When Caroline Kennedy Last Christened a Ship in the Name of Her Father

A page from the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) christening program contained in the Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Personal Papers held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

By M.C. Farrington
HRNM Historian

There have been a number of new aircraft carriers that carried on the names of their predecessors: names such as Yorktown (CV 5 & CV 10), Hornet (CV 8 & CV 12), Lexington (CV 2 & CV 16), Wasp (CV 7 & CV 18) and Enterprise (CV 6 & CVN 65).  These were vessels named to commemorate great American victories or storied vessels of the past.  As time has gone on, the names of presidents and other notable figures in naval history have been added to new American flattops joining the fleet.  However, no president's name has been carried forward from an old carrier to a new one.*

On December 7, 2019, at Newport News Shipbuilding, a new American carrier was christened with the name of a president from a previous carrier for the very first time.  And, in what might be another first, the new carrier was christened by the same person who christened the old one at the same shipyard over 52 years ago.
Another detail of the ceremony turned out to be remarkably consistent with that person's first performance on May 27, 1967.

Caroline Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy's daughter, former ambassador to Japan, and sponsor of the Ford-class aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), christens the ship on December 7, 2019. USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) was christened at Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding (HII-NNS) division, in Newport News, Virginia. The aircraft carrier is named after John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, who served in office from January 1961 to November 1963. This is the second U.S. aircraft carrier named for President Kennedy, with the former being the last conventionally powered carrier, CV-67, which served from 1968 to 2007. (U.S. Navy photo 191207-N-PG550-1463 by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Samuel Lee Pederson/Released)

You might have read that Caroline Kennedy didn't quite score a clean break on the first try with a bottle of "American sparkling wine" on the bow of the new ship on December 7.  This was a clear-cut case of history repeating.  But why was she selected to christen USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) in the first place, when she was just nine years old?  The decision had as much to do with naval custom as it had to do with tragedy.

Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, USNR, (standing, far right) with other crewmen onboard USS PT-109 at a South Pacific Naval Base, 1943. (U.S. Information Agency Photograph 306-ST-649-9, now in the collections of the National Archives)

As a lieutenant junior grade during World War II, her father John Fitzgerald Kennedy fought bravely in the Pacific, sustaining serious injuries after the PT boat under his command was rammed by a Japanese destroyer in 1943.  After his meteoric rise after the war as a congressman and, later, senator from the state of Massachusetts, he edged out Vice President (and fellow former naval officer) Richard Nixon for the presidency in November 1960.  After a tumultuous tenure as president, during which he authorized naval assets to secretly support Cuban exiles attempting to invade and overthrow the Communist government of Cuba and later ordered a naval quarantine of the island when the Soviets secretly put troops and tactical nuclear missiles there in response, Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, leaving Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson (yet another former naval officer) as commander-in-chief.

Kennedy was unquestionably not afraid to put the Navy he led into harm's way, but he was also a strong advocate of the service.  After his death, President Johnson led the effort to name a modified Kitty Hawk-class carrier, authorized for construction during his predecessor's administration, for the fallen leader.  The keel for USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) was laid on October 22, 1964.  

As a matter of custom, as the carrier was nearing completion a significant member of President Kennedy's family would be invited to christen the vessel.

(Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Personal Papers/ John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

In February 1967, Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze sent Jacqueline Kennedy an invitation to sponsor the new carrier.  "Traditionally, a lady sponsors only one Navy ship; however, there have been exceptions to this custom," wrote Nitze.  "Though you christened the Polaris submarine, USS  LAFAYETTE, I am sure that I express the sentiment of the entire navy in urging you to christen the new carrier.  Should you prefer, your daughter, Caroline, may be designated."

In happier times: White House naval aide Capt. Tazewell T. Shepard and General Dynamics executive Roger Lewis look on as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy christens USS Lafayette (SSBN 616) May 8, 1962 at Electric Boat, General Dynamics, in Groton, Connecticut. (Library of Congress via Naval History and Heritage Command/Flickr)

Indeed, Jacqueline Kennedy had christened USS Lafayette (SSBN 616) at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, May 8, 1962. Less than two years later, however, her life, and the course of the nation's history, had been irrevocably changed by the assassination of her husband.  That tragic change impacted the way she felt towards attending another such event.

(Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Personal Papers/ John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

In an early draft of the response Mrs. Kennedy sent Secreatry Nitze, she wrote, "That type of thing [the christening], remembering my husband, is very difficult for me."   But she then assured Nitze that someone from President Kennedy's family would attend the christening.

Overcoming her grief, Mrs. Kennedy decided upon having her daughter Caroline sponsor the ship, and on the morning of May 27, 1967, she accompanied the little girl and her son John F. Kennedy Jr. (along with approximately 15 immediate family members and their families) to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock company.   

Writing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper published in Norfolk, Virginia, reporter William K. Stevens observed, "Not since the 1963 funeral [of John F. Kennedy] had so many New Frontiersmen and relatives of John F. Kennedy been in one place at one time." Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, the same man who had blessed John F. Kennedy's marriage to Jacqueline L. Bouvier in 1953, given the invocation during his inauguration in 1961, and celebrated his funeral mass in 1963, was there to give the invocation for the christening.   

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara escorts Jacqueline Kennedy, her son John Kennedy Jr., and her daughter Caroline (behind her brother) after arriving at Newport News Shipbuilding on May 27, 1967 (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

Caroline Kennedy was hardly the first in her family to christen a ship at the mammoth shipyard on the James River.  Her paternal grandmother Rose Kennedy had sponsored the Cimarron-class fleet oiler SS Esso Richmond at Newport News Shipbuilding in September 1939 (which was commissioned USS Kaskaskia (AO 27) the following year), and her aunt Patricia Kennedy had sponsored the President Jackson-class attack transport President Polk (AP 103) in June 1941. Another aunt, Ethel Kennedy (wife of then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy) had sponsored the Ethan Allen-class ballistic missile submarine John Marshall (SSBN 611) in May 1961.

Caroline Kennedy prepares to swing a bottle of champagne into the bow of the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) at Newport News Shipbuilding under the guidance of Shipyard President Donald A. Holden on May 27, 1967 (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

In a ceremony timed down to the second, three warning whistles were to sound; the first a siren scheduled for 12:25 pm, with a whistle 30 seconds later and another 20 seconds after that.  With each siren or whistle blast, one of JFK's three initials would appear in lights on a giant board affixed to the bow.  Caroline was scheduled to smash the bottle against an angular protuberance affixed to the bow precisely on the third whistle blast scheduled for 12:26.

"Caroline, 9, stood in front of the bow of the mammoth attack aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy like a left-handed little leaguer at home plate," wrote Virginian-Pilot reporter Shirley Bolinaga, who was among the throngs of local and national news media to cover the event. 

As John Kennedy Jr. and Jacqueline Kennedy watch as Newport News Shipbuilding President Donald A. Holden helps Caroline Kennedy christen the carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67). (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

The clock photographed behind the participants on the platform indicates that the event was running ahead of schedule, with Caroline taking her first swing at 12:09 and 55 seconds, and, unless a video of the event accessible online has been edited incorrectly, she attempted to break the bottle after the second blast. 

John Kennedy Jr. and Jacqueline Kennedy seem to react with dismay as Caroline Kennedy appears to have momentary trouble christening the carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67). (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

"She held the bottle of Great Western champagne like a baseball bat and swung from the shoulder," wrote Bolinaga. "It hit with a clunk but it didn't break." 

After the bottle bounced off the angular rail affixed to the bow, Caroline tried again, striking home about three seconds later, sending bubbly in all directions, and sending the great ship into the James River.   

