THE TIMES HERALD RECORD page 4
Monday, March 20, 1967
Promotion passed over
Skipper loses claims injustice
By Tom E, Pray
World News Editor
GREENWOOD LAKE
A young Naval officer, fighting to regain his lost command, has refused an issue which strikes at the very heart of the war effort in Vietnam: Can a competent commander be cashiered for prosecuting the war too hard?
Lt. Cmdr. Marcs A. Arnheiter says he was.
And he's fighting now to save what's left of a 15-year career shattered when the Navy suddenly removed him as commander of the destroyer escort Vance. By the time Cmdr. Arnheiter learned that he had been secretly smeared by a group of disgruntled junior officers, he had already, lost his command and a chance for promotion.
The Navy's abrupt dismissal of Cmdr. Arnheiter and its indifference to his peea for a full-scale court of inquiry to clear his name also casts grave doubt on the integrity of the Navy. What kind of a system would permit a career -- officer with a record good enough to have earned him a ship to command in the first place – to be relieved of it three months later without so much as a warning that charges had been filed against him, an opportunity to
Confront his accusers, or the chance to obtain adequate legal defense to counter the charges?
Several senior Navy officers, three of them retired, were outraged. Vice Admiral L. S. Sabin, formerly chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, put it this way:
“The whole crux was and is the manner in which Arnheiter was undercut and the manner of his relief. That represents the much larger and far more important issue, namely, whether a captain (commanding officer) of a Navy ship could by the malicious actions of a group of dissident officers be summarily relieved of his command in a war zone. This is the important thing to determine, since unless it is determined the whole basic structure of military authority is placed in jeapordy.”
Another flat officer, Vice Adm. Ruthven E. Libby, USN, Ret., put it more succulently: “A couple of beatnik junior officers cut the throat of their C.O. from behind his back and got away with it.”
Pentagon admirals, however, weren't as candid. No, they would not convene a general court martial, they told Arnheiter. It was an “administrative matter” that had already been “####”. Why hadn't the Navy furnished him with a copy of all charges before he was relieved?
As documents on file in the Navy Department would reveal. Hardy played a double role. To the new captain he said one thing. To his fellow officers he said another. Although he agreed at first with Arnheiter that the Vance #### fast, firm direction to put her in fighting trim, time went on, other letters were sent anonymously to clergymen, also complaining of the quasi-religlous “character guidance” sessions.
Were these guidance sessions religious services? Read Admiral James W, Kelly, Navy Chief of Chaplains, #### ####.
Caption under photo on page reads:
Cmdr. Arnheiter distributes candy bars to South Vietnamese children in a coastal village. One of the charges against him was that he declared the candy “unfit” so that it could be given away to the Vietnamese.
Newspaper and magazine articles about Captain Arnheiter of USS VANCE DER 387
Saved and compiled by Claire and Mandel Wakefield
Scanned in 2005 by George Blust, Vance's Historian
Retyped by Joseph Betters, RM3, in 2005 Webmaster
#### denotes missing word(s). Plum color text denotes an assumption of wording.
J:\ALL_VANCE\arnheiter fm wakefield\wakefield0001c.jpg_txt.htm text of wakefield0001c.jpg