The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff
Phillips Payson O’Brien. Rutherford, NJ: Dutton, 2019. 544 pp. Photos. Notes. Biblio. Index. $30.
Reviewed by Walter R. Borneman
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy owed his influence on U.S. policy and strategy in World War II and the immediate postwar period to twin pillars: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s trust and confidence in him, earned over years of loyal service, and Leahy’s self-effacing personality that, largely void of ego, placed presidential fidelity and duty to country atop his personal priorities. Whether this made Leahy “the second most powerful man in the world,” as author Phillips Payson O’Brien argues, is grist for debate.
Born in 1875, Leahy graduated from Annapolis in time for service on board the battleship USS Oregon (BB-3) during the Spanish-American War. His first brush with political power came in 1913 when, as a lieutenant commander in the personnel division, he met Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt. Their relationship would come to define Leahy’s life. In 1937, when Roosevelt entered his second presidential term, he appointed Leahy Chief of Naval Operations. “Leahy was entrenched,” O’Brien writes with characteristic superlative, “as the most powerful CNO in U.S. history.”
After his Navy retirement, Leahy served as governor of Puerto Rico and ambassador to Vichy France before Roosevelt recalled him to Washington in 1942 to fill the newly created position of chief of staff to the Commander in Chief. Relying heavily on Leahy’s diary and subsequent memoirs, as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff and CCS minutes and oral histories, O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, has done a thorough job of shedding deserved light on his subject. Still, some readers will ponder if in his enthusiasm to do so he has not overstated Leahy’s autonomy.
O’Brien is no fan of George Marshall, as his previously published How the War Was Won (Cambridge Military Histories, 2015) makes clear. While there is considerable detail here about Leahy’s relationship with Marshall, there is surprisingly little about Leahy’s interactions with Admiral Ernest King and almost nothing about Army Air Forces chief General Hap Arnold, this despite O’Brien repeatedly emphasizing that sea power and air power were Leahy’s preferred instruments of war.
Which gets to the heart of the debate: O’Brien contends Leahy imposed “his own strategic stamp on the U.S. military” and the United States “fought Leahy’s war more than anyone else’s.” Or was it Franklin Roosevelt’s war? In other words, was Leahy’s principal role that of the Commander in Chief’s spokesperson and representative to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a role in which he clarified, influenced, and enforced Roosevelt’s policies?
A particular strength of O’Brien’s book is his scrutiny of Leahy’s subsequent service to President Harry S Truman. Leahy was skeptical about making the transition from Roosevelt to Truman, but the new president assured him that speaking one’s mind was exactly what he wanted. The admiral agreed to stay for a few months that became four years. It proved to be Leahy who “transitioned” Truman by providing him with the road map of Roosevelt’s foreign policy.
Leahy’s power lessened over Truman’s first term but largely because many of the duties in Leahy’s expansive portfolio—such as the President’s daily intelligence briefing—were parceled out at Leahy’s direction to other officials, particularly the director of central intelligence and secretary of state.
Leahy did not always agree with Truman. Leahy disdained the growing role of nuclear weapons in America’s arsenal, took a hard line on continuing support for Nationalist China, and opposed the recognition of Israel as leading to long-term entanglements in the Middle East. Still, it is perhaps impossible to name another individual who held as high a place of counsel and commanded as much influence as William D. Leahy—not just for one president but for two.
Mr. Borneman is the author of The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King (Back Bay Books, 2013), which won the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, and Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona, to be published in May by Little, Brown and Company.
White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War
John Gans. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2019. 296 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. Sources. $28.95.
Reviewed by A. Denis Clift
In volume two of his memoirs, Years of Trial and Hope (Doubleday & Company, 1956), President Harry S Truman looked back on one of the important new pillars in the structure of government added by the National Security Act of 1947. “The creation of the National Security Council [NCS] added a badly needed new facility in the government. This was the place where military, diplomatic, and resource problems could be studied and continually appraised. The new organization gave us a running balance and a perpetual inventory of where we stood and where we were going on all strategic questions affecting the national security.”
