This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Steven Loomis (SaigonShipyard), IC3
to remember
Christopher, Warren (Medal of Freedom), ENS.
If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Scranton, N.D
Last Address March 18, 2011, aged 85 Los Angeles, California
Warren Minor Christopher
U.S. Navy, WWII Veteran
Secretary of State
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Warren M. Christopher, the lawyer turned envoy who tirelessly traveled to Bosnia and the Middle East on peace missions during his 1993-96 tenure as Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, has died. He was 85. (March 18, 2011 )
Quiet, grave, patient, with great attention to detail, discrete and unflappable – words that are used to describe the late Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, who died on March 18, 2011. While serving as an ensign in the Navy during WW2, his ship was in Tokyo Bay when the surrender documents were signed. He remembered what he saw when he went ashore as suffering and destruction, and that stayed with him for the rest of his life, according to his 2001 memoir Chances of a Lifetime.
"When the Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945, the navy ordered my ship into Tokyo Bay as part of a carrier force. While we bobbed up and down in a typhoon that overtook the bay, General Douglas MacArthur, on the nearby USS Missouri, signed the peace treaty that officially ended the war. We saw nothing of the ceremony, and though MacArthur demanded neither fuel nor help from us during our stay, I suppose that our presence - along with the scores of other ships bouncing up and down in Tokyo Bay that day - was a useful part of the armada." W.M.C.
His obituary in the Washington Post lists his many accomplishments, but he will always be associated most with the release of the US Embassy Hostages from Iran that he worked out as a negotiator. He was the Secretary of State when the Rwandan killings were carried out, but refused to allow State Department personnel to use the term “genocide”.
Secretary Christopher shunned publicity and allowed his deputies to take the limelight including the late Richard Holbrooke when the Dayton Peace Accords were signed. After Secretary Christopher left the Clinton Administration, he went back to life in a law firm in Los Angeles. He also served on the commission that investigated the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King beating in 1991, and in 2000 represented candidate Al Gore in Florida courts during the recount battle.
An Ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserves, Sept. 1942 to Sept. 1946, he was called up to active duty during World War II and served in the Pacific on the USS Tomahawk and USS Fayette.
Enrolled at University of Redlands, September 1942
Enlisted, USNR October 27, 1942, at Redlands, Calif.
Early 1944, ordered to NROTC, Univ. of So. Calif.
Commissioned Ensign, February 1945
USS Tomahawk, tanker, Feb - Sept 1945
USS Fayette, attack transport, Sept 1945
To Mobile, AL through Sept. 1946
Discharged from active duty September 1946
He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California in 1945 and, after attending Stanford Law School, served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1949 and 1950.
Other Comments:
He enlisted in the Navy in October of 1942 and reported to the University of Southern California’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1944. He finished USC early, earning a degree in finance with honors in February 1945, then served aboard the aircraft-refueling tanker USS Tomahawk in the Pacific during World War II.
USS Tomahawk (AO-88):
Iwo Jima operation
Assault and occupation of Iwo Jima, 23 February to 4 March 1945 Okinawa Gunto operation
5th and 3d Fleet raids on support of Okinawa Gunto, 23 March to 30 April 1945 USS Fayette (APA-43):
Western Caroline Islands operation
Capture and occupation of southern Palau Islands, 6 September to 14 October 1945
He graduated in 1949 from Stanford Law School, where he was president of its first law review and elected a member of the Order of the Coif legal honor society.
President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, on January 16, 1981.
Other Memories The University of Redlands is a private liberal arts and sciences university located in Redlands, California just outside of San Bernardino.
