you don’t think about it.
You do your job and you trust the people that are working on the flight deck to do the right thing.
Working on a carrier flight deck is one of the top five most dangerous jobs in the world. On one
hand, you’ve got planes with propellers like the SPAD – which was called the A1 – the attack and
fighter jets, and of course the helos – 70 to 80 of all types. During that entire period, we lost 20
planes and ten men to enemy fire.
That was almost a surrealistic experience for me. While we were in combat, my only job was to
writ eall the combat reports that went off the ship. There were three carriers on Yankee Station at
all times. There was an admiral in charge of all three. He was on board one of the carriers and
he was with us the first sea period, which I-wished-it-hadn’t-a-been-that-way, because his
intelligence officer – a full commander – was my operational boss. All my combat reports went
through him before they were released for transmission. Since that first 12 hours was also a
learning period, I got my butt chewed out more times than I’ve ever experienced in any six
months – any year – because he wanted the reports a certain way. Consequently, I didn’t get
any sleep at all for the first 36 hours of that first sea period.
To continue – we had planes flying off the ship – twelve flights every twelve hour period from
noon until midnight every day. The squadron AI officers would debrief the pilots when they came
back and then put the debriefs on my desk. It took about two hours for that entire process. I’d
come to work about 2:00pm – about two hours after everyone else. Of course, that meant I didn’t
get off until 2:00 in the morning – two hours after everyone else.
10
I wrote up special reports for our photo planes. I wrote what was called an OPREP-3 for all the
attack planes and the fighter planes – twelve of those – one for each flight. I wrote an OPREP-5
at the end of the flights, which was a summary of the entire 12 hour period – both a statistical and
narrative summary. I developed a color code; I had these big long sheets that were about ten
inches wide and maybe about three feet long, divided into 12 sections for the 12 flights. I utilized
a different color for each combat activity: attack, fighter, tanker, photo, ELINT, and CAP. And I
wrote the number of A/C that went out on each flight, to perform a particular mission, in the
middle of the colored circle. Thus, any time my boss, the operations officer, or whoever, asked,
“Lieutenant, how many attack planes – or whatever – went out at 1700 hours?” I’d glance down,
ID the color, and instantly provide the information. A little thing like that really helped. During 109
days of combat, we lost 20 planes or ten men, killed or captured. We headed back to the States
in February 1967.
The next summer – I think it was late July – we headed back to the Far East. In August I left the
ship in Yokosuka, Japan, with orders to a new command. My boss had said, “You know, you and
I came aboard within a few weeks of each other – about three weeks – and that doesn’t provide a
great deal of continuity for the people coming after us, so one of us should leave a little bit early.”
So I was able to get relieved in August, with my boss being relieved in early November. It made
sense.
I flew back out of Tasakawa Air Force Base north of Tokyo. Flew nonstop to Travis Air Force
Base north of San Francisco. I left at 3:00 in the afternoon and I arrived about 9:00 in the
morning of the same day I left, due to the crossing of the International Date Line. Consequently, I
had a 36 hour day before I got to sleep that night. My orders instructed me to report to FICEUR –
that’s an acronym for Fleet Intelligence Center Europe. FICEUR at that time was located at the
Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, Florida. I took my mother down to Simi Valley, California, just
north of L.A. and dropped her off to see friends. Then I headed toward Albuquerque, New
Mexico, on through Pensacola, Florida, finally arriving in Jacksonville on the 30th of August, 1967.
11
At FICEUR I was assigned the position of political analyst for the entire Mediterranean area, plus
the Middle East; I was responsible for keeping up the Mediterranean briefing manual, and later
on, the Northern European briefing manual that were provided to Naval and Marine units
deploying to those areas. I was constantly submitting updates to the computer room, where the
dinosaur-sized computers were located.
Butt: What type of things were you putting in those manuals?
Todd: Oh, it was everything. It was the political situation, what were the political parties, which
party and individuals were in power, who was sympathetic to the Soviet Union, who were
Western Allies, if the government was totalitarian, authoritarian, or a democracy, what problems
existed in the country or regions. One of the other guys in the same office – there were three of
us – did all the biographies of the various politicians. The three of us shared the briefing duties.
We were flying up and down the East Coast, briefing Naval and Marine units deploying to the
Mediterranean Sea. It was an hour and a half brief, covering all the countries surrounding the
Med, including the entire Middle East. One third of the presentation focused on the Arab-Israeli
situation. It sparked an interest, which I’ve pursued in depth to this day.
