Nov. 19, 1964 - The Pentagon economy ax fell today on the Brooklyn Navy Yard and two other major defense installations in New York City.
The shipyard, Fort Jay on Governors Island, and the Brooklyn Army Terminal were among the 95 establishments doomed by the Defense Department’s drive to save $500 million annually.
Closing of the shipyard alone will cost New York 9,625 jobs. About 64,000 workers are involved nationally in the cuts announced by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
An estimated $18.1 million a year, McNamara said, would be saved by closing the Brooklyn Navy Yard alone.
McNamara indicated that he intended to confer with Sen. Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) and Senator-elect Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.) on whether to close the Brooklyn yard “in a relatively short time” — six to nine months — or in a period of about 18 months. No extension would go beyond two years, he said.
McNamara appeared at a crowded press conference accompanied by the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. His decisions, he said, “are absolutely, unequivocally irrevocable unless there is new evidence.”
“The chances of that,” he added, “are damn small.”
“President Johnson has laid on me an absolute requirement for economy and the elimination of waste and has told me he will accept any political pressure that results,” the Secretary said.
A reporter raised a question of whether politics and delay in announcing the cutback until after the election had figured in the decisions.
“Politics played absolutely no part in any of these decisions,” McNamara said.
He mentioned as an “example” the planned closing of the Brooklyn yard and the reduction of the Philadelphia yard.
A New York delegation, led by former Attorney General Kennedy, had protested strongly.
How was Senator-elect Kennedy notified of the decision about the Brooklyn yard? “I called him myself, this morning,” McNamara said.
New York Mayor Robert Wagner said he didn’t believe the decision was final and said he would appeal the action to President Johnson and Congress “as forcefully as I know how.”
Also upset at the news was Senator-elect Kennedy, who with Wagner and Senators Keating and Javits had made a visit to Washington two weeks ago yesterday to confer on the matter with McNamara.
What annoyed both Wagner and Kennedy as well as other public officials was that no one was given any opportunity to read a study made of the situation by the Defense Department. Such a chance had been promised them in advance of any action.
New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller said the closedowns would “mean unemployment, suffering, and hardship” for thousands employed at the installations.
At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, word of the decision was met with gloom and despair by its 9,625 workers. Frank Lisi, 43, 24 years on the job as an industrial relations specialist, said the closing was a “complete sellout to big business interests.”
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