Caroline Kennedy christens the carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) as her brother John Kennedy Jr., mother Jacqueline Kennedy, and Newport News Shipbuilding President Donald A. Holden react. (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

"On the second try, the bottle, beribboned with red, white, and blue, shattered. Its bubbly contents splashed all over Caroline's aqua and white dress and red shoes, and splattered on her mother as Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy clapped her gloved hands together in front of her face," wrote Bolinaga.  "The mother and her children watched as the 61,450-ton ship was floated from Shipway 11 into the James River." 

Jacqueline Kennedy, her brother John Kennedy Jr., and daughter Caroline Kennedy watch the carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) as she backs away from the christening platform. Note Newport News Shipbuilding President Donald A. Holden pointing out details to Caroline, who has just christened the vessel. (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

Watched by thousands of guests and dignitaries such as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze, the carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) backs away from the christening platform at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on May 27, 1967. Note the board affixed to the bow spelling out the initials "J.F.K.," emulating John F. Kennedy's handwriting in electric lights. (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) backs away from the christening platform at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia on May 27, 1967, as thousands of guests and dignitaries such as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Senators Robert. F. (Bobby) and Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy as well as Virginia Governor Mills E. Godwin look on. (Newport News Shipbuilding photograph/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

After her commissioning on September 7, 1968, USS John. F. Kennedy, the Navy's last conventionally-powered carrier, plunged headlong into the Cold War that dominated foreign policy during her namesake's administration, and those of the next four presidential administrations. Caroline Kennedy visited the ship at least once more during its active service, the first time when the carrier visited Boston in 1970.

Seen from an American escort, a Soviet Tu-95 Bear D maritime reconnaissance aircraft makes a close approach to USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) during her first foray into the Mediterranean in 1969.  (National Archives and Records Administration via Naval History and Heritage Command/Flickr)

The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 deprived Kennedy of a scheduled wartime deployment to Southeast Asia and a place in the history of the Vietnam War, but the carrier participated in continuous exercises and operations through war and peace, the last being during Operation Iraqi Freedom, with frequent visits and yard periods in Hampton Roads in between, until her decommissioning in 2007.  

A port bow view of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) coming down the Elizabeth River after leaving Norfolk Naval Shipyard on August 17, 1987. (Photographer's Mate 1st Class McCoy, National Archives and Records Administration image 330-CFD-DN-SC-88-05873 via Naval History and Heritage Command/Flickr)

Long after CV 67 was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in 2009, Caroline Kennedy was very much in active government service, having been appointed as ambassador to Japan by President Barak Obama, a post she held from 2013 to 2017.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy pilots Naval Beach Unit Seven's Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) during a visit to NBU-7 Facilities in Sasebo, Japan, on October 7, 2016. The visit is part of a larger trip to Nagasaki Prefecture. (U.S. Navy Photo 161007-N-NY430-042 by Petty Officer 3rd Class Kristopher S. Haley via Naval History and Heritage Command/Flickr)

Although, sadly, her mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who died of cancer in 1994, and her brother John F. Kennedy Jr., who died while flying his plane to Martha's Vineyard in 1999, were not there to witness it, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy once again visited Hampton Roads to take her place in christening a vessel that will represent her family, her father, and the nation he led, far into the future. 

"Christened by the hand of a child," said Secretary of Defense Robert. S. McNamara in his prepared remarks for the day of the original John F. Kennedy's commissioning over 52 years ago, "it will begin an odyssey whose final landfall we cannot clearly foretell."   



* Two American aircraft carriers were named for aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpoint Langley: USS Langley (CV 1), converted from the collier Jupiter at Norfolk Navy Yard between 1920-22, and USS Langley (CVL 27), an Independence-class light carrier, commissioned in 1943. USS Wright (CVL 49) was another Independence-class carrier constructed during World War II, but she was named for both brothers, whereas the previous USS Wright (AZ 1/AV 1), which served in several different aviation support roles after its commissioning in 1921, was only named for Orville Wright.

USS John F. Kennedy appears as CVA 67 in the early part of the story and CV 67 later on. The designation was changed in 1974.

