When Admiral William Leahy retired as Chief of Naval Operations in August 1939, President Roosevelt personally awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal. “Bill,” he said, “if we have a war, you’re going to be right back here helping me to run it.”[1]
Leahy was then sixty-four. Balding, with a narrow, firm mouth under a small beak of a nose, he looked steadily out at the world from deep-set eyes. An old battleship skipper and First World War veteran, he proudly called himself a sailor. Doubtless Leahy was grateful for Roosevelt’s words, but he had been around long enough to know that politicians make lots of promises. Indeed, war came, and Leahy was recalled — but to serve as Governor of Puerto Rico.[2]
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