Commandant of the Marine Corps. In April 1969, the Senate passed and sent to the White House a bill to make the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps a four-star general when the active duty strength of the Marine Corps exceeded 200,000. On May 5, President Richard M. Nixon signed the bill, and General Walt was promoted to four-star rank on June 2, 1969, thus becoming the first assistant commandant of the Marine Corps to attain that rank. While visiting the Taiwan Defense Command in April 1970, General Walt was presented the Order of the Cloud and Banner with Grand Cordon, by General Kao Kuei-yuan of the Republic of China. Presented by the chief of the General Staff, the citation recognized the Assistant Commandant's "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service to the Chinese Marine Corps." The citation noted that General Walt had "contributed immensely in the furtherance of military cooperation and traditional friendship between the United States of America and the Republic of China." Retirement General Walt retired from active duty on February 1, 1971, and subsequently served as director of the United States Marines Youth Foundation. He later coordinated a U.S. Senate investigation on international drug trafficking. In the mid-1970s General Walt served as the senior military member of President Gerald Ford's clemency board, and he later advised the Department of Defense on weapons development and combat training. General Walt described the contradictions of the Vietnam War in an article for The New York Times in 1971. "On the one hand it was an extremely sophisticated war, with complex weapons unlike even World War II or Korea," he wrote. "On the other hand it was a return to medieval war, pitting man against man on a battleground where only the courageous could win." General Walt wrote three books after retiring from the Marine Corps: Strange War, Strange Strategy, about the war in Vietnam; America Faces Defeat, about the dangers confronting the nation; and The Eleventh Hour, about the urgency of the nation's problems. Death General Walt died on March 26, 1989, at a retirement home in Gulfport, Mississippi, after a long illness, and is buried in Quantico National Cemetery. Military awards General Walt's military decorations and awards include: First Navy Cross citation Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant Colonel Lewis William Walt (MCSN: 0-5436),