Peter Huchthausen - Naval Career

Naval Career

The son of the late Chaplain (Colonel) and Mrs. Walther A. Huchthausen, Peter graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy in 1957 and from the United States Naval Academy in 1962.

Huchthausen served as a line officer in the destroyer USS Blandy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, enforcing the naval blockade and verifying the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. He then served two combat tours of duty during Vietnam War, commanding a patrol boat and unit of ten river patrol boats in combat on the Mekong River with the United States Navy's Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta. He returned to Vietnam as Chief Engineer in the destroyer USS Orleck, which provided naval gunfire support to Army and Marine forces operations along the Vietnam coast. Transferring to Naval Intelligence, he became a Soviet naval submarine analyst and served in anti-submarine warfare positions on the staffs of Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, the United States First Fleet, The United States Third Fleet, and the Commander in Chief, Pacific Command. Later, he became the senior American naval attaché in Yugoslavia and Romania. Afterward, he became the chief of attaché and human intelligence collection operations in Western Europe for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Hucthausen served for three years in Moscow as the senior U.S. Naval Attaché to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.