Literary Canon Aimed at Sailors

Adm. Frank B. Kelso II says it’s not enough to be a sailor--he believes Navy personnel should read about it too. Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations, recently came up with the Navy’s first professional reading list.

“While we are foremost war fighters, prepared for prompt and sustained combat at sea, naval service requires much more,” Kelso said.

Ninety-five books more, to be exact.

But scholars say the list is biased, narrow and outdated. And the sailors? San Diego’s libraries haven’t been deluged with requests.

“People don’t read much,” one Navy official said, explaining why Kelso’s list, which was released in March, has been slow to catch on.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Hiney, a spokesman for Kelso, said he attempted to read one of the more scholarly books on the advanced list.

“I checked it out, thinking I’m an advanced person, but I don’t understand all that stuff,” Hiney said.

The Navy’s list is recommended but not required, a fact that relieves many sailors. Senior Chief Petty Officer Bill Wyatt, for example, said he has little time to read. In 1990, he said, he read only one book: Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October,” which, coincidentally, is on the list.

But Kelso’s canon, which he hopes will help sailors “master the entire range of technical knowledge required by our profession as well as a broader range of history, politics and strategy,” includes more than fiction. There are biographies of Navy notables, tomes about Navy battles and treatises on naval theory. It even includes two books on management.

Will the list help sailors expand their grasp of the world?

“The list is about war and politics, and it’s not constructed to really broaden a person. . . . These are books that take the Cold War for granted--it’s all stories of heroic battles past,” said Gordon Clanton, who teaches sociology at San Diego State University.

Sanford Lakoff, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said he thought the list was actually better than he expected.

“There is an emphasis on people who are politically correct from the Pentagon’s point of view,” said Lakoff, who acknowledged being chagrined that his own book--”A Shield in Space,” which is about the strategic defense initiative--had not won a spot on the list.

“But by no means is it a propagandistic list,” he said. “It’s just a little biased.”

Others, however, pointed to other shortcomings. Some listed books are dated, others offer a limited perspective, said Richard Ruetten, a history professor at SDSU.

Ruth Benedict’s “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture,” first published 24 years ago, is no longer the definitive book on Japan. Samuel Morison’s 28-year-old World War II tome, “Two Ocean War,” has been superseded by several other works. And Fred W. Winterbotham’s “The Ultra Secret” (about how British agents broke the German codes during World War II) no longer spills the beans.

“I guess we should be pleased that Mickey Spillane (who wrote pot-boiler mysteries) is not on the list. Had it been made 30 years ago, Ian Flemming would have been on it,” groaned Barton Bernstein, professor of history at Stanford University. “I wonder how many meetings and how much cost to the taxpayer it is to generate that list?”

The book list, issued earlier this spring to every Navy command, was created after canvassing Navy officers as well as outside experts, said Hiney, Kelso’s spokesman. Navy officials compared the Marine Corps’ and Naval War College’s book lists, as well as studying Kelso’s own bookshelf because he is an avid reader.

“The book list is just in line with everything the American people expect of those of us in uniform, to be well educated and to know what’s going on,” Hiney said.

There are, say the experts, some surprising choices on the Navy list, including Neil Sheehan’s Vietnam war book “A Bright Shining Lie” and Herman Wouk’s “Caine Mutiny.”

On the whole, however, the Navy list was regarded as fairly predictable, experts said. Reading E.B. Potter’s “Bull Halsey,” biography of a maverick Navy admiral, “would be like reading a biography of (Donald) Trump, if you have aspirations to be a businessman,” said Carl Builder, an analyst with the Rand Corp., a conservative think tank.

Others criticized the list for omitting many books--particularly ones that question the military’s role and the use of force--as well as issues.

“There’s just virtually not a word about the range of really pressing domestic problems that our society faces,” Clanton said.

In the category of self-help or management, Clanton said, the list offers slim pickings. Nor does it include books that raise questions about military action, such as Robert Batchelder’s “Irreversible Decision,” which discusses the decision-making process involved in dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.

“There aren’t many surprises--the only surprise is there is such a list,” Clanton said.

The Marine Corps, however, beat the Navy to the punch. Gen. Alfred M. Gray Jr., commandant of the Marine Corps, created a similar list last year. But, unlike Kelso’s, Gray’s list is considered mandatory, though there is no quiz to determine whether aspiring Marines have fulfilled their obligations.

In fact, while the Navy simply divides its books into three categories--basic, intermediate and advanced--the Marine Corps has a far more elaborate system. The Marines’ list requires different books for each rank, from corporal to colonel. Their list is expected to grow year by year.

All Marines in rank up to master gunnery sergeant are expected to read a minimum of two books from the list each year. Ideally, they should read four. The higher-ranking Marines are expected to read a minimum of three books each year and ideally, six. But the list stops with books for Marine colonels--prescribing no treatises for generals or the commandant himself.

The one prescribed for all ranks: the U.S. Constitution.

“There’s nothing more boring than the U.S. Constitution--you can read it and get nothing out of it,” sighed Ruetten, the SDSU professor who teaches the weighty charter. He and others suggested it might have been more constructive to offer books about the Constitution.

As a new feature to the list, Gray recently issued a new category, “the commandant’s choice.” For this year, Gray picked “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general of 5000 B.C.

Sun Tzu is “the Plato, the Confucius of military thought,” explained Chief Warrant Officer Eric Carlson, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

Several experts lauded the Marine book list as being far more broad-ranging than that of the Navy, which focuses more on its own feats and history--not those of the other branches of the armed services.

