Alexander Butterfield. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
It’s not a name Americans should quickly forget. Like Alexander Vindman, a name more recently in the news, Alexander Butterfield was called before Congress to testify under oath about his knowledge of dealings within the White House. Vindman, in 2019, blew the whistle on Trump’s attempt to extort Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy into investigating Joe Biden in exchange for aid. Butterfield, in 1973, had dropped an even bigger bomb, revealing the existence of a White House taping system, a revelation leading to President Nixon’s resignation a year later, an event unprecedented in American history.
I don’t remember the name of our wing commander at Vance Air Force Base in 1976, but he’d flown in combat with then-Colonel Alexander Butterfield during the Vietnam War. Butterfield’s testimony before Congress and Nixon’s resignation was old news by 1976, but his name was still well known. He’d recently resigned as head of the Federal Aviation Administration and was looking for work, and our wing commander invited him to address his officers at a dining-in.
Military dinings-in are formal affairs featuring guest speakers talking on a range of topics. At that point in my USAF career I had only been to one or two, and was looking forward to this one. Alexander Butterfield’s announced topic was his post-USAF career in the White House, where he’d been a deputy under Nixon’s chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, and his experiences as head of the FAA. The fact that he’d been an Air Force fighter pilot and had seen combat was icing on the cake.
Butterfield stuck to his announced topic and everyone in the audience was interested and paying attention — save for the crusty old major a few seats down the table from me, the second-in-command of my flying training squadron. As Butterfield got deeper into his story about working for Haldeman and Nixon, the major drank more and more wine, emptying the carafe in front of him and reaching up the table for another, finally clearing his plate to one side and slumping over the table as if falling asleep. He was faking it, miming boredom to send a message. Our squadron commander, sitting next to him, wasn’t having it, repeatedly nudging him to sit up and show some respect. But the major was well into his cups by then, oblivious to nudges and whispers. Suddenly he raised himself up into a half-standing position and loudly interrupted our guest speaker. “We don’t wanna hear about this political shit,” he slurred, “tell us about flying in fucking Vietnam.”
There was a hush. Butterfield made a joking reply, then returned to his topic. Our commander clicked his fingers at two of my larger squadron-mates, who escorted the major out of the room, one on either side to hold him erect. The next day the major, no longer second-in-command of a flying training squadron, was running base operations, the traditional graveyard assignment for disgraced pilots.
Thus I learned a valuable lesson, one that was to serve me well (with a few notable exceptions, over which I still cringe in shame) as a military officer: in a hard-drinking profession, you’ve got to be able to hold your liquor.
Alexander Vindman’s Army career was on fire until he crossed paths with Trump. He was passed over for colonel and forced to retire; today he’s running for Congress in Florida. Butterfield’s Air Force career was behind him when he blew the whistle on the White House tapes, and he remained in place as head of the FAA until 1975, a year after Nixon’s resignation, so his story and Vindman’s are different in certain respects. I have a lot of respect for both men.
We need more like them. Now more than ever.