00:00All right, joining us now is retired Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan.
00:03He served as Director of Navy Staff, and before that he was Commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet.
00:08And here on set with us on the boat, we've got Professor Robert Snyder.
00:11He's Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Rutgers University at Newark.
00:14Professor, I want to start with you.
00:16Can you tell us about where we are on the Hudson and the significance of this place when we talk
00:21about American independence?
00:22We are off Pier 86 on the island of Manhattan,
00:25and the Hudson River and New York Harbor played a huge role in the American Revolution and also in New
00:31York history.
00:32We are where battles were fought out in 1776 and just upriver from where George Washington was rowed to his
00:38first inauguration in 1789.
00:41Professor Snyder, how are you thinking about the importance of this day?
00:45We've kind of gone back and looked at sort of the 200th anniversary, bicentennial, of course.
00:49So how do you think about this in the greater context of American history?
00:52There are two big things that I think about.
00:54One is the day we declared our independence from the British Empire.
00:57That was a heroic act that has echoed around the world for centuries.
01:01Also, I think about the text of the Declaration of Independence and its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit
01:06of happiness,
01:07and the affirmation of the ideal that all men are created equal.
01:11Admiral Donegan, at the time of the Revolutionary War, the British Navy was unrivaled in the history of the world,
01:17and it was a shock to everyone, sometimes possibly even us, that the U.S. was able to come out
01:22victorious in that.
01:23And I want to ask you, when you look at the state of naval warfare now, is the U.S.
01:28still the preeminent naval force in the world,
01:30and where is competition coming from?
01:33Hey, Christina, it's a great question.
01:35First, thanks for letting me join you today.
01:37It's a pretty exciting day.
01:40Second, you know, it's pretty clear that the U.S. is the preeminent naval force in the world today,
01:47just by sheer numbers of ships, but also by the way we deploy our Navy and where we have it
01:53around the world today.
01:54So, of course, we're the only Navy that has an array of the aircraft carriers that you see that are
02:00so preeminent when something happens.
02:03You know, they move, they're really a maneuver force.
02:06They can get anywhere in the world and be there, not just to fight a conflict, really, to deter conflict,
02:13but also we deploy our Navy around the world to build relationships.
02:18And as you'll see today, we have 40 ships that are gray holes plus 40-plus ships that are sailing,
02:26you know, the tall vessels that are coming.
02:29And these are from navies around the world, relationships we've built for a really long time.
02:33So the world recognizes the U.S.'s position in terms of a naval force.
02:40And our competition is coming from, as you would expect, it's coming from China,
02:44which tries to emulate us and try to do some of the things we do.
02:49And they've built their own aircraft carriers now.
02:51But I think they're a long way from getting to the level that we are in terms of not just
02:56size, but our capabilities.
03:00Admiral, let me just ask you about what we can expect today.
03:03So you mentioned there's going to be this international naval review.
03:05There is this parade of tall ships as well.
03:06We have the aviation component of this as well.
03:09So a confluence of major events happening here in New York City today.
03:12Could you just speak to the Navy's approach to, again, that naval review that we're going to see,
03:17the Vice President, J.D. Vance, is going to be in New York for that.
03:19He'll be on Governor's Island for that ceremony.
03:22What does it mean?
03:22What's the importance of that to the Navy, to the military more broadly?
03:26And you can hear some of those.
03:27That's the helicopter, NYPD helicopter, behind us right now.
03:31Yeah, well, you're in a great location to see everything you just talked about, Christina and David.
03:35So it couldn't be a better place.
03:37Back in 1986, I got to sit in a similar place when we rededicated the Statue of Liberty.
03:43And Ronald Reagan and the President of France, Mitterrand, came and lit that statue.
03:49And we had a kind of a similar ceremony, but this is even larger than that was.
03:53So what's going to happen first is, as you just mentioned, is through the night and over the last couple
04:00of days,
04:01ships have come, gray-holed combatants from around the world, from places like Spain and Brazil and Japan and Korea
04:09and Germany,
04:10and anchored in the harbor.
04:12And you can probably see some of them where you are, but they've anchored all up and down the Hudson
04:17River.
04:17And they've taken these positions.
04:18And then the first thing that's going to happen is a U.S. ship will come from the north and
04:26sail down the Hudson towards the Atlantic Ocean
04:30and do what's called a pass and review.
04:32They'll go past each of the ships that are gray-holed that are anchored.
04:36So you'll see them render honors to that passing ship by shooting off cannons and things like that.
04:42You hear a lot of noise as that ship comes past.
04:44And then after it gets down, what you'll see next is now this tall ships, these historic ships of sail,
04:53you know, led by the U.S. Coast Guard ship, the Eagle.
04:56They'll come in six-minute intervals.
04:58They'll come and sail up the Hudson from the Verrazano-Narrick Bridge past the Statue of Liberty all the way
05:04up to the George Washington Bridge.
05:06So that's what you're going to see.
05:08It'll be about 40 of those ships.
05:09It'll take quite some time.
05:10And then as that gets to a conclusion around 10, 15 or so, you'll start to see this aerial review,
05:16which has, I'm told, some well over 100, maybe 120 or more airplanes of every airplane, I'm told,
05:26that's in the inventory of the United States, plus Allied airplanes, plus the French demonstration team,
05:34and led by the Blue Angels, will be that aerial review.
05:39So there'll be a lot going on today if you're sitting along the Hudson.
05:45It should be quite a show.
05:47I hope everybody will stick with us.
05:48Professor, I want to ask you kind of about the geography of Manhattan,
05:51because we don't really think of this as a port city anymore.
05:54But one of the reasons it so quickly became the commerce center of the U.S.
05:58was just about geography.
06:00What about where this is situated in the waterways made it so conducive to so much trade so early on?
06:05New York City has a terrific natural harbor right off the Atlantic Ocean,
06:09but then it's at the mouth of the Hudson River,
06:11which takes you by water up to the interior of New York State.
06:15And then when the Erie Canal was opened in 1825,
06:18you have a water route all the way west to the Great Lakes.
06:21In fact, the opening of that canal was one of the great harbor festivals in the history of New York
06:25City.
06:26Was it a party comparable to the one we're going to see today?
06:28On the same scale for the 19th century, proportionally, I think so.
06:31They poured water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean
06:34and recognized the wetting of the waters that had been wrought by the Erie Canal.
06:37Oh, that's very sweet. All right.
06:39Professor, you were the Manhattan Borough historian.
06:41Let me just ask you about this moment from an historian's perspective.
06:44How important are events like this in kind of getting us reengaged with
06:47and reanimated in terms of our history?
06:49I think events like a bicentennial or a semi-quicentennial
06:52can be really important for engaging both America's past
06:56and its ideals in the present and what our prospects are for the future.
07:00We did that in 1976.
07:02I was around for that bicentennial.
07:04And we can do it again today.
07:06Admiral, really quickly, we've got about 30 seconds left.
07:08What are you most looking forward to seeing today?
07:10And is there something specific folks should be on the lookout for
07:12as we see this battalion and flotilla and air show and everything going on?
07:17Oh, I think, you know, what everyone wants to see, of course,
07:21is those tall ships coming by.
07:22And I think that's going to be the highlight of it
07:24because it takes you back in time.
07:25And like the professor was saying, I think what's really cool about it,
07:29these bicentennial events really, really allow us to look back into our past.
07:34And, you know, control of the Hudson River was super significant in us,
07:38you know, in our quest to be a new nation.
Comments