Adm. Charles R. Larson, a former military commander in the Pacific who twice led the United States Naval Academy, the second time to help it recover from the worst cheating scandal in its history, died on July 26 at his home in Annapolis, Md. He was 77.
The academy said the cause was pneumonia; he was found to have leukemia two years ago.
Admiral Larson had been superintendent of the academy from 1983 to 1986 when he was appointed for the second time, in 1994; he was the first four-star admiral to take the post. The Navy sought his help in changing the ethical atmosphere of the academy after 134 midshipmen were accused of cheating on an electrical engineering exam in 1992; 24 were expelled and more than 80 disciplined.
“My goals are very, very simple,” Admiral Larson told an assembly of alumni and midshipmen in 1994. “No. 1, to develop character. No. 2, to prove the worth of the service academies to the people of the United States.”
Admiral Larson tightened discipline, revoking some student privileges, and instituted a curriculum emphasizing character development. But the ethical climate changed slowly.
In 1995, two midshipmen were arrested on charges of trying to buy LSD from undercover police officers, and 24 others were linked to drug selling or buying; 15 cadets were expelled. In response, Admiral Larson ordered all 4,000 of the academy’s cadets to be tested for drugs.
In 1996, a senior and several former students were indicted on charges of running a car-theft ring, and sex-abuse charges were filed against another student.
Admiral Larson suspended weekday liberty and cut back on weekend leave. He also declared a weeklong “stand-down,” a campuswide period of reflection about personal ethics.
Some thought he was not doing enough. James Barry, a civilian academy teacher writing in The Washington Post, described “a serious moral problem caused by a culture of hypocrisy, one that tolerates sexual harassment, favoritism and the covering up of problems.” He suggested that athletes in particular were permitted to abridge the honor code.
Admiral Larson disputed his allegations.
“There is a society out there right now that is more worried about what is legal than what is right,” he told the military historian H. Michael Gelfand in an interview for Mr. Gelfand’s 2006 book, “Sea Change at Annapolis: The United States Naval Academy, 1949-2000.” He added, “We don’t stand up and say, ‘I’m going to do what is right.’ I wanted to fix that.”
Charles Robert Larson was born in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Nov. 20, 1936, the son of a telephone company technician and a schoolteacher. He was a class president at the Naval Academy and graduated in 1958. A classmate and friend there was John McCain, the future Navy pilot, prisoner of war in North Vietnam and United States senator from Arizona. Admiral Larson was later a close national security adviser to Senator McCain.
Admiral Larson was awarded seven Distinguished Service Medals, two of them for his command of the nuclear attack submarine Halibut, which tapped into Soviet undersea communication cables on an espionage mission.
He served as a military aide to President Richard M. Nixon from 1969 to 1971 and later commanded the Navy’s submarine fleet in the Mediterranean. He was on the staff of the chief of naval operations from 1978 to 1982, directing long-range planning before his first appointment to lead the Naval Academy. He was promoted to admiral in 1979, at 43 the second youngest in American history.
Admiral Larson was commander of the Second Fleet in the Atlantic and later the Pacific Fleet before being named to lead all United States military forces in the Pacific, overseeing 350,000 service members. In 1993 he was among a dozen military commanders under consideration to succeed Gen. Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (President Bill Clinton picked Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, the NATO commander.)
He stepped down as academy superintendent in 1998, retiring from the Navy. He then served on corporate boards in the military and aerospace industries and was a founder and chairman of an international security consulting firm, ViaGlobal, based in Annapolis. He was also chairman of the Naval Academy Foundation, which helps raise money for the institution.
A former Republican, Admiral Larson entered politics for the first time in 2002, when Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a Democrat and the eldest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, chose him as her running mate in an unsuccessful campaign for governor in Maryland. He also served as a national security adviser to Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont in his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.
Admiral Larson is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sally; three daughters, Sigrid and Erica Larson and Kirsten Datko; and seven grandchildren.
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