What Prevented WWIII? It Just Might Be the INCSEA

At the end of our last post we mentioned the fifth American warship to carry the name Yorktown, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser Yorktown (CG 48). Her two-decade career, the majority of which was spent based at Naval Station Norfolk, was spent conducting routine deployments and exercises, yet she was involved in one of the most visually dramatic high seas confrontations of the Cold War. 

Despite the ascension of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the more open policies he put forward to the West three decades ago, intelligence collection and Freedom of Navigation (FON) operations conducted by the U.S. Navy still drew the ire of the Soviet navy, particularly around the Crimean Peninsula. In March 1986 and again in February 1988, Yorktown and the destroyer Caron (DD 970) entered Soviet territorial waters to demonstrate the right of innocent passage. While Soviet warships warned the Americans as they approached Sevastopol and the Soviet ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a diplomatic protest after the first incident, both ships were intercepted and rammed by Soviet warships two years later.

The Soviet frigate Bezzaventnyy runs along the port side of the guided missile cruiser Yorktown (CG 48) on February 12, 1988, in an attempt to force the American ship away from Soviet territorial waters. (Official U.S. Navy photograph via NavSource Online)

This was actually one of the less harrowing incidents discussed in detail within a recent book called Incidents at Sea:American Confrontation with Russia and China, 1945-2016 (Naval Institute Press, December 2017) by historian David Winkler of the Naval Historical Foundation, who was inspired by his experiences as a naval officer observing interactions between American and Soviet ships in the Sea of Japan in 1984 to write a “directed research project” as a graduate student that later became his doctoral dissertation. That dissertation became the core of his first book, Cold War at Sea: High-Seas Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union (2000). The latest iteration of the book brings readers from the dawn of the Cold War to the geopolitical environment we find ourselves in today.

Some national security heavyweights have only recently come to the realization that the Cold War didn't end as much as it went into remission. The Russian bear was not beaten; it only hibernated for awhile.  Now the Russians are literally back with a vengeance and have become such a threat that the Navy is resurrecting the 2nd Fleet to deal with them; more than enough reason to revamp and reissue this book that details the long history of blue water brinksmanship with them.

Despite its title, the purpose of Incidents at Sea is not to simply provide a chronology of such incidents and their repercussions, although the book is replete with such details. The book is actually about the international agreement that facilitated a sea change (no pun intended) in the way the American and Soviet fleets interacted. 

About 80 miles off the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea, a Russian SU-24 Fencer performs an exceptionally low pass over the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Donald Cook (DDG 75) on April 12, 2016. Two fencers as well as a KA-27 helicopter buzzed the destroyer in international waters that day.  In April 2014, the Russians took similar actions against Donald Cook in the Black Sea. (Navy.mil)

Incidents between Soviet and American aircraft can be dated back to October 1945, taking on more of an added urgency after the Soviets detonated their own atomic bomb in August 1949. The American Special Electronic Airborne Search Projects program that spawned the dangerous “ferret’ missions came about because of an urgent need to determine Soviet military developments, but at a cost.

“From 1945 through 1960,” writes Winkler, “a series of mostly one-sided air duels took place that cost more than one hundred American and Soviet aviators their lives. These duels, and the two respective governments’ reactions to them, provide the contextual background for a much more complex Cold War at sea.” 

While the number of aerial incidents with the Soviets plummeted after American reconnaissance satellites became operational, the emergence of the Soviet Auxiliary, General, Intelligence (AGI) vessels during the mid-1950s created many more opportunities for confrontations in international waters. Although the most nail-biting confrontations involving Soviet merchant vessels during the 1960s took place in the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis, plenty of potentially catastrophic situations developed throughout the decade in the Gulf of Tonkin and Haiphong Harbor during the war in Vietnam.  

