The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff By Phillips Payson O'Brien

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The life of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted and powerful advisor, Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief“Fascinating… greatly enriches our understanding of Washington wartime power.”—Madeleine AlbrightAside from FDR, no American did more to shape World War II than Admiral William D. Leahy--not Douglas MacArthur, not Dwight Eisenhower, and not even the legendary George Marshall. No man, including Harry Hopkins, was closer to Roosevelt, nor had earned his blind faith, like Leahy. Through the course of the war, constantly at the president's side and advising him on daily decisions, Leahy became the second most powerful man in the world.In a time of titanic personalities, Leahy regularly downplayed his influence, preferring the substance of power to the style. A stern-faced, salty sailor, his U.S. Navy career had begun as a cadet aboard a sailing ship. Four decades later, Admiral Leahy was a trusted friend and advisor to the president and his ambassador to Vichy France until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Needing one person who could help him grapple with the enormous strategic consequences of the war both at home and abroad, Roosevelt made Leahy the first presidential chief of staff--though Leahy's role embodied far more power than the position of today. Leahy's profound power was recognized by figures like Stalin and Churchill, yet historians have largely overlooked his role. In this important biography, historian Phillips Payson O'Brien illuminates the admiral's influence on the most crucial and transformative decisions of WWII and the early Cold War. From the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and France, to the allocation of resources to fight Japan, O'Brien contends that America's war largely unfolded according to Leahy's vision. Among the author's surprising revelations is that while FDR's health failed, Leahy became almost a de facto president, making decisions while FDR was too ill to work, and that much of his influence carried over to Truman's White House.

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A few years after Admiral Leahy's death I visited Arlington Cemetery and saw his marker. It is a large slab of marble on which is simply carved the word "Leahy." It speaks with quiet authority and thus is a perfect memorial for this particular wartime hero.Leahy was the eminence grise for both FDR (especially) and Truman and few today are aware of his enormous influence on American wartime strategy and diplomacy. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King never entirely liked Leahy and described that admiral as an "operator." That last word was a wartime expression, used by GIs in the field as well as Washington pundits, to describe someone adept at pulling wires. Milo MInderbinder, of course, is the consummate "operator." But, the term also encompasses someone who understands power and how to manipulate it and that was Leahy to a tee.Leahy was personal friends with FDR from before WW I and on the admiral's retirement as CNO in 1938 the president told him that when war came he, Leahy, would be put in charge of running the navy. This sort of comment might be regarded as typical Rooseveltian insincere stroking but in this instance FDR meant what he said. In 1942 the president made Leahy his chief of staff and chief military adviser. Leahy was, although few remember this, the superior officer to both Admiral King AND George C. Marshall. In fact, Leahy was so little intimidated by these Olympian figures as to dress down MacArthur for his casual dress at a meeting with the president.Leahy's strong suits were many. He had the best strategic mind among all senior American officers. He was also, like Ike, a genius at reconciling military prima donnas as well as tactful in giving these same their marching orders from FDR. Immensely self-confident and -- ostensibly -- self-effacing, Leahy preferred the substance of power and worked, whenever possible, behind the scenes.FDR hated being pressured -- something that neither King or Marshall ever understood. Leahy, like Harry Hopkins, took a different approach in that he served as a sounding board for FDR -- a sympathetic and immensely wise counselor rather than a Marshall-like scold. George Marshall only saw FDR every three or four weeks while Leahy was with the president several times during a typical wartime day. Marshall, who King referred to sarcastically as "that tower of virtue," made the enormous mistake of holding himself aloof from the president and FDR, much as he respected Marshall, returned the personal chill. King, of course, was a raging bull bull in his personal manners but Roosevelt seems to have liked him more than Marshall.In any event, O'Brien demonstrates the degree to which FDR was guided by Leahy on strategic issues and how this was, for the most part, a good thing. Among the most senior officers the ones with the soundest strategic sense were, in order, Leahy, King, MacArthur and Marshall. Some of what Marshall insisted upon, such as a 1942 invasion of France, was so amateurish that FDR, no doubt guided by Leahy, had no trouble puncturing the balloon. In truth, Marshall was a superb organizer -- a bureaucrat's bureaucrat -- a man who conjured a great army out of nothing. But, there is little to recommend him as a great military thinker.Leahy's influence declined precipitously upon the death of FDR but then quickly revived as Truman found that he, too, needed the (now) five-star admiral's sage advice. Leahy, for his part, tried to moderate the cold-warrior mentality of Truman and his advisers and also tried to push nuclear weapons into the background. The admiral was convinced that the atomic bomb was a moral disaster and a mortal threat to America -- a Big Iron on America's hip, the use of which would provoke a fatal response from a similarly armed USSR. Leahy's notes on the USSR, which O'Brien usefully provides, are wonderfully sophisticated and nuanced. Part of the eventual decline in Leahy's influence over Truman was due to the admiral's advancing age but his neo-isolationism conflicted with the crusading mentality of men like Dean Acheson. Leahy took the USA-USSR rivalry as simply Great Power politics -- something to be handled through diplomacy with the use of force resolutely avoided. He also felt that Marshall's China mission was a disaster -- which it most certainly was.There is, unfortunately, a certain amateur quality to parts of O'Brien's biography of the admiral. Early in the book he wastes print explaining away Leahy's social attitudes, especially toward race -- attitudes that are now politically correct but were almost universal in the world of the war and postwar. Values change -- they don't always get better. But, and this is irritating, once senses that the author tarted-up the book by making General Marshall the fall guy. Time and again, Marshall is shown as an over-stuffed shirt whose inflated sense of importance and faulty strategic sense contrasted with Leahy's low-key professionalism. There is something to all that -- but the author overplays his hand and it becomes tiresome. Marshall created the modern U.S. Army, Leahy shaped the strategy for its use in both theaters of war and Ike and MacArthur and Nimitz implemented that strategy. Leahy's contributions do not look any larger because Marshall occasionally fell short.This biography is very much of our time. It is, in the light of America's gratuitous and disastrous interventions in Vietnam and iraq, very much supportive of Leahy's desire that America NOT become the world's policeman. It implicitly endorses the admiral's realpolitik and lack of ideological rigidity in his advice to both FDR and Truman. Leahy simply did not go abroad in search of monsters to slay.O'Brien's need to constantly assert Leahy's military and political superiority over that of others in Washington is understandable -- his book is a needed primer on American wartime and postwar strategy. But, the author is awfully ham-fisted.Leahy, like Ike (the two did not get along) understood that subtlety and realism are needed to preserve the peace. Both were great American patriots whose selflessness contrasts with postwar political lizards such as Clark Clifford. America, unfortunately, no longer produces people like Ike and Leahy.

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