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Feb 04, 2024

Sailing into the Future with the U.S. Coast Guard

In honor of Coast Guard Day, Naval History magazine is pleased to present a selection from a speech delivered by A. Denis Clift, Vice President for Planning and Operations at the U.S. Naval Institute.

In honor of Coast Guard Day, Naval History magazine is pleased to present a selection from a speech delivered by A. Denis Clift, Vice President for Planning and Operations at the U.S. Naval Institute. In 2002, the U.S. Coast Guard formally entered the U.S. intelligence community, building on a long and distinguished career in law enforcement, defense, and myriad other maritime operations. In this speech, Clift, then president of the Joint Military Intelligence College, told the cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in October 2000 of the challenges they would face in their service.

As a token of gratitude, Clift was given a handmade model of the USCG Eagle—an image of which appears at the top of this article—by the Coast Guard Academy Corps of Cadets.

Built in Germany in 1936 and seized for reparations after World War II, the Eagle has served as the Coast Guard’s premier training ship and, refitted and modernized, continues to blend training for the challenges facing the nation today with the finest of sailing traditions of the Coast Guard.

When Lieutenant John F. Kennedy sailed for the Pacific on board the Navy transport USS Rochambeau (AP-63) in March 1943, he found himself sharing a stateroom with Ensign James A. Reed. They debated politics and became friends during the long westward passage.

They had fought the war from PT boats. When Kennedy was elected President, he named Reed in 1961 to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Law Enforcement, the secretariat position in that senior Department then overseeing the U.S. Coast Guard. In just a few months, the President would be on board the cutter Eagle, accompanied by Reed, to address the importance of the Coast Guard mission.

In 1965, during Reed’s tenure at Treasury, the Coast Guard marked its 175th anniversary. I was editor of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings at the time. I invited the Assistant Secretary to write the lead essay for the August 1965 anniversary issue, which he did, an essay titled “Renaissance of the Coast Guard.”

As his title suggested, those were exciting times for your distinguished service. The first two units of the new Hamilton-class cutters were on the building ways. The Reliance, Diligence, and Vigilant, the first three of the new medium-endurance-class cutters, had just entered service. New aircraft and new shore installations were in the works. “What we are aiming at,” Assistant Secretary Reed wrote, underscoring the privilege he felt at playing a part, “is nothing less than a total modernization of this service, which has been obliged for too long to conduct its highly important functions with obsolete facilities.”

Invoking the image of the Greek god Proteus, who had the powers to instantly change himself into any shape he pleased—be it lion, serpent, or tongue of fire—Reed wrote that the Coast Guard must be capable of assuming many different shapes on short notice. He reviewed the quickening tempo of operations in the missions of law enforcement, merchant marine safety, recreational boating, search and rescue, aids to navigation, the International Ice Patrol, oceanographic research, the Cuban patrol, and military operations ranging from the surveillance of the nation’s coastlines to the deployment of 82-footers to Southeast Asia for operations in Vietnam.

“In this renaissance of the Coast Guard,” he wrote, “all previously held concepts are being carefully examined in light of changing times and technology. Nothing is being taken for granted solely because it has been honored by custom.” Today, these same words capture the forces at work shaping the Coast Guard of the 21st century.

While the pace of change is quickening in terms both of onrushing technologies and the scope and substance of national security challenges, certain factors remain constant. Among them, people: People everywhere break laws, generate crises, and engage in conflict with great and continuing regularity.

In July 2000, Norwegian fisherman Olaf Iversen was trawling for shrimp some 15 miles off Stavem, Norway, and took a great strain on his gear when his nets snagged 1,650 gallons of liquor in 31 submerged oil drums waiting pickup beneath the surface. The rum runners are still at it in the 21st century. Being an honest man, Iversen did what any good citizen should do. He summoned the Norwegian Coast Guard.

In the same month of July, one of this nation’s outstanding military leaders, Marine General Anthony Zinni, Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command, published his reflections on critical challenges facing the U.S. armed services. In his view, the military action involved in kicking Iraq out of Kuwait—Operation Desert Storm—was the exception rather than the rule in terms, in his words, “of the terrible mess that awaits us abroad. . . . In the high- and top-level war colleges, we still fight the Saddam Hussein type of adversary, an adversary stupid enough to confront us symmetrically with less of everything so that we always win.” That is not going to be the case, General Zinni says, as “more and more U.S. military men and women are going to be involved in vague, confusing military actions, heavily overlaid with political, humanitarian, and economic considerations.”

As you weigh his words, you might agree that of the nation’s five armed services the Coast Guard more than any other, day-in, day-out, is in the thick of this asynchronous, asymmetric mess—as you deal with enforcement of embargoes, drug smuggling, illegal migration, oceanic over-fishing, and pollution—as you guard against international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in defense of the homeland in an era when annually 165 million containers are moving in and out of U.S. ports predominantly under foreign flag.

I developed my first deep appreciation for the front-line role you play with a telephone call at about 0300 on a 1971 spring morning. I had just joined the National Security Council staff in the administration of President Richard Nixon. While the Cold War was still frigid in the early 1970s, the President had opened a diplomatic dialogue with the Soviet leadership that would lead to the 1972-74 summits of detente. The superpower relationship was complex.

When the telephone rang at my home in Annapolis, the senior watch officer, Coast Guard Operations Center, was on the line. I can still hear that very distinctive, periodic beep coming in over his voice reminding that the conversation was being recorded. One of your cutters had spotted and intercepted a Soviet trawler fishing in U.S. waters off Alaska. The Soviet was making a run for it, ignoring orders to heave to for boarding and inspection. The skipper of your cutter was requesting permission to fire a warning shot across the trawler’s bows. Your watch officer was asking me to grant that permission.

Standing there in my full majesty in the kitchen at 0300, I may have lightly scratched my chest while contemplating this first opportunity to ignite U.S.-Soviet crisis and war. In fact, as I remember, and I am sure there is a tape in some archive capturing the event, I thanked the watch for bringing the request to the NSC and told him that my boss, Major General Al Haig, the Deputy National Security Adviser, would be the one to grant authority.

I gave him Haig’s White House switchboard number and recommended that he relay the request directly, rather than going through me, given the need for fast action. Permission would be granted, and the trawler would receive the Coast Guard inspection party.

The senior watch officer was sharp; the Coast Guard was sharp in that fast-breaking action. I see that same, sharp professionalism today in your charting of the strategy, the new capabilities, and the new ships, aircraft, and facilities—to include the command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities—required for the Coast Guard of the 21st century.

When President Kennedy addressed ship’s company and the nation from the decks of the Eagle in August 1962, he said of the Coast Guard: “This is the oldest continuous seagoing service in the United States, stretching back to the beginning of our country, so I want all of you who are cadets to know how proud we are of you. I hope” the President said, “you and your fellow Americans realize how vital this service is." I salute these words. I commend you as you embark on your service to this nation.

Jonathan L. Hoppe was the Digital Assets Administrator at the U.S. Naval Institute from 2015-2019. Before he started with USNI, he worked in historical research and archives. He has a background in art conservation from the University of Delaware and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. You can visit his personal site at hoppejl.wordpress.com.