Pugnacious and girded in a patina of rust, the Soviet Auxiliary, General, Intelligence (AGI) Gidrofon keeps up with the American aircraft carrier Coral Sea (CVA-43) in the Gulf on Tonkin on October 28, 1969.  The collision between the American fleet tug Abnaki (ATF 96) and the diminutive spy trawler in the area almost two years before was cited within a memorandum from Navy Secretary Paul Ignatius to Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Nitze on the urgent need to develop "parameters for surveillance procedures in order to avoid unnecessary and undesirable encounters between U.S. and Soviet ships, which could be extremely serious." (Naval History and Heritage Command image)   

Numerous minor collisions and near-misses on the seas and in the skies occurred throughout the decade, but there were no bilateral means to work out disputes and settle grievances. After the more serious incidents involving the Soviets, grievances were taken to the United Nations (UN) as well as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), yet incidents continued unabated. “Critics of international law regimes could argue that their efforts were for naught, given the Soviet Union’s refusal to be held accountable before the ICJ and its ability to veto censure at the UN Security Council," writes Winkler.  "Such critics could argue that the outcomes of air-to-air cases illustrate the ineffectiveness of an international system lacking a powerful legislative body, a third-party dispute-settlement mechanism, and a mechanism to effect sanctions on lawbreakers.”

After a Soviet destroyer lost a game of chicken with the British carrier Ark Royal in 1970, the Soviets finally responded to diplomatic entreaties from the Americans. This marked the emergence of the most prominent character in the book, as well as one of the most consequential figures in naval affairs over the last four decades, John Warner. As an under secretary of the Navy, he was chosen as lead U.S. negotiator and head of the American delegation that resulted in his signing of the Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA) on May 25, 1972 (after he became secretary of the Navy) during the Moscow Summit between President Richard Nixon and Premier Leonid Brezhnev.

Warner, who subsequently served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his five terms in the Senate representing Virginia, writes in the forward of the book, “The accord has stood the test of time, greatly lessening the number of ‘incidents,’ and has served as a model for similar confidence-building agreements between other nations around the globe.”  One secret of INCSEA's success was that it was not just another agreement managed by career diplomats. This agreement would be managed by naval officers on both sides; some of the same men who were or might be tasked with enforcing the agreement at sea.

The Sovremenyy-class destroyer Otlichny, which was then based in Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula, passes Old Point Comfort on its way to Naval Station Norfolk on July 21, 1989.  Otlichny, the Slava-class cruiser Marshal Ustinov, and the replenishment oiler Genrikh Gasanov made the historic port visit to Norfolk amid easing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)  

Visitors to the three Soviet Northern Fleet ships that made a port call at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia in 1989 received an information pamphlet bearing this cover. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file) 

It is clear that incidents plummeted during the 1970s as a direct result of the agreement, and it provided for open lines of communication between the navies despite a resurgence of incidents during the 1980s, most notably after the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner in 1983.  It can also be argued that the lessening of tensions under INCSEA ultimately resulted in an historic port visit made to Norfolk by a Soviet flotilla in 1989.  But did the agreement prevent World War III?  Dr. Winkler makes no such claim, but it is not a stretch of the imagination to believe that many of the confrontations covered in this book (particularly those that took place before INCSEA) could have spiraled out of control into a larger confrontation. The regular meetings and other protocols put into practice by the agreement definitely changed the behavior of the Soviet and American navies, but the world's oceans have become much more complicated, and crowded, since then.

Territorial waters, internationally recognized as having a 12-mile limit, have traditionally been guarded by force of arms, but there are also exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which have vastly expanded because of changes made to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over the last quarter-century. Winkler reveals that the changes to UNCLOS were not prompted by the Cold War at sea, but by the "Cod War at sea" between political allies (and economic adversaries) Iceland and Great Britain during the 1970s. Although it might sound humorous, World War III just might break out over such a dispute.  The Argentine coast guard sank a Chinese fishing vessel for poaching in its EEZ in 2016, but the rapacious fleet just keeps coming.

