Navy Cheers Appointment of McCain

President Johnson's decision to name Adm. John S. McCain Jr. to be his top Pacific commander ended three weeks of Navy fear that this biggest tri-service post might go to a non-sailor for the first time.

The president will switch McCain from his one-year tenure as chief of Navy forces in Europe-mainly the 6th Fleet-to succeed Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Sharp who has been Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) for four years.

It was on March 22 when the President announced to the Navy's dismay that Gen. William C. Westmoreland had been considered "for the Honolulu assignment" and that nominees from all services would be entertained to pick a CINPAC. Only admirals have held that post.

McCain, 57, a decorated submarine commander World War II, will take over Aug 1 a geographically immense command from Honolulu to and including Southeast Asia.

His oldest son, Cmdr. John S. McCain III, is listed as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam since last October when he was shot down and seriously injured. Earlier last year the younger McCain narrowly escaped death in the fire that swept the carrier USS Forrestal, killing 132 officers and men.

The stocky, cigar-smoking admiral is physically somewhat like his technical subordinate, Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, who was named yesterday as Westmoreland's successor. The U.S. forces in Vietnam are a joint command subordinate to the larger joint CINCPAC command, but Westmoreland has increasingly had greater autonomy in directing operations in Vietnam.

McCain's late father was an admiral who won his Navy wings in the 1930s at the age of 50, then went on to command carrier operations in the Pacific early in World War II.

His son graduated from Annapolis in 1931 and spent most of the next 15 years in submarines, earning a Silver Star as skipper of the USS GUnnel. After a series of Pentagon, submarine and surface ship posts he became an admiral in 1958.

He was successively Atlantic Fleet amphibious training director, Navy information chief at the Pentagon, Atlantic amphibious force commander, vice chairman of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Military Staff Committee and then Navy chief in Europe with headquarters in London.