COLUMN ONE : Hush-Hush Military Maneuvers : Top officers hope to outflank one another to succeed Colin Powell as chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Strategies include quiet negotiations and stealth attacks on rivals.

Shakespeare called ambition “the soldier’s virtue.” And as the President ponders a replacement for Colin L. Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is a virtue in no small supply among the nation’s top jet jockeys, naval officers and even a Marine or two.

Behind the scenes at the Pentagon, the race is on to become the 13th chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The undeclared campaign for the military’s most powerful post has all the intrigue of a papal ascension, the back-stabbing of a Texas cheerleading tournament and the Byzantine twists of the Kremlin’s darkest succession battles.

Add in the Clinton Administration’s eagerness to win the hearts and minds of a wary military and it makes for strange politics, indeed.

Powell, the Army general who became a household name during Desert Storm, is leaving by September to pursue opportunities in the private sector.

The choice of his successor is arguably the most crucial in years. The next chairman will have enormous influence over the shaping of the post-Cold War military and the place of each of the armed services in it.

The chairman is the armed forces’ most senior leader and the President’s chief military adviser. Powell’s personal stature--and legislative changes that enhanced the job’s policy clout--have made the chairman one of the government’s most powerful unelected officials.

Tradition says the rotating post should go to the Air Force, so two of its generals dominate the bidding: Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak, a plain-spoken fighter pilot, and Gen. George (Lee) Butler, the coolly intellectual commander of the U.S. Strategic Command.

But because the Clinton Administration has promised change and demonstrated a taste for shaking up the military, many believe that the new commander-in-chief will short-circuit the usual rotation. As a result, the candidates also include an Army officer, Gen. John Shalikashvili, and a pair of Navy admirals, Paul D. Miller and Charles R. Larson.

Some Clinton Administration insiders, bent on more radical change, are even pressing for the first-ever selection of a Marine, so the dark-horse candidate appears to be Gen. Joseph P. Hoar.

The contest has prompted several candidates to mount a desperate scramble for “face-time” with President Clinton and Defense Secretary Les Aspin.

For others, mindful of military decorum, the battle has been waged through surrogates and strategically placed mentions in the press, frequently planted by minions ambitious on their bosses’ behalf.

An officer close to McPeak, for example, recently leaked a Defense Department inspector general report suggesting that Butler’s wife had misused a government car during a trip with him to Germany. The defense investigators cleared Butler and his wife of wrongdoing, but the general, when alerted to the allegation of impropriety, immediately wrote a check to the U.S. Treasury anyway for the use of the car.

McPeak says he knew nothing of the affair, and the two newspapers who received the leak declined to print anything.

Nonetheless, the maneuver underscored the seriousness of the jockeying for Powell’s job. The McPeak aide clearly hoped to cast a shadow over Butler at a crucial time in the bidding for the chairmanship.

“It’s not like politics as we know it,” said Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.) “This is like the art of the subtle here.”

Indeed, that is the first rule of military politics: Do be subtle and don’t get caught cozying up to civilian leaders for promotions or attention. Although the Bard may have considered ambition a soldierly virtue--and so, secretly, do most self-respecting military officers--it is not one to be flaunted before one’s comrades.

“The sure way to poison your well is to set out to get a certain job. That’s not the way generals and admirals operate,” said Air Force Gen. Russell Dougherty, who retired as commander of the Strategic Air Command in 1977.

“The ambition is assumed--they’re assumed to be ambitious or they wouldn’t be there. You can assume they aspire to greater challenges and greater jobs. If they don’t, they’re not worth their salt. But single-job ambition is anathema.”

None of the leading contenders for the job would agree to be interviewed by name. Those who agreed to talk off the record were extraordinarily discreet.

“I’m not running for that office,” one oft-mentioned candidate said. “People keep trying to drag me into it.” Asked whether he would turn it down if called upon to serve, the officer invoked his only motivation: duty.

“If the President asks you to go mow the lawn, well then, you’ll go mow the lawn,” he replied.

But the prohibition against evident ambition does not inhibit some candidates from quietly gaining the attentions of presidents through civilian mentors and surrogates.

Take Powell, for example. Between field assignments, he served in Washington as a military assistant to a welter of powerful civilian leaders involved in military policy--including David Packard, Frank C. Carlucci and Caspar W. Weinberger. Powell was able to move easily in high-level civilian policy circles, where his views became known and his political skills appreciated.

