As a Grumman employee I was directly affected by Cheney's decision, with which I vehemently disagreed, and still do to this day. It took the Slick Willy presidency to make me so fearful for the continuance of the Republic that I would overlook that blunder on Cheney's part and vote for the man for VP.I hate this business of naming our capital ships after politicians -- especially politicians who haven't shown us the courtesy of dying first.But as to the statement I quote above, I recall no contract tiff at that time worth mentioning (early in the F-14 program is another matter entirely). And as to the destruction of the tools, which I can confirm, I ruefully note that whenever an aircraft program is cancelled its opponents will drive a stake through its heart it that way. They never are content to allow for the possibility that it might ever be prudent to change that decision in light of future events.
That's a scandal, of course - but there it is. Politics 101.
- Ronald Reagan's funeral was in '04 because that's when he stopped breathing - but in the operative political sense he gave a whole new meaning to the term "committing political suicide" when he wrote his famous letter revealing that he had Alzheimer's Disease. So I think that the naming of the good ship Gipper was entirely justifiable.
- However, it did give cover for the incumbent president to name a carrier after his father, whose place in history should be political heir of Ronald Reagan and one of only three sitting VPs to be elected POTUS. But he abandoned that legacy with "read my hips" and has the place in history that he lost to the most venal president in US history. A mediocrity, other than for raising a successor president and a governor of Florida who may never be president but who is in fact worth serious mention for the 08 Republican nomination.
- It has to be said that there is also the precedent of the nuclear sub Carter, named for a living former POTUS who was formerly as submariner as George H.W. Bush was formerly a crewman on an aircraft carrier (but I'm not sure whether that is a precedent for or a result of the naming of the GHW Bush).
Cheney didn't do it to spite your company. A freeper a while back explained it that he did it to spite the Pentagon. It seems one of his pet programs the Pentagon had issue with {possibly the Osprey} had some funding for it used for other more pressing purposes and as a result or rather punishment he canceled production of F-14's. I wish I could find that thread and post if I do I'll ping you to it. Canceling the Tomcats has to be one of the worst planning moves in modern Naval Aviation. It was the best carrier based Navy fighter. Funding for Avionics upgrades and keeping the F-14 would have been a far better use of money and resources.
The story put out at the time, which I think I read in the Wall Street Journal, was that Grumman was in financial straits, and so when the Navy asked them for a bid for a production run of additional F-14's (I guess these would have been "E" models), Grumman quoted an aggressive number -- trying to save their company with one sale. The story further goes, that Cheney was incensed and decided to "teach everyone a lesson" about procurement contracts, that the Government can and will say "no" if the contractor gets greedy.
But you know about Washington -- that was just the line someone laid down for a friendly fishwrapper favored by Bush 41's tax-cut-hungry "audience"; the real story could have been anything.
As an aside, that one decision may have landed Big Dick the big chair at Halliburton. Whattaguy! Cost-cutter! Etc.
We never put politicians' names on warships until after World War II. Navy secretaries', yes -- on tin cans.
Much better to be naming our biggest ships after our biggest values. The fact that we are not, suggests to the world that our values are political personalities and programs, not the great abstractions like liberty and independence.
At least the most honored and most glorious ship in the United States Navy is still the USS Constitution.