Quotes from Walter R. Borneman

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion," Lincoln lectured Herndon, "and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

General Douglas MacArthur was the most brilliant, most important, and most valuable military leader in American history—at least that's what Douglas MacArthur thought. When

The sentiment of nativism, decidedly against foreign-born citizens and frequently anti-Catholic, had recently manifested itself in the American Republican party

Roosevelt's election was particularly pleasing to Leahy because he believed "from personal knowledge of the man that he will use his office more directly for the benefit of the United States…. The Country and the Navy undoubtedly face a bad period, but I believe their policies will now be directed by a man whose point of view is wholly American.

On one foggy, misty night, King ordered the air groups from the Lexington and Saratoga to launch simultaneously well after sunset. The chaos was predictable but, in King's mind, instructional.

As always, King was the ultimate authority, the one and only arbiter. One night when the communications watch officer groped his way across the darkened flag bridge, he bumped into an unrecognized figure. "Sir, are you on duty?" he queried. "Young man," came the response, "this is the Admiral. I am always on duty.

No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.

As Halsey looked over his shoulder from his campaigns across the Pacific, "the old battlefields were already disappearing into the jungle or under neat, new buildings. Where 500 men had lost their lives in a night attack a few months before, eighteen men were now playing baseball. Where a Jap pillbox had crouched, a movie projector stood. Where a hand grenade had wiped out a foxhole, a storekeeper was serving cokes. Only the cemeteries were left."20

As if to underscore the seriousness of her charge, Abigail, only partially in jest, went on to assert: "If perticular care and attention is not paid to the Laidies, we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice or Representation.

Then Nimitz, being Nimitz, posted