President Ronald Reagan named him national security adviser in 1987, paving the way for Powell to be selected over 30 more senior officers when the George Bush Administration made its choice for chairman in the summer of 1989.

Others, like Powell’s predecessor, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., were championed by lawmakers who enjoyed the President’s ear. When Crowe was commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), now retired, interviewed the admiral as part of a Pentagon restructuring study.

The senators were impressed. When it came time for Reagan to fill the chiefs of staff chairmanship, Nunn and Goldwater pressed National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane to make the case for Crowe. The admiral got the nod and served from 1985-1989.

In the current jockeying, Butler provides the perfect example of letting others do the politicking for you. A member of Powell’s staff, he was an early favorite of Powell’s to succeed him. In January, 1991, he became commander of the Strategic Air Command, which later was renamed the U.S. Strategic Command, in Omaha, Neb.

Pentagon insiders said that Butler, who has a reputation for intellectual horsepower as well as vaulting arrogance, dutifully followed Powell’s orders and maintained a low profile while in Omaha.

While Powell and the Bush Administration groomed him for the chairmanship, Butler maintained his silence. He even took the unusual step of refusing all interviews with the press about the changing world order and its impact on U.S. nuclear planning--areas of fast-paced change for which Butler was directly responsible.

Today, the Bush Administration has, of course, been swept away and the influence of Butler’s military mentor, Powell, has eroded. Butler, however, continues to await the President’s call.

But as his prospects have dimmed and the competition has heated up, Butler has had to alter his strategy a bit.

After more than two years of avoiding the press, Butler decided to defuse the potentially damaging report about his wife’s use of a car by speaking to reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post who had been leaked the information.

Neither paper wrote about the defense probe, which one knowledgeable source called “a nothing-burger.” But the New York Times came away with a positive story about new concepts in nuclear targeting being explored under Butler’s direction.

McPeak has stepped up his own visibility to Clinton and within the Pentagon, apparently boosting his stature among many presidential advisers. Behind the scenes and in a key meeting with Clinton during his first month in office, McPeak is widely credited with exploring compromises that would allow Clinton to lift the military’s ban on gays with the support of military leaders.

More recently, as Clinton came under intense pressure to mount military action in Bosnia, McPeak again appeared ready with some practical solutions to a presidential dilemma. In an open congressional hearing, McPeak said U.S. airstrikes on Serbian artillery positions in Bosnia could help stop the killing.

McPeak’s position marked a significant break with Powell, who had been advising heavily against aerial attacks. More important, it gave Clinton a welcome ally in the uniformed military in the event that the President decided to authorize airstrikes.

Not all efforts to catch the eyes of civilian leaders end so well. Several knowledgeable Pentagon sources said that Adm. Paul D. Miller, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command, has worked assiduously to gain the attention of Clinton and his circle of advisers, including Powell. One of Miller’s big breaks came when the Administration announced that Clinton’s first official visit to the troops would be in Miller’s territory.

Clinton’s trip to the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt off the coast of Norfolk, Va., won Miller a rich opportunity for “face-time” with the commander-in-chief. He accompanied Clinton out to the carrier and helped to brief the President on the role of aircraft carriers in the nation’s security.

But Clinton’s trip to the Roosevelt touched off a flurry of articles about his “problem” with the military. Officers and enlisted personnel under Miller’s command were quoted--many by name--belittling the President.

Such campaign boomerangs, as well as the taboo against evident ambition, convince most senior officers that the best way to stay in the running is to keep their heads down and concentrate on the work at hand.

But that sense of reserve, especially with a President who is not familiar with the military high command, also contributes to some unease on Capitol Hill.

“I worry about the fact that Clinton knows none of these guys,” said Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “So the politicking may help. In fact, this may be a time when politicking works better than ever before.”

Schroeder, echoing advice that Clinton has gotten from Aspin, said the President might also look outside the Washington Beltway for the military’s next leader. Her own choice, she said, would be Adm. Charles Larson, commander of the Pacific Command headquartered in Hawaii and one of the sea service’s rising stars.

In addition to Miller, other outside candidates would be Shalikashvili, who would oversee any U.S. military action in Bosnia, and Hoar, who succeeded Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf as commander of the U.S. Central Command.

As field commanders, these officers have been busy planning real-world training and operations and dealing firsthand with the impacts of the military’s shrinkage. But as Pentagon outsiders, they are poorly positioned to audition for a job in which all experts agree that personal chemistry is crucial.

