The Oral History of Senator John W. Warner, SECNAV and Senator

John Warner served the nation in multiple capacities. Shortly before his 18th birthday in January 1945, he enlisted in the wartime Navy, discharged at war’s end as a petty officer third class. Graduating from Washington and Lee University in 1949, he earned a commission in the Marine Corps Reserve in his senior year. He then entered law school at the University of Virginia, but his studies were interrupted when he was called up for service in the Korean War, where he flew as a bomb damage assessment observer over enemy territory. Returning to law school after the war, he graduated in 1953 and began a successful legal career that included clerking for a chief judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, serving as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Department of Justice. After joining the campaign staff of then-Vice President Richard Nixon in 1960, he served in private practice until appointed as Under Secretary of the Navy by then-President Nixon in 1969. Subsequently appointed as Secretary of the Navy in 1972, he was the first secretary to have served in uniform in both the Navy and Marine Corps, distinguishing himself by serving as head of the U.S. Delegation which met in Moscow and again in Washington, DC to discuss incidents at sea between U.S. and Soviet naval units, which culminated in his signing on behalf of the U.S. government the Executive Agreement on Incidents at Sea between the United States and Soviet Union on 25 May 1972. Elected as Senator from the State of Virginia, he served with distinction until 2009. His dedicated service in so many important capacities resulted in the Navy naming a Virginia-class submarine after him in 2015, only one of thirteen people so honored while still alive at the time.