Most globes and maps of the world are careful to delineate political boundaries between nations, oftentimes rendering countries in different colors. The oceans, however, from the shoreline of one nation to another thousands of miles away, are generally a solid blue the world over. If maps were to faithfully represent the territorial waters claimed by various countries, plus their EEZs, then these maps and globes would confuse even veteran mariners. That is partly because sea boundaries differ from nation to nation, as some claims are internationally recognized, while others aren't. While many modern maps note disputed land areas such as Western Sahara and Kashmir, The Peoples Republic of China's (PRC's) self-declared territory in the South China Sea, secured by a system of artificial garrison islands, doesn't generally show up, unless you count those made by the Chinese themselves, citing age-old charts giving them the rights to those waters. Other nearby countries have their own maps to refute those claims, and the disputation will go tortuously onward until someone inevitably gets hurt.

While the history of wrangling between the Soviet and American diplomats before and after INCSEA are well-covered, coverage of incidents between the Americans and the People's Republic are notably lacking. The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) does not make an appearance until the final chapter, specifically, page 202 of Winkler's 213-page book, as though maritime confrontation with that nation only became an issue after the Tienanmen Square democracy protests were crushed in 1989. Although updated to include the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement reached with China in 1998, itself a version of INCSEA, coverage of the long and sporadically violent road leading to that agreement is fragmentary.

Aerial incidents with the PRC go back nearly as far as those with the USSR. A Navy P2V was shot down over the South China Sea by Chinese antiaircraft fire on January 18, 1953, at the same time 768,000 American and other United Nations troops were fighting over one million PLA "volunteers" in North Korea. The longest-held American prisoner of the Cold War, John T. Downey, was shot down the year before, along with fellow intelligence officer Richard Fecteau, and imprisoned for over two decades by the Chinese communists.  The two were held in the same prison with Navy Lieutenant Robert J. Flynn, who was shot down over Southern China in 1967, and Air Force Major Philip E. Smith, who was shot down near Hainan Island in 1965. 

In April 2001 the Chinese even got their hands on a Navy EP-3E electronic surveillance aircraft after one of their J-8 fighters collided with it and the American pilot landed on Hainan Island. Norman Friedman observed in the May 2001 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings that "a cold war with the Chinese is developing, and the EP-3E incident will be seen, in five or ten years, as an important early indication of just where the situation was going."

The 9/11 attacks that occurred just over five months later and the ongoing wars which followed have preoccupied the Defense Department ever since. The monstrous financial costs of those wars have undoubtedly diverted crucial investment away from the U.S. Navy, which has struggled to support the “Pacific Pivot” attempted by the Obama Administration. Today the Hainan Incident has been all but forgotten, except by those who understand just how damaging it was.

Although that incident does receive coverage in Incidents at Sea, there is a pressing need for a more comprehensive history of run-ins with the PLAN and their proxies.  The resurgent Russian navy is potentially no less lethal than the PLAN, yet in terms of a real possibility of a massive war at sea, China is a much more likely candidate. The PRC's communist party has withstood every challenge it has encountered since 1949, ascending to the top of the communist world even as it faced down and destroyed its greatest domestic challengers forty years later, yet it has yet to unify the whole nation under their red banner.

For 69 years, the United States Navy and those of its allies have been the only thing standing in the way of a non-consensual national reunification. While recent Russian fleet activities, particularly those involving its sole remaining aircraft carrier, have been the subject of derision or even scorn, PLAN activities have been nothing to make light of, with formations made up of modern vessels surrounding its first aircraft carrier that can be seen from orbit.  A second carrier is undergoing sea trials, and undoubtedly more are on the way.   

Despite the lighter treatment of the PLAN compared to the Soviet and Russian navies, suffice to say that Incidents at Sea is rooted in decades of painstaking research and extensive interviews with key players in the history of naval diplomacy between United States and the Soviet empire, followed by the Russian Federation.

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum's library contains many books on weapons and warfighting, but not enough on diplomatic mechanisms and peacemaking, which makes Incidents at Sea a most welcome addition. Dr. Winkler has refined a book explaining how World War III has been avoided on the high seas (so far) with the Russians, but perhaps a second volume along these lines, one dealing more fully with the Chinese, is now in order.