In 1940, he was promoted and appointed attaché to Brazil. He was transferred to Rome, where he served as assistant attaché. Trust none has reported to you that we are dead.” Muddy but uninjured, Bullitt wired President Franklin Roosevelt: “We landed upside down but came out right side up. After getting lost and experiencing “engine difficulties”-perhaps from running out of gas-White made an emergency landing in a bog and the airplane cartwheeled. Moreover, White’s flying inexperience likely caused or contributed to an incident that cut short his assignment: While ferrying Bullitt from Moscow to Leningrad, he crashed. The Soviets granted White their first civil pilot license but rarely allowed him to fly. Importantly, it also honed his political savvy and led to high-visibility career opportunities. Diplomatic service, however, played to his strengths: skill with languages-in his spare time at West Point, he learned Chinese, the first of seven foreign languages he mastered-and social graces. He spent much of his early career as an attaché, a specialty where flying is secondary. Whereas LeMay personified the Air Force operator, White was neither a talented field commander nor a strong aviator. His peers described him as polished, well read, and gracious. At 18, White became one of the youngest graduates of West Point. In sharp contrast to LeMay, White was suave and brilliant-a true renaissance man. Surly, tactless, and with a lifeless, moist cigar constantly locked between his teeth.” Women seated next to him at dinner said he could sit through the entire meal and not utter a single syllable. He rarely smiled, he spoke even less, and when he did, his few words seemed to come out in a snarl. Warren Kozak, LeMay’s biographer, described him as “dark, brooding, and forbidding. LeMay’s personal demeanor matched his philosophy of war. McNamara said, “extraordinarily belligerent” and “brutal.” As a result, LeMay earned a reputation for being, as Defense Secretary Robert S. He unapologetically ordered his bombers to reduce Germany to rubble and firebomb Japan, often piloting the lead airplane on raids. One of the finest air commanders during World War II, LeMay was promoted at lightning speed, climbing from major to major general in three years. Their strained relationship was rooted in starkly different careers and leadership styles.
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