William James Crowe Jr. (January 2, 1925 – October 18, 2007) was a United States Navy admiral and diplomat who served as the 11th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and as the ambassador to the United Kingdom and Chair of the Intelligence Oversight Board under President Bill Clinton.
Crowe was born in La Grange, Kentucky, on January 2, 1925. At the beginning of the Great Depression, Crowe's father moved the family to Oklahoma City. In June 1946, Crowe completed a war-accelerated course of study and graduated with the Class of 1947 from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
From 1954 to 1955, Crowe served as assistant to the naval aide of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. While serving in Eisenhower's White House in Spring of 1955, Crowe was tasked with figuring out a way to rid the White House lawn of squirrels, which were impacting the golfing greens Eisenhower had built on the lawn. From 1956 to 1958, Crowe served as executive officer of the submarine USS Wahoo (SS-565).
In 1958, he served as an aide to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. In 1960, Crowe took command of USS Trout (SS-566), homeported in Charleston, South Carolina, and served as commanding officer of that ship until 1962. From there, Crowe earned a master's degree in education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. After turning down an invitation from Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to enter the Navy's nuclear power program, Crowe earned a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University in 1965 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "The policy roots of the modern Royal Navy 1946-1963."
During the Vietnam War he was the senior adviser to the Vietnamese Riverine Force. In 1969, he took command of Submarine Division 31, homeported in San Diego, California.
A long string of assignments followed:
1967 – Head of East Asia Pacific Branch, Politico-Military Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
1970 – Senior adviser to the Vietnamese Navy Riverine Force
1973 – promoted to rear admiral and named Deputy Director, Strategic Plans, Policy, Nuclear Systems, and NSC Affairs Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
1975 – Director, East Asia and Pacific Region, Office of the Secretary of Defense
1976 – Commander, Middle East Force (COMMIDEASTFOR)
1977 – promoted to vice admiral and named Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Plans, Policy and Operations
1980 – promoted to admiral and named Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe (CINCSOUTH)
1983 – as CINCSOUTH, named Commander-in-Chief, United States Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR)
1983 – Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Command (CINCPAC)
On July 10, 1985, Crowe was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS). He continued to serve as CJCS through the Bush administration until 1989, when he retired from active duty. He was the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to serve under the provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, where he as chairman became (not the collegial body of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), by statute, the principal military adviser to the president, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense. On October 1, 1989, Army General Colin L. Powell succeeded him as CJCS.
On March 16, 1989, he made a cameo appearance in the “Hot Rocks” episode of Cheers.
After he retired in October 1989, Crowe returned to the University of Oklahoma and William J. Crowe chair in geopolitics. Crowe surprised politicians when he endorsed Bill Clinton in the presidential election of 1992. President Clinton named Crowe chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1993. In 1994, Clinton appointed Crowe the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and he served in that capacity until 1997.