In the early 1970s, the United States Navy, following the doctrine of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt for larger numbers of smaller and cheaper ships, initiated design studies for a "minimum-cost" carrier of 50,000–60,000 tons.

[4][6] Later that year, however, US President Gerald Ford cancelled the order for the fourth Nimitz, stating that instead, two CVVs (medium-sized, conventional-powered carriers which were expected to mainly operate V/STOL aircraft) would be built.

[4][6] The CVV carried a smaller air group than existing supercarriers (i.e. about 60 compared with about 90 for the nuclear-powered Nimitz class or the conventional-powered Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriers) and had two steam catapults rather than four, and three arrestor cables instead of four.

[10] When it was realized that a repeat of USS John F. Kennedy, the last conventionally powered large carrier to be built would only cost about $100 million more than the CVV, while being much more capable, the Navy and the Secretary of Defense Harold Brown recommended that a repeat John F. Kennedy be included in the 1980 shipbuilding program instead of the CVV, but this was rejected by Carter, partly based on the lower life-cycle costs of the smaller ship with its smaller airwing.

[1][11] A fourth Nimitz-class vessel, USS Theodore Roosevelt was authorized in the FY 81 budget, however, and the election of Ronald Reagan meant that defense budgets were no longer strained, meaning an end to the CVV.