When Chafee resigned from the post of Secretary of the Navy, he had served as Navy Secretary of a longer period (three years and three months) than any of the previous 11 secretaries with the single exception of Paul Nitze, who served for three years and seven months. He had been appointed the 60thSecretary of the Navy on January 31, 1969 (on the same day U.S. forces in Vietnam reached a peak of 542,000 personnel) and resigned on May 4, 1972 (when 96% of that number had been brought home).

Chafee announced his resignation on April 4, 1972, about a month from the deadline by which he had pledged to announce his political plans. Rumors were rampant that he would challenge Claiborne Pell for his Senate seat in 1972. A group called “Chafee for ‘72” had already been formed. Chafee declined to talk about his expected challenge to Mr. Pell and said the timing of his action had not been influenced either by political circumstances in Rhode Island or by the fact that a new campaign reform law would shortly go into effect. The new law required political candidates and groups that supported them to disclose all contributions and expenditures of over $100, received or spent for a candidate after that date.

While he was Secretary, Chafee had traveled many thousands of miles to visit various Navy and Marine Corp bases. At least once each year since taking office, he had visited Vietnam and other Navy operations in the Western Pacific. He oversaw the reduction of Navy personnel in Vietnam (a reduction of 96% over the three years he was in office) and supported an All Volunteer Force. He supervised the trimming and modernization of the Navy. He continually fought in Washington to protect and strengthen the Navy’s bases at Newport, Quonset Point, and Davisville. At a time when people had to look “ecology” up in the dictionary, he targeted the importance of cleaning up and preventing pollution. Most important, he focused on people by raising pay, lessening duty tours to lessen periods of family separation, and worked to provide better housing for dependents.

During his first year in office, Chafee garnered national attention in his decision on the US Pueblo incident. In May 1969 Chafee overruled the Naval Board of Inquiry’s recommendation to court martial Commander Lloyd Bucher, captain of the Naval Intelligence ship, Pueblo, which had surrendered to North Korean patrol boats off the coast of Japan on January 23, 1968. The ship was, in the words of Navy: The Magazine of Sea Power (Feb 1969), “crammed with highly secret electronic and coding machines and classified papers.” It was not outfitted with “destruct devices” for destroying the top-secret information; it was not defended by US tactical fighter-bombers. Its only weapons, a pair of .50-caliber machine guns, were frozen fast beneath their tarpaulin on the ship’s bridge. One crewman was mortally wounded in the attack, three others, including Bucher, were hit. Chafee said the officers and crew of the Pueblo had suffered enough–they had undergone 11 months of imprisonment and interrogation under the North Koreans–and that a court martial was not necessary. Public and Congressional opinion supported his view. On May 6, 1969, Secretary Chafee dismissed all charges against officers involved in the Pueblo incident.

A list of the major actions of Chafee’s career at the Navy Department, “Initiatives and Accomplishments during Tenure of Honorable John H. Chafee, Secretary of the Navy,” was produced at the end of his Navy career. On it is listed the various Naval procurement of military jets and submarines and approval of plans to develop ships and aircraft—Chafee approved the F-14 carrier-based fighter jet, as well as the SSN-688 class nuclear submarine, the P-3C aircraft, the S-3A carrier-based ASW aircraft, a new major amphibious assault ship (LHA), the SPRUANCE class antisubmarine destroyers, and a new jet-powered carrier-based antisubmarine aircraft, the S-3A Viking, among others.

In addition to approving military weapons development, Chafee worked to improve working conditions for Navy personnel. He worked hard to put through approval for pay bonuses to officers and enlisted men as an incentive for these men to remain. He pushed for increased sea pay for those sailors who spent abnormal amounts of time at sea. Throughout his career as Secretary, he pushed for improvements for families in the Navy. He asked for a variable housing allowance which would pay extra money to personnel who were stationed in high cost of living areas and for an increase for family housing (a 50% increase over what the Department of Defense had planned). He encouraged the building of Temporary Lodging Facilities and permanent housing for Navy personnel. He approved new actions to assist Navy personnel involved with drugs and addicted to alcohol, including granting of amnesty to drug users voluntarily seeking help and setting up drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in the United States

He appointed various personnel to the Admiralty, including the first Black admiral of the US Navy, Rear Admiral Samuel L. Gravely, and Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., America’s first man in space and the first Sea Service astronaut to reach flag rank. Chafee also was Secretary during the time when the decision was made on February 8, 1973, to permit women to enroll in Naval Reserve Officer Training programs for the first time in history. He oversaw the “Vietnamization” of Navy forces in Vietnam. This term describes the withdrawal of forces from Vietnam. In January 1969 the Navy had 35,700 people in Vietnam. By January 1972 that number had dropped to 7,500 with about half of those remaining to be out by May of 1972.

Chafee approved several actions designed to enhance opportunities for naval personnel of minority races. He worked to encourage recruitment and retention of qualified black officer. By the time Chafee left office, there were more than 600 black naval officers; in 1967 there were only 269. He worked to encourage the appointment of black midshipmen to the US Naval Academy. In September 1971, 45 black midshipmen were enrolled in the freshman class; more than had previously been enrolled in the entire brigade prior to 1971. He oversaw the opening of Naval Reserve Officer Training programs as three predominantly black colleges and universities.

Chafee broke with tradition in reserving certain jobs for a special category of officer by appointing a non-aviator to head the US Sixth Fleet, by appointing an aviator to head the Bureau of Naval Personnel, by nominating a non-aviator to become the new Chief of Naval Operations (the highest military position in the Navy). At age 49, Vice-Admiral Elmo Zumwalt became the youngest CNO in history (and one of the most controversial). He created the post of Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy with primary responsibility for environmental matters and anti-pollution efforts throughout the Navy.

During Chafee’s term in office, Navy bases in Rhode Island were constantly threatened with closure and, in fact, one of his major stands in his abortive 1972 Senatorial Campaign, was that he would help protect the bases he presciently predicted would close. Chafee charged in 1972 that Claiborne Pell supported a plan by which “Quonset Point Naval Air Station would be closed, Davisville Seabee Center likely would be shut down, and Navy operations at Newport would be greatly reduced.” Providence Journal, Sept 5, 1972. Chafee sought to link Pell, the incumbent Democrat, to antiwar policies that would cost Rhode Island thousands of Navy jobs.

Chafee was Secretary of the Navy during a formative time in United States and US Naval history. At the beginning of his tenure, the Vietnam War was at its peak, while at the same time popular protest against it was growing. The psychological impact on public opinion of the Tet Offensive on January 30-31, 1968, marked a rallying point in popular protest against the Vietnam War. Naval development of new aircraft and weapons were proceeding at a great rate, but at the same time the Navy was losing popular support. Chafee came into office representing the Establishment, while he also represented the liberal faction of the Republican Party. Once again as a member of a less dominant power group, he followed his pattern of bipartisan compromise to benefit public interest.