An aircraft carrier named the USS Eisenhower I can understand, but why is this Stennis politician such a important figure that a carrier would be named after him? What was he, another leftist politician, anybody know?
Stennis was a very long serving Senator from Mississippi, strong on defense and involved in defense appropriations for many years.
Shut your mouth!! Mr. John was a long serving Senator from Mississippi who worked hard to make sure the military always had what it needed.
No leftist politician would be held in such high regard by the military.
A Senator from Alabama or Mississippi. A strong supporter of the military if memory serves me..
NASA also named a facility after him - the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Stennis was a conservative on defense. I think Stennis was also one of the figures who was targetted for assassination by Scott Camill [?] and some members of Democrat Senator John Kerry's VVAW groupies back in the 70s; they put it up to a vote at one of their meetings and Kerry is said to have voted against the plot. But as it happens Stennis did get shot in January 1973 and the incident was brushed off as a mere robbery by three black men who were later convicted, though as I recall nothing was taken and the men had some questionable radical associations. In spite of Scott Camill's VVAW assassination idea Kerry apparenlty thought people had forgotten and had the guy on his campaign staff. The Swifties hadn't forgotten and they called Kerry on it in the 2004 election and so he had to rapidly disassociate himself from the guy.
If I remember right, in 2004 Kerry claimed he had tendered his written resignation from the VVAW two days before the 1971 meeting where they voted on "Operation Phoenix" ...but no resignation letter has been found. Witnesses claim he had not resigned and did attend and voted the idea down.