THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606240080
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: 52 lines
Adm. Bernard A. Clarey, a former vice chief of naval operations who commanded America's naval might in the Pacific as the country sought to extricate itself from the quagmire of war in Indochina, died on Saturday at Tripler Hospital in Honolulu. He was 84 and lived in Honolulu, where he retired in 1973 as commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet.
The cause was a heart attack, his family said.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave Clarey his fourth star and appointed him vice chief, the No. 2 spot in the Navy's uniformed hierarchy. But when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt became chief of Naval Operations two years later, he chose his own closest aides and Clarey assumed the Pacific command in Hawaii.
It was a familiar duty station for Clarey, who had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor as executive officer on the submarine Dolphin. But now, in December 1970, he took charge of the entire Pacific Fleet, including its vessels off Vietnam and naval-air operations over North Vietnam.
The assignment put him in a sensitive position. American military strength in the war had peaked at nearly 550,000 in 1969; the country was racked by mass demonstrations; and peace negotiations in Paris proceeded fitfully despite the raids on the North. And racial conflict aboard the Pacific Fleet led to a congressional inquiry.
Bernard Ambrose Clarey was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1934. He trained at Submarine School in New London, Conn., in the late 1930s.
After his baptism of fire at Pearl Harbor, he went on a war patrol in the Marshall Islands aboard the Dolphin. Rising in rank and command, he continued on patrol duty in various parts of the Pacific and was one of the early commanders in the highly damaging forays against Japanese shipping late in the war. He was awarded three Navy Crosses for valor.
He was back in combat in the Korean War as executive officer on the heavy cruiser Helena, earning a Bronze Star. Further duty tours took him to Washington, back to Pearl Harbor, and to Norfolk, where he planned NATO training exercises and took part in high-level conferences.
Recalled to the Pentagon in 1967, he served as director of Navy Program Planning and Budgeting in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations until his appointment as vice chief the next year.
After his retirement from the Navy he worked as vice president of the Bank of Hawaii for Pacific Rim operations.
Clarey is survived by his wife of 59 years, Jean Scott Clarey; two sons, Rear Adm. Stephen S. Clarey, retired, of Coronado, Calif., and Michael O. Clarey of Scarsdale, N.Y.; a brother, William A. of Peoria, Ill.; a sister, Janice Bracken of Paramus, N.J.; five grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. by CNB