The battleship New Jersey will be in the national spotlight on Tuesday when retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf - architect of the Gulf War - stands on its deck on the Camden Waterfront and addresses state veterans.

The speech will be televised via satellite Tuesday night during the Republican National Convention.

Although it will be viewed live on a screen by delegates at the convention inside the First Union Center in Philadelphia, the event is not being sponsored or paid for by the Republican Party, convention officials said.

Schwarzkopf, a Trenton native whose father was the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, is to speak on military readiness to 150 state veterans on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

He was commander of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the brief Gulf War - the largest deployment of U. S. troops since the Vietnam War. The success of that operation began a new era of international cooperation in promoting order in the post-Cold War world.

Andy Card, 2000 Republican National Convention co- chairman, said the general will provide one of the most memorable moments of the convention.

The historic ship is expected to arrive in Camden about 11 a.m. today after being towed from the former Philadelphia naval shipyard, where it was built and launched in 1942. It is to become a museum late next year.

The president of the Home Port Alliance - the nonprofit South Jersey group that the Navy chose to turn one of the nation's most decorated ships into a museum on the Camden Waterfront - said the Schwarzkopf event will not be sponsored by the Republican Party.

We are negotiating indirectly to rent the ship to a corporate sponsor for an event featuring Schwarzkopf. We are working through the state on this since the original request came from the state, said retired Navy captain David McGuigan, alliance president.

He said neither the Navy nor the alliance, a nonprofit corporation, can use the ship for partisan political purposes.

A distinguished veteran like Schwarzkopf talking to other veterans on a ship with a stunning record from World War II to the Persian Gulf is an appropriate use of the ship and gives visibility to the ship, the state and to Camden, he said.