The Marine list, they said, contained several surprises including a work by Mao, “Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare” and two by Vo Nguyen Giap, including “How We Won the War.” Giap was the commander of the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War.

“Maybe they put those in because we didn’t understand how to fight guerrillas,” said Clanton of SDSU. “I guess they want to be ready next time.”

The Marine list also included E.B. Sledge’s World War II book, “With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa,” that describes brutalities of war, such as cutting off the enemies’ hands and slitting the still-alive victim’s cheeks to obtain gold teeth. And experts agreed that it was valuable to have Marines learn about the dark side of war--an issue that the Navy somewhat skirted.

The list was created to help turn Marines into mean, lean--and thinking --fighting machines, Carlson said.

“You can train a guy to assemble and disassemble an M-60 machine gun, but to train him to cope with the uncertainty of battle, he has to be able to think,” Carlson said. “You can’t train somebody to do that--you have to educate them.”

The Navy’s Reading List

The list of suggested books recently released by the Chief of Naval Operations:

Basic Books:

All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich M. Remarque.

American Caesar: Douglas McArthur 1880-1964, William Manchester.

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Stephen M. Hawking.

Command of the Seas: A Personal Story, John F. Lehman.

Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War, Al Santoli, Ed.

Flight of the Intruder, Stephen Coonts.

The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy.

In Love and War, James B. and Sybil Stockdale.

In Search of Excellence, Thomas J. Peters.

Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane.

Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy.

Run Silent, Run Deep, Edward L. Beach.

The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk.

The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat.

The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara.

The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe.

The Russians, Hedrick Smith.

The Sand Pebbles, Richard McKenna.

The Source, James A. Michener.

The United States Navy: A 200-Year History, Edward L. Beach.

Two-Ocean War, Samuel E. Morison.

War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk.

Winds of War, Herman Wouk.

Intermediate Books:

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, Neil Sheehan.

At Dawn We Slept, The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, Gordon W. Prange.

Assignment--Pentagon, Perry M. Smith.

Bull Halsey: A Biography, E.B. Potter.

Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt: His Lieutenants and Their War, Eric Larrabee.

Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, Ruth Benedict.

Eagle Against the Sun: An American War With Japan, Ronald H. Spector.

Eisenhower: At War, 1943-1945, David Eisenhower.

Fate is the Hunter, Ernest K. Gann.

First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, Victor H. Kralak.

From Hiroshima to Glasnost, Paul Nitze.

Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, Nasaaki Inai.

Makers of Modern Strategy, Peter Paret.

Miracle at Midway, Gordon Prange.

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties, Paul Johnson.

Nimitz, E.B. Potter.

Adm. Arleigh Burke: A Biography, E.B. Potter.

Out of the Crisis, W. Edwards Deming.

Presidential Management of National Security, Carnes Lord.

The Deming Management System, Mary Walton.

The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman.

The Maritime Strategy, Geopolitics and the Defense of the West, Colin S. Gray.

The Mask of Command, John Keegan.

The Pentagon and the Art of War, Edward N. Luttwak.

The Quiet Warrior, Thomas Buell.

Today’s Isms: Communism, Facism, Capitalism, Socialism, Edwin Fogelman.

Sea Power: A Navy History, E.B. Potter and Chester Nimitz.

The American Way of War, Russell F. Weigley.

The Atlantic Campaign: An Epic History of World War II’s Struggle at Sea, Dan Van der Vat.

The Future of Sea Power, Eric J. Grove.

The Face of Battle, John Keegan.

The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932, William Manchester.

The Last Lion: Alone 1932-40, William Manchester.

The Price of Admiralty, John Keegan.

The Rise of American Naval Forces, 1778-1918, Harold and Margaret Sprout.

The Rivals: America and Russia Since WWII, Adam B. Ulaw.

The Second World War, John Keegan.

The U.S. and the Origins of the Cold War, John L. Gaddis.

Vietnam: A History, Stanley Karnow.

Advanced Books:

America at Century’s End, James R. Schlesinger.

Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT, John Newhouse.

Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville.

Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Alexander George.

Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice, Wayne P. Hughes.

From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas L. Friedman.

How Democracies Perish, Jean-Francois Revel.

Man, The State and War: A Theoretical Analysis, Kenneth N. Waltz.

Military Strategy: A Naval Theory of Power Control, Joseph C. Wylie.

Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade, Michael A. Palmer.

On War, Carl von Clausewitz.

Power and Change: The Administrative History of the Office of the CNO, Thomas C. Home.

Seapower and Strategy, Colin S. Gray and Roger Barnett.

Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect, U.S. Grant Sharp.

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, Edward N. Luttwak.

The Art of War, Sun Tzu.

The Geopolitics of Superpowers, Colin S. Gray.

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Alfred T. Mahan.

The Soldier and the State: The Theory of Politics of Civil-Military Relations, Samuel P. Huntington.

The White House Years, Henry Kissinger.

The U.S. Navy: The View from the Mid-1980’s, James L. George.

U.S. Defense Policy in an Era of Constrained Resources, Robert L Pfaltzgraff, Jr. and Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

War and Politics, Bernard Brodie.

Books that are out of print but can be found in many libraries or through inter-library loans:

On Watch, Elmo Zumwalt.

Master of Seapower: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Thomas Buell.

Mountbatten, Philip Ziegler.

Nelson, The Biography, David Walder.

Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Blair, Clay, Lippencott.

The KGB Today: Hidden Hand, John Barron.

Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Julian S. Corbett.

The Ultra Secret, F.W. Winterbotham.