Truman soon found that it made sense to absent himself from the meetings where his NSC principals were debating options. Everyone would watch his every twitch and expression, trying to gauge his reaction. It made more sense to have them report their recommendations to him for decision after their meeting. What Truman could not see was the evolving, increasingly powerful role NSC staffs and national security advisers would play—often sidelining the cabinet member principals. He could not see, as author John Gans writes in the subtitle of his book White House Warriors, “How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War.”
White House Warriors is an excellent, detailed history of the NSC well worth reading, based on substantial research, myriad interviews, prime documents, and other sources. The author, currently a member of the Johns Hopkins adjunct faculty, knows the inner workings of Washington, has been a speechwriter to cabinet members, worked for important members of the legislative branch, and serves in the U.S. Navy Reserve attached to the Fifth Fleet.
Each President takes the opportunity to shape the NSC system to best suit his preferred modus operandi. Eisenhower created a formal double staff structure handling policy formulation and policy implementation and introduced the position of National Security adviser. Kennedy decided that he would do the shaping from the Oval Office, created the Situation Room after the Bay of Pigs debacle to assist him, and had a much smaller staff. Johnson, grappling with Vietnam, moved from NSC meetings to Tuesday luncheon meetings with principals and the Joint Chiefs.
Nixon, while returning to a more formal structure of committees, was determined to run foreign policy, assisted by his national security adviser Henry Kissinger, who he made chair of all but one of the committees. I joined the National Security Council staff in 1971 and was set to work helping to shape the bilateral agreements—space, incidents at sea, maritime, environmental, and more—that would contribute to the U.S.-USSR Nixon-Brezhnev summits of détente. Gans’ description of the Nixon-Kissinger NSC is on the mark.
Ford would keep much of the Nixon structure; Brent Scowcroft, replacing Kissinger, would play the applauded role of “honest broker.” Reagan decided to have cabinet officers chair NSC committees. George H. W. Bush brought Scowcroft back as national security adviser. From Clinton on, the Principals Committee and the Deputies Committee structure, with variations, has been the NSC model.
Throughout, the best of the sometimes faceless, sometimes prominent National Security Council staff members have understood that their mission is to serve one person, the President in his roles as head of state and Commander in Chief, in times of peace, crisis and war. Gans presents several vivid case studies of the roles played, the President’s decisions, and the nation’s actions. To cite a few, the book addresses Nixon/Kissinger, Vietnam; Carter, Iran hostages; Reagan, Beirut bombing; Bush 41, the first Gulf War; Clinton, Bosnia/Balkans; Bush 43, 9/11 and Iraq; and Obama, Afghanistan/troop levels and mission.
Looking at the tumult of the Trump administration—with John Bolton replacing H. R. McMaster, who replaced Michael Flynn as national security adviser—Gans finds the NSC staff still a force for change, including from the Trump tweets: “70 years ago today, the National Security Council met for the first time. Great history of advising Presidents—then and now! Thanks NSC staff!”
Mr. Clift is vice president for planning and operations at the U.S. Naval Institute and author of several books, most recently The Bronze Frog (Naval Institute Press, 2018).
Fortune Favors Boldness: The Story of Naval Valor During Operation Iraqi Freedom
Vice Admiral Barry M. Costello, U.S. Navy (Retired). London: Fortis Publishing, 2018. 351 pp. Appxs. Glossary. Biblio. $31.95.
Reviewed by Captain John P. Cordle, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The story of the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) land engagement has been told and retold, but as the author notes, the Navy at the time made “a conscious choice . . .to downplay Navy successes” in the interest of jointness. Vice Admiral Barry Costello was perfectly positioned to provide insight into both the strategic and geopolitical aspects of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the details of tactical engagements by those on the front lines.
The book begins with the author presenting the team of leaders that he took to the fight and various views of the events leading up to the execution of the strategic plan associated with “War Plan 1003v.” He gives numerous examples of personal and individual leadership to bring home the scope and complexity of the planning process, as well as the intensity of this conflict, whether or not the reader is familiar with the Navy. In addition to documenting the extensive contributions of individual warfighters, Costello shares insightful glimpses into successful leadership practices that will resonate at any level in today’s Navy.