“The President and the defense secretary really have got to be comfortable with the chairman,” one influential adviser to the Clinton Administration said. “They’ve got to be able to put their feet up on the table with him and say, ‘Jesus Christ, Harry, what are we gonna do now?’ ”

Finding that match could involve Clinton and Aspin in a courtship ritual as elaborate as the biblical search for Queen Esther. Clinton and Aspin are expected to devise a process that over the next several months will bring a wide range of senior officers in from the hustings--or get Aspin and Clinton out to them--and put them together.

The successful candidate, said the adviser, will likely be thoughtful and freewheeling intellectually--a trait that Clinton and Aspin value in an adviser. But he will also display the kind of weathered warrior spirit that Clinton, for political reasons, must be seen to admire in his choice of a military leader. His fellow officers must see the candidate as principled--not a “yes man.” Clinton and Aspin must see him as an ally that can help them advance their interests and their agenda.

Mission impossible?

No more impossible, perhaps, than the search for a master politician seemingly without personal ambition.

“I don’t believe anybody’s been elevated to chairman unless they had some significant political skills, and there certainly are politics played inside the armed forces,” said Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“When you talk about somebody who’s demonstrated he can bring people together for a common cause, that person could be accurately described as a politician. And the military’s senior leadership is full of such people.”

Who Will Replace Powell? Many believe that there are no sure bets on who will be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The leading candidates: Gen. Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak * Branch: Air Force * Age: 57 * Background: Since October, 1990, chief of staff of the Air Force at the Pentagon. Entered the Air Force in 1957 from San Diego State ROTC program, trained as a fighter aircraft pilot, flew F-100s and forward air control aircraft over Vietnam. Has master’s degree in international relations. Gen. George (Lee) Butler * Branch: Air Force * Age: 53 * Background: Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb., since June, 1992. An Air Force Academy graduate, Butler flew F-4C fighters in Vietnam, but later served in transport and bomber aircraft units. He did graduate work in international relations at University of Paris. Gen. John Shalikashvili * Branch: Army * Age: 56 * Background: Supreme allied commander, Europe and commander-in-chief of the U.S. European Command since June, 1992. Born in Warsaw, Poland. Shalikashvili would have overall wartime command of NATO forces in the event of hostilities. He joined the Army in 1958 as an artilleryman. Gen. Joseph P. Hoar * Branch: Marines * Age: 58 * Background: Commander of the U.S. Central Command since 1991. The successor to Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Hoar commands all U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East. Hoar became a Marine rifleman and served as a battalion and brigade adviser in Vietnam. He has a master’s degree in international relations. Adm. Paul D. Miller * Branch: Navy * Age: 52 * Background: Commander-in-chief, U.S. Atlantic Command, since June, 1992. Miller is a surface-warfare officer who has commanded a destroyer, a frigate, a battle group and the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Came into the Navy in 1964 after attending Officer Candidate School. Miller commands all U.S. forces in most of the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Adm. Charles R. Larson * Branch: Navy * Age: 56 * Background: Commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Command since February, 1990. Larson was trained as a naval aviator but became a submariner early in his naval career, serving on attack and ballistic missile submarines and skippering the attack sub Halibut. Served stint as superintendent of Naval Academy.

What the Chairman Does The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the main military adviser to the President, secretary of defense and the National Security Council. He also oversees the Joint Chiefs, the highest military advisory group in the nation. * Background: The Joint Chiefs of Staff evolved from a similar organization set up by the United States and Britain during World War II. Congress established the Joint Chiefs as a permanent agency in 1947. * Selection process: The chairman is chosen by the President with the approval of the Senate. PAST CHAIRMEN

Branch Served Chosen by Omar N. Bradley Army 1949-53 Truman Arthur W. Radford Navy 1953-57 Eisenhower Nathan F. Twining Air Force 1957-60 Eisenhower Lyman L. Lemnitzer Army 1960-62 Eisenhower Maxwell D. Taylor Army 1962-64 Kennedy Earle G. Wheeler Army 1964-70 Johnson Thomas H. Moorer Navy 1970-74 Nixon George S. Brown Air Force 1974-78 Nixon David C. Jones Air Force 1978-82 Carter John W. Vessey Jr. Army 1982-85 Reagan William J. Crowe Jr. Navy 1985-89 Reagan Colin L. Powell Army 1989- Bush