“An atheist could not be as great a military leader as one who is not an atheist.”

Thomas H. Moorer (1912 to 2004)

Thomas Hinman Moorer was a US Navy admiral, chief of naval operations (1967-70) and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1970-74) during the Vietnam War.

A naval aviator in World War II stationed at Pearl Harbour, Moorer rose through the ranks of the US Navy to command the Pacific Fleet from 1964.

In the 1960s he advocated attacking targets in North Vietnam to dissuade insurgencies in South Vietnam and Laos.