Around that time airline planes were occasionally being hijacked to Cuba. Since civilian
commercial flights were our means of travel to and from our briefing sites, we were naturally
concerned about the possibility of being on a target aircraft. Since we carried classified slides,
the natural question was, “What do we do with them?” But we never had to face the actual event.
Shortly after I reported to FICEUR I went TAD – temporary additional duty – to the U.S.S.
Roosevelt, another non-nuclear aircraft carrier. It was involved in a NATO exercise and they
needed extra intelligence officers on board. I reported aboard in Naples, Italy, on the 23rd of
September and didn’t get back to Jacksonville until the 7th of October. Every morning when you’d
12
wake up you’d see this Russian trawler off to port or starboard a few hundred yards away. The
same had occurred daily aboard the Coral Sea on Yankee Station: Chinese and Vietnamese
junks around, undoubtedly reporting our activities.
Butt: Going back to your time in Vietnam – you were obviously in Vietnam, but in North Korea
something happened in the intelligence community. The Pueblo was captured.
Todd: That happened, if I remember right – didn’t that happen in late ’67 or was it ’66?
Butt: April, 1966.
Todd: Then it happened just a few months before I left the Coral Sea.
Butt: Did the capture of that carry over to Vietnam and impact on the intelligence community at
all?
Todd: I really can’t say. It was of tremendous concern, I know, to everybody because of the
intelligence that was gained by the North Koreans. To what extent they might have shared it with
the North Vietnamese I don’t know, but it was a concern to us. We admired Cdr. Butcher for his
leadership in the North Korean camp, how he stood up for his men, etc., but at the time we were
thinking that he should have resisted boarding. If he had, it would have meant the death,
probably, of them all – or very likely. So there were mixed emotions about that event.
But back to Vietnam for a moment. People don’t have any idea of how corrupting that war was.
We were fighting a war over there in which there was no clear-cut goal except attrition – killing so
many of the enemy that they would be discouraged from continuing the war. It showed a
complete lack of understanding of the Asian mind. These people had been fighting the French for
85 years before we came on board. They had been fighting the Chinese and the Cambodians at
13
various times going back in their history for hundred and hundreds of years. There was no
possibility they’d quite, regardless of how many we killed.
Butt: Yes sir. It was very bureaucratic, if you will.
Todd: And the rules. We couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. We could have destroyed the
entire irrigation system of North Vietnam. We were prohibited from doing that. We couldn’t touch
Hai Phong Harbor as far as bombing it or mining it. Oh, yeah, we hit gunboats in the harbor and
so on, but we didn’t mine it until Nixon ordered it to force the Vietnamese back to the table to sign
the peace treaty (December 1972). They were coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but we
weren’t supposed to go into Cambodia or Laos. Well, we did go into Cambodia a couple of times
with ground troops. But unbeknownst to the public, unbeknownst to most of the senators in the
United States Senate, we had planes going into Laos all the time. I was in a unique position.
Like I say, it was sort of a surrealistic experience, because there I was – I was perfectly safe. The
North Vietnamese couldn’t touch our ship, but here were all these pilots and RIO’s that were
coming through my intelligence spaces, who were in danger every day. I got to know many of
them personally – lieutenants, etc., my rank, and lieutenant JG’s – and got to know at least who
the commanding officers were. Then all of a sudden, the next day they’d be gone. They were
shot down, they were POW’s or they were killed. It was a strange experience being there.
We had an occasion when a pilot, Lt. Morgan, was shot down. The spads – prop-type attack
types – were flying cover to protect him from North Vietnamese troops until the jolly green giants
got there – the helicopters – to rescue him. Well, he was in one of these rain forests where it’s 40
feet from the ground up to the first leaves and then you’ve got a thick canopy that almost blocks
out the sunlight completely.
Butt: Triple thick.
14
Todd: Yes, our aircraft were trying to locate Lt. Morgan so they could lower one of these
penetrators that had three blades that folded out like a propeller. You sat on that and they’d haul
you up. Well, I remember it coming over the loud speaker. Lt. Morgan was telling them, “Get out
of here, get out of here, the North Vietnamese troops are too near.” And so they went away and
later came back. But we never did get him out successfully. I don’t know whether he was
captured – whether he came back alive or not.
The goal of severe attrition was unrealistic, so some officers were taking advantage of the war to
try to enhance their own careers. The guys on the grounds were told to give estimates of the
enemy kill, and most of the time they had absolutely no idea. So they’d cook up a figure in order
to get the superiors and Intel off their back. Even I was told to lie. At the end of the first week in
combat, I was ordered by the operations officer, “You will not report missed targets anymore;
instead you’ll report light damage.” One day, upon to returning to work, I found a distorted
OPREP-5 from the previous day on my desk. When I read the narrative portion I was shocked.
The previous day some of our planes had been attacking two or three gunboats in Hai Phong
Harbor. They couldn’t seem to anything that day. You know, even the best hitters have their off
days. Well, hell, I picked it up and read it – they’re knocking the hell out of these gunboats,
secondary explosions all over the damn place – I said, “Oh, bullshit!”
My boss says, “Yeah, the Ops officer and the CAG” – CAG being the commanding officer of the
Air Wing, all the planes – “got a hold of it and they changed it.”
The only time I ever called a superior by his first name was the last day on combat. My boss was
elsewhere on the ship. He called up and said, “Tom, the admiral wants you to report medium flak
over Than Wa Bridge.”
Well, Than Wa Bridge was in the southern part of North Vietnam. We’d been bombing the hell
out of and it was all twisted. No vehicle traffic crossed it anymore, but foot traffic was still
15
continuing. Usually flak on it was medium or heavy. Well, this time it was very light. I said
“Goddamn it, Jim. I’m tired of lying for these people.”
He replied, “Tom, just cool it. I understand just how you feel. I feel the same way. But it’s the
last day on line; we won’t have to do it anymore. We’re starting home tomorrow.”
After August 1968, having left active duty, I continued to serve in the Active Reserves. I was
proud of the uniform I wore. But, like a lot of Vietnam vets, I thought it was a damn rotten war,
one we weren’t allowed to win – and a lot of good men were sacrificed for the goal of forcing the
enemy to back off. That was ethnocentric stupidity.
I do have a sentiment I share with the overwhelming majority of Viet veterans: I have absolutely
no use for Jane Fonda. She went to North Vietnam, wined and dined with their officials. Some of
our POW’s were forced to meet with her, and subsequently were tortured for failing to act and talk
in a manner helpful to the North Vietnamese. She later said that all this stuff about torture was a
lie. Well, these people have proof. A lot of them have scars on their limbs, etc. and on their
bodies that they carry to this day. I have absolutely no use for her. It’s one thing to exercise your
right to protest peacefully, and to exercise free speech in this country, but when you cross the
pond and you actually interact in a sympathetic manner with the enemy, then you’re betraying
your country.
Butt: Yes, sir, I agree.
Todd: I don’t know whether you know it or not, but there were seven officers – there might have
been others, but these were the ones that became notorious – that were called the Outer Seven.
One had gained the rank of Navy captain and another gained the rank of Marine colonel, while
still prisoners. The other officers were of lesser rank. They all cooperated with the North
Vietnamese completely.
16
Butt: I wasn’t aware of that.
Todd: Oh yeah. There was one of them that was supposed to come into my squadron when I
was in the Reserves later on. He never did. I’m glad he didn’t, because I would have asked for
reassignment. I would not have served with him.
All the prisoners that came home prior to mass release in early 1973, with one exception, did so
in violation of the standing order of the senior POW. The one exception was a young Navy
seaman who had fallen overboard in the Gulf of Tonkin. Having memorized the names of all
American POW’s in the camp, he was ordered by CDR Stockdale (later Rear Admiral) to accept
repatriation and take the information back to the States. The senior POW was, I believe, one Col.
Flynn, USAF. His order was, “No POW will accept repatriation as long as there’s one other POW
who has been here longer than you.” Senator John McCain is one of the big heroes that came
out of the war. He had three limbs broken during the ejection from his crippled plane. After his
captors found out that he was the son of CINPAC – the admiral in command of all U.S. forces in
the Pacific – they offered to let him go home to curry favor. In compliance with the standing
order, he refused! In retaliation, the North Vietnamese re-broke his healing limbs.
I don’t care what your political beliefs are. I don’t care whether you think the war was justified or
not. The fact is, once you’re shot down, your loyalty is to your fellow POW’s, and anything less
than that is unacceptable!
In February 1971, I attended a two-week Intelligence Debriefing course at NAS San Diego. We
were thrown into the woods, captured by sailors and marines dressed in blue uniforms with red
starts acting as the enemy, and thrown into a prisoner of war camp. We were subject to the
water board, forced to wear hoods and sit in small doghouse-like structures. Before it was over
with, you experienced a whole array of negative emotions. It was very realistic!
17
After serving one year, from August 1967 through August 1968, at FICEUR at NAS Jacksonville, I
left active duty. I had a total of 11 years of active duty to my credit. I had developed an intense
desire to teach. I had only a Bachelor of Arts degree then. I taught at the College of Artesia,
Artesia, New Mexico, from 1968 to 1970. Then I took a leave of absence and enrolled in
graduate school at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. There I earned 27 credit hours
toward a Masters in American History. Later, 1981, I earned a Masters of Science degree in
Criminal Justice from Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.
From 1968 to 1972 I was a member of NRIU 8-1-6 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1972, due to
family reasons, I moved my family to Jacksonville, Florida. Although I couldn’t find a position
appropriate to my rank and seniority, I nevertheless joined a reserve unit, NAIRU F-1. In March
1973 I was recalled to temporary active duty to assist in debriefing returning Vietnam POW’s at
the Naval Hospital, NATTC, Memphis, Tennessee. I was a member of the team assigned to
debrief one Capt. Lawrence, USN. I reported in on March 4th, a Sunday. On the following
Wednesday, two POW’s, a Cdr. Neil Tanner F4 pilot, and his RIO, Cdr. Ross Terry, arrived by
plane from the west coast. The last time I had seen them, they had flown off the Coral Sea in the
fall of 1966. The official report of their combat loss, which I had written, I was now reading again
six years later. Terry’s youngest child had been born shortly after he was shot down. The
commander and daughter were so enthralled with each other at her sixth birthday party, that
there wasn’t a dry eye in the hospital. I was on active duty for three weeks. After serving with
other reserve units, I retired in 1982.
Butt: During your years in the Reserves, the U.S. military was downsizing and in the ‘80s they
would spend more money on the military, but during the time they were downsizing, the Soviets
are spending more money on their Navy. There are some that share the view that, just
hypothetically, if the Soviets and the United States went to war, the Soviets possibly could have
won the sea. What are your thoughts on that?
18
Todd: Well, the downsizing was a major concern of mine because I was witnessing it throughout
the ‘70s, which is the main period after Vietnam. We got out of Vietnam in ’73 and then things
really started downhill. Carter was well meaning, but when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he
said, “I guess you can’t trust the Soviets after all.” Hell, I didn’t trust them to start with. Being in
intelligence you end up knowing more about the enemy and their strengths and weaknesses than
you do your own side. I was concerned because the security in the United States was being
gradually reduced. When Reagan came into office I was so glad that he identified the Soviets as
the evil empire – they were! His remarks weren’t simplistic. It was true. He re-introduced the
arms race – an arms race that wrecked the Soviet economy. There was no way they could keep
up – absolutely no way. Subsequently, Gorbachev came into power in 1985. He was the first
Soviet leader who hadn’t experienced the Russian revolution. That’s why he was more
pragmatic. He didn’t have that revolutionary zeal that drove all the others – that distorted their
view of reality. He realized that the system – economically – didn’t work.
Butt: Didn’t work at all?
Todd: Didn’t work effectively. Repeat your question, because I’m not sure I completely answered
it.
Butt: During the ‘70s when the United States military was downsizing, hypothetically, if there was
a war to break out, could the Soviets have won the sea?
Todd: No, I don’t think so. But the margin of victory would have been, shall we say, more
narrow. We have to remember that during the ‘70s, Warrant Officer Walker – do you remember
him?
Butt: Yes, sir.
19
Todd: The one who was in cryptology or whatever you call it – the communications side of
intelligence. He had given away so much information to the Soviets.
Butt: Yes, sir, I know exactly who you’re talking about now.
Todd: There was a Soviet defector who said if we had gone to war, we would have had the
advantage in destroying your missiles because of the knowledge that he gave us. I think Walker
was the most deadly American spy, for the Soviets, in the entire Cold War, at least to my
knowledge.
Butt: Yes, I would agree.
Todd: His brother, a retired lieutenant commander, was in the spy ring, as well as a son who was
still on active duty. I said long, long ago, the only way that the Cold War is going to be won by us
is, we continue to contain the Soviets, continue to block their expansions and ambitions, and
sooner or later they are going to evolve out of this revolutionary zeal as their system starts to fail.
Now I wasn’t at that time identifying the failure as economic or political.
Butt: Right – just one of the two.
Todd: But somehow I knew the system was going to fail, because it was driven by fear. That
was the only damn thing that made it work at all. In my academic career, which followed my
naval service, my main field was criminal justice, but I also taught history. I taught the Cold War
in western civ and American history. The two things Gorbachev knew he had to have were
Glasnost – openness, more freedom in order to create more incentive among working individuals
– and Perestroika – restructuring of the economy.
20
Butt: Kind of kick-start it.
Todd: Yeah – a capitalistic input. He wouldn’t have said that, but basically that’s what it was. To
make the economy work there had to be a little more capitalism, and to make that work you had
to have more political freedom. Well, one of the things I learned teaching western civ and history
came from the French Revolution which happened in 1789 through 1799. Then Napoleon came
to power in 1799, ending the French Revolution. What Napoleon did, unintentionally, was to
spread the concepts of nationalism and liberalism throughout Europe. Now, he was no believer
in democracy. Obviously, political democracy ended in France. But liberty, fraternity, and
equality, born out of the French Revolution, embodied nationalism and liberalism, which the
French Army spread throughout Europe as it conquered and occupied a large section of the
continent. Now, I’m not taking about liberalism in the context of American politics. I’m talking
about the concept as it applies to democratic freedoms – in the generic sense.
When Gorbachev tried to introduce some glasnost – some liberalism – he was attempting to let
the tiger (nationalism) part way out of the cage. Mission impossible. You can’t let it out part way
– and still control it. Like most reformers, he was moving too fast for the conservatives, who in
many cases didn’t want any change at all, and not moving fast enough for the liberals, so he was
damned by both sides.
The U.S.S.R. had 15 different republics. Russia was the largest, about 70% of the landmass and
55% of the population. But you had 14 other republics, like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, also
the Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and various others. The introduction of a little glasnost fired
their nationalism. Once that started, there was no way the Soviet Union was going to survive.
And of course the attempted coup by the conservatives in August of ’91 simply advanced the
approaching end of the Soviet Union. By December, the Soviet Union was no more.
21
Earlier, in late 1988, Gorbachev had realized that they could no longer afford to subsidize the
Communist countries of Eastern Europe, so his government ended the Brezhnev Doctrine of
intervening with the military force if necessary. Thus, by the end of 1989 the Iron Curtain had
collapsed and Eastern Europe was free of Soviet domination.
Butt: In all your vast Cold War experience over the years, what do you take away from that? You
know, lessons learned and things of that nature.
Todd: When dealing with other people of different beliefs, different ideologies, whether political,
economic, religious, you have to proceed with caution. You must understand their culture. You
have to study your adversaries – and others – find out what makes them tick. What is it they’re
afraid of? And throughout the Cold War I don’t think that we or the Russians did a very good job
in that respect. There was so much fear and so much mistrust. I went through the Cuban Crisis.
I was in VR-22 at the time. We came within a hair’s breadth, I later discovered, of being
obliterated. It was only by the grace of God that the trigger wasn’t pushed. If it had been, none of
my grandchildren would be here, none of my children – I wouldn’t be here, because Norfolk area
would have been destroyed. It’s the largest Naval complex in the world. We have a tendency, as
Americans, in large part due to our geographical isolation, to address the problems of the world
with other people from strictly Western values and Western cultural beliefs. In other words, we’re
extremely and arrogantly ethnocentric – ignoring the cultural perceptions of others as we deal
with world problems.
We made that mistake with North Vietnam and then again as we prepared to go into Iraq in 2003.
There was no understanding of Iraqi culture. There was no understanding of Islam. There was
no understanding of the fact that Islamic fundamentalism sees their societies and way of life as
deeply threatened by Western culture. There was no understanding of the deep religious and
ethnic cleavages in the country, of the fact that our support of Israel is viewed by the Muslim
world as grossly unfair and wrong. The very idea of trying to make a democracy out of Iraq is
22
“Mission Impossible”. On that, I hope to God I’m proven wrong. But I’m very fearful that once
U.S. troops are withdrawn, there’ll be civil war. The Sunnis, led by Saddam Hussein’s loyalists,
and the Shi’ites will be at each other’s throats. And don’t forget al-Quaida and Iran – they’ll
probably support the Shi’ites – but with their own goals in mind.
Butt: Yes sir, I agree. Just one last question. Anything else that we haven’t covered today, that
you just like to add for the record?
Todd: Let me say, going into the military for a few years, I think, is a tremendous way for any
young person to make the transition from adolescence into adulthood. It really is a great learning
experience. Mothers absolutely don’t recognize their sons and daughters when they come home
for the first time. That is, where their habits are concerned. You learn responsibility. You mature
a lot quicker. And then if you want to go on to other careers, that’s fine. The military is not for
everyone as far as a long-range career is concerned. I enjoyed my time on active duty. I saw
Japan, I saw Hong Kong – spent Christmas of ’66 there – I saw some of the Philippines, I got to
Paris when I was in VR-22. We had some flights going over there and I talked the executive
officer, Cdr. Knoop, into letting me go on one. That was most enjoyable. I got to see Rome,
Naples, and many other places.
Butt: This has been a fantastic interview. Again, thank you for this opportunity.