Volume XVII, Issue XIIIa
Truth in Fiction, The Caine Mutiny
When Herman Wouk wrote his classic novel, The Caine Mutiny, he drew from his extensive observation of men and ships from his own service experience. His imagination concerning the situation with Captain Queeg would go on to inform actual Naval policy and even the creation of the 25th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.
In the Caine Mutiny, Captain Queeq is seen as a somewhat overbearing disciplinarian and his name becomes synonymous for many with a certain style of flawed leadership. But stay with the story until the end. At a celebration of the mutineering officers’ legal victory, Lt. Barney Greenwald, their defense lawyer, dresses them down for undermining Queeg before the typhoon. Greenwald insists that had the crew given Queeq the loyalty he deserved, he would have had the confidence to take control during the storm. Greenwald reminds the ’90 Day Wonders,’ officers trained in three month’s time from college men to fill the gap in leadership created by the great war, that men like Queeg are the reason they have their freedom in the first place. They were serving admirably while these boys were playing at college sports. Greenwald, who is Jewish, even makes the great point that it is the Queegs of the world that stopped the horrors of Nazism. Thus the Caine story’s actual message is that the leadership we need will not always be liked. That is the reasoning that led to the 25th Amendment.
Herman Wouk's Novel Imagined Removal Process
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It’s hard to follow the news these last weeks without running into a reference to the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides for the removal from office of a president unfit to serve. (read more)
The Caine Mutiny
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True Fiction, The Caine Mutiny
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Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny may be the greatest American novel of World War II. This 1951 study of men at war with a foreign foe and with each other spent 122 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1952. Wouk adapted the novel, his third, into a hit play; The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial became a much-produced classic. The 1954 film based on the book starred Humphrey Bogart in his least typical and arguably greatest role as Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, the paranoid bully who captains a beleaguered destroyer-minesweeper. The Caine Mutiny earned seven Academy Award nominations. Since then, Wouk’s story has been retold countless times on stage, in film, and on television. Wouk’s fictional revolt rings true because he was writing from intimate firsthand experience during World War II with the conditions, ships, and character types he portrays. (read more)
The Trump Mutiny, Starring Bill McRaven
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Your phrase, “…it is time for a new person in the oval office …the sooner, the better,” is something one would expect from Herman Wouk’s character, Lt. Tom Keefer.”
If the retired Navy admiral doesn’t like the president or his policies, then he should do what George McClellan did: Make his bed, stop whining, and run for president—with either party. (read more)
A Message for Our Time
I first read The Caine Mutiny when I was much younger and had only experience as an employee, not as a leader. At that point I did not have a lot of sympathy for Captain Queeg. He seemed the picture of paranoia and I suppose I saw in him some of the traits of my own employer. I never liked Tom Keefer but now, revisiting the story, it is clear that Keefer is the villain and Queeg is a difficult character, but worthy of some sympathy. He was a brave man who had seen a lot of combat. He was given a rather undisciplined ship and set to bring it up to standard. Did he go overboard (figuratively)? Yes!, but when his paranoia is getting the better of him, he asks his officers for help as best he knows how. Keefer, the aspiring novelist, has ‘pegged’ his villain however, and it is Queeg. He undermines the position of the captain with his fellow officers and effectively denies him the support that very well might have helped him perform. When Queeg freezes on the bridge of the Caine during a typhoon, Steve Maryk relieves him of command (having been much coached by Tom Keefer). Keefer then testifies that he knows nothing of the situation that he himself created.
Barney Greenwald, the lawyer, sees through all this. He takes the case because he sees that Maryk, while potentially a mutineer, is really the wrong man standing on trial. He makes the clear point that the Queegs of the world have allowed our “fat dumb happy country” to be safe by their tireless service. In the film, he proposes a ‘toast’ to “the real author of the Caine Mutiny:” Tom Keefer. Leadership is lonely. Leaders, if they are true leaders, do not take a popularity poll before they take action. Remember this point.
The scenario envisioned by Herman Wouk – a work of imagination, nonetheless inspired honest concern about frivolous attempts to undermine leaders. It even inspired the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Obviously it is applicable now in a situation where a United State President’s political enemies troll for any and all reasons to impeach him. They detest his unconventional manner but even more they abhor his steadfast commitment to deliver on his campaign promises. As our “fat dumb happy country” enjoys the lowest unemployment in half a century and serious commitment to our national security, let us not forget that.
The Twenty-fifth Amendment
Amendment XXV
Section 1.
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. [1.]
The Twenty-fifth Amendment was an effort to resolve some of the continuing issues revolving about the office of the President; that is, what happens upon the death, removal, or resignation of the President and what is the course to follow if for some reason the President becomes disabled to such a degree that he cannot fulfill his responsibilities. The practice had been well established that the Vice President became President upon the death of the President, as had happened eight times in our history. Presumably, the Vice President would become President upon the removal of the President from office. Whether the Vice President would become acting President when the President became unable to carry on and whether the President could resume his office upon his recovering his ability were two questions that had divided scholars and experts. Also, seven Vice Presidents had died in office and one had resigned, so that for some twenty per cent of United States history there had been no Vice President to step up. But the seemingly most insoluble problem was that of presidential inability—Garfield’s lying in a coma for eighty days before succumbing to the effects of an assassin’s bullet, Wilson an invalid for the last eighteen months of his term, the result of a stroke—with its unanswered questions: who was to determine the existence of an inability, how was the matter to be handled if the President sought to continue, in what manner should the Vice President act, would he be acting President or President, what was to happen if the President recovered. Congress finally proposed this Amendment to the states in the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination, with the Vice Presidency vacant and a President who had previously had a heart attack.
The Amendment saw multiple use during the 1970s and resulted for the first time in our history in the accession to the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of two men who had not faced the voters in a national election. First, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, and President Nixon nominated Gerald R. Ford to succeed him, following the procedures of § 2 of the Amendment for the first time. Hearings were held upon the nomination by the Senate Rules Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, both Houses thereafter confirmed the nomination, and the new Vice President took the oath of office December 6, 1973. Second, President Richard M. Nixon resigned his office August 9, 1974, and Vice President Ford immediately succeeded to the office and took the presidential oath of office at noon of the same day. Third, again following § 2 of the Amendment, President Ford nominated Nelson A. Rockefeller to be Vice President; on August 20, 1974, hearings were held in both Houses, confirmation voted, and Mr. Rockefeller took the oath of office December 19, 1974. [2.]
2. For the legislative history, see S. REP. NO. 66, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); H.R. REP. NO. 203, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); H.R. REP. NO. 564, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965). For an account of the history of the succession problem, see R. SILVA, PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION (1951).
