MIAMI — Thirty years ago, a young secretary of defense named Donald Rumsfeld stood on a stage at the U.S. Naval Academy and commissioned a young ensign named James Stavridis, 21, on a career that would see him captaining warships.

Thursday, Rumsfeld launched Stavridis, now 51, on a new journey — as the first-ever four-star admiral to command the U.S. Southern Command and its U.S. military forces in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"I look forward to the voyage," declared Stavridis, who relieved Army Gen. Bantz Craddock as Southcom commander at the Pentagon's Miami headquarters.

Until last week, the Southcom job had been the traditional turf of boots-on-the-ground U.S. military officers — an Army or Marine four-star commanding U.S. service members from all the services.

But, as though signaling the shift, the ceremony Thursday morning was awash in Navy whites — from fellow Class of 1976 academy graduates to fellow naval officers saluting the first-ever Greek-American to become a four-star U.S. officer.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, himself a former commander of Southcom, declared the operation "in incredible hands."

Craddock, who concluded a two-year stint, now moves on to Europe as NATO commander. But on Thursday, there was no talk of the "axis of evil" or any of the global conflicts besetting the Bush administration.

Instead, a celebratory air prevailed — and very little politics at a Pentagon outpost whose programs include antidrug operations, joint training exercises and humanitarian missions.

"There's wonderful cooperation in this hemisphere and there's a very strong understanding of the need for cooperation and close working relationships," Rumsfeld said, after posing for photos with soldiers and civilians.

"Certainly under Gen. Craddock we've made good progress in that regard; and I have no question but that Adm. Stavridis will continue it."

Southcom's most controversial project these days is the Pentagon's offshore detention center for suspected international terrorists — the showcase prison operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The audience included Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the detention operations commander, as well as some of the key civilian Bush administration insiders involved in detention policy.

There also were more than a few four-star officers welcoming the admiral to the elite club, plus the uniformed defense chiefs of Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

The one-hour ceremony featured both pomp, 105mm howitzers delivering a 17-gun salute; and circumstance, a blistering hot day that broiled soldiers and sailors who wore their dress uniforms.

Before coming here, Stavridis was Rumsfeld's senior military assistant — and frequent squash partner. But Thursday, surveying the sunshine, he taunted his former Pentagon colleagues from a podium outside his Doral industrial park headquarters.

"Miami looks pretty good from the E-Ring," he said.