Another theme is the importance of working with joint and coalition forces as a force multiplier and the use of the coalition rules of engagement (ROE) as a warfighting complement. Much is written about the “force of tomorrow,” but this book focuses on the point that the Navy is ready to fight today. Costello’s book also features a short discussion on the dangers of fatigue to good decision-making (a lesson recently relearned and codified in policy). That said, the admiral describes many lessons across the range of operational planning that have since become policy, such as the Combined Force Maritime Component Commander course, to address shortfalls recognized in the aftermath of OIF. He gives credit where it is due.
I think the book could have benefited from interviews or discussions with more commanders or crew members of the ships that were part of the Tomahawk strikes, coalition naval gunfire support, and visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) operations that, along with the extensive mine-sweeping operations detailed in the book (and the aviators), provided freedom of the seas for amphibious ships and coalition forces.
Costello reminds readers that, in many ways, Operation Iraqi Freedom could be a “false positive”—an example of success where the United States had the luxury to choose the time, place, season, and the length of preparation before launching into battle. Today’s warriors may not have that luxury, but as the book points out, this opportunity was earned through a long history of maintaining sea control and overwhelming combat power. It also is easy to forget the context of the “new normal” that came to be after the events of 9/11; most of the sailors in today’s force were not yet in the Navy when the planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The extensive appendices include a summary of the admiral’s early years, a list of key mentors and how they affected his career, and a list of “Lessons Captured,” to add context and background to the story.
Fortune Favors Boldness should be required reading at war colleges and warfighting pipeline schools for a new generation of maritime warriors who have not yet experienced what it’s like to fire weapons to kill an enemy—especially one who can shoot back.
Captain Cordle retired as a surface warfare officer in 2013 after 30 years of service. While in command of USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79) he earned a Bronze Star and the CHEZEK Naval Gunnery Award for service leading up to and during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War
Thurston Clarke. New York: Doubleday, 2019. 448 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $30.
Reviewed by Master Chief David A. Mattingly, U.S. Navy (Retired)
After signing what is commonly referred to as the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the United States ended nearly two decades of military operations in Vietnam. In 1974, power in the U.S. government changed dramatically with the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had remarked that there needed to be a decent interval—a two- or three-year period—between the treaty and the fall of the Republic of Vietnam.
In Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began its march on Saigon. Thurston Clarke, a noted fiction and nonfiction writer, begins the story of the final days of the Republic of Vietnam in early 1975, when the NVA began a multipronged attack on Saigon that would end in April with its fall. Much earlier than anyone, including the NVA, expected.
Like the Vietnam War, the fall of Vietnam and the evacuation played out on the evening news. While town after town fell, the predominant thought was that the United States needed to prepare to evacuate not only its official staff, but also the hundreds of Americans working in Vietnam.
At sea, ships of the Seventh Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral George Steele rendezvoused off the coast of Vietnam and prepared to execute the helicopter evacuation, code named Operation Frequent Wind. Clarke tells the story of a lesser known element of the evacuation led by a former Navy riverine advisor who would go on to become a U.S. diplomat—Richard Armitage.
Armitage spent five of the seven years he served in the Navy in Vietnam. After resigning his commission, he served as a Defense Attaché Office civilian adviser to Ambassador Graham Martin. Following this post, Armitage returned to Washington, D.C., only to be sent by Defense Secretary James Schlesinger back to Vietnam to destroy equipment and to encourage the Vietnamese Navy and Air Force to escape.
When Armitage arrived in Saigon he met with the chief and deputy chief of naval operations. They were faced with a conundrum of encouraging the leadership of the Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVN), upon an attack on Saigon, to order the navy’s ships to sea, where they would meet U.S. Navy ships that would lead them to the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay, Philippines.
Armitage also had orders to evacuate the navy ships, however, both he and the RVN leaders knew the sailors would not leave their families behind. RVN leadership let him know they planned to evacuate “friendly non-naval personnel” as well as the sailors and families. Armitage offered his silence as his tacit approval.
There were many individuals who acted “honorably” to plan and execute the evacuation—often without official sanction and without the approval of Ambassador Martin. Richard Armitage was just one. Clarke tells the story of many in the departments of Defense and State, CIA, and other agencies that tried to bring honor the few weeks before the U.S. would end its involvement in Vietnam.
Clarke’s mixing of facts with conversation makes readers feel that they are in Vietnam in 1975; however, he makes some common terminology errors. Honorable Exit is by far the best book about the tragic end of Vietnam and a must read for those interested in U.S. military operations and especially operations in Southeast Asia.
Master Chief Mattingly served on board the USS Midway from 1974 to 1977, during which the ship was configured as a helicopter carrier for Operation Frequent Wind. He retired from the Navy in 2005 and has worked as a senior intelligence officer at a number of Department of Defense commands and in the intelligence community.
New & Noteworthy
By Lieutenant Brendan Cordial, U.S. Navy
A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare
Ian T. Brown. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2018. 311 pp. Appxs. Notes. Biblio. Free.
Marine Corps Major Ian Brown has produced an informative history of the unlikely pairing of a retired Air Force pilot and fighter engineer and the Corps’ adoption of maneuver warfare as its philosophical foundation in the decades following the Vietnam War. Major Brown, an active-duty Marine Corps CH-53E pilot, provides a comprehensive narrative and analysis of the theoretical development of Air Force Colonel John Boyd, the originator of the famed “OODA” loop, and his lesser known but more comprehensive theories of warfare that have had a profound effect on U.S. military thinkers—and in particular the Marine Corps.
Beyond chronicling the evolution and development of Boyd’s theories, the book includes a rare transcript of a Boyd presentation, a marathon affair of a couple hundred pre-Power Point slides. An outstanding addition to any military professional’s bookshelf.
From Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq: The Enduring False Promise of Preventative War
Scott A. Silverstone. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. 325 pp. Notes. Biblio. $35.
A thought-provoking book, Scott Silverstone presents a nuanced argument against preventative war as an effective means of accomplishing what should be the state’s strategic objective of going to war—namely, a more advantageous postconflict peace. The author tackles head on the premier case study for preventative war proponents and the failure of Great Britain to stand against Nazi Germany after its militarization of the Rhineland in 1936, advocating that the widespread postwar condemnation of British “appeasement” lacks analytical rigor and fails to appreciate the likely political outcomes had Great Britain agreed to French cries to retake the Rhineland.
Although at times cumbersome, the author provides exhaustive historical context that influenced European decision makers throughout the decades leading to World War II. Particularly illuminating is the chapter detailing the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismark’s efforts to assuage German militarism so as not to stymie his greater political objective of creating and unifying the German Empire. As U.S. and Chinese leaders seek to avoid a Thucydides’ trap in the coming years, Silverstone’s case against preventative war could be an effective instrument in a dove’s rhetorical toolbox.
Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics
Nathan K. Finney and Tyrell O. Mayfield, eds. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 246 pp. Notes. Index. $29.95
Editors Nathan Finney and Tyrell Mayfield have compiled an impressive cadre of active duty, civilian, and nongovernmental organization practitioners to examine whether the U.S. military can, or should, rightly be categorized as a profession. Each chapter discusses a different aspect of the professional culture post-Vietnam senior military leaders have increasingly sought to inculcate in their services.
The book is decidedly focused on the U.S. Army’s efforts to professionalize following its experience in Vietnam and the shift to an all-volunteer force, but the book includes a chapter each covering the Navy and the Air Force. Contributor William Beasley’s criticism of what he views as a declining Navy professionalism, evidenced through the varying stature and missions of the Naval War College throughout its existence, is hard-hitting for proponents of naval professionalism.
Overall, the book provides a balanced primer on the debate surrounding whether the military is or should be a profession and is recommended reading for those who are, or aspire to be, security professionals.
Forts: An Illustrated History of Building for Defense
Jeremy Black. Oxford: Osprey, 2018. 224 pp. Photos. Index. $50.
This attractive illustrated history of the development of defensive fortifications is a fine addition to a history buff’s coffee table. The book spans more than 2,000 years of fortification evolution, from ancient outposts to the trenches used in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Illustrations include live-action shots, prints, and hand-drawn plans. The narrative woven through the illustrations provides an effective guide to the notable innovations in fortification technology in a continuing struggle against ever-improving offensive weaponry and tactics.
Lieutenant Cordial is attending Surface Warfare Officers School and is slated to serve his first department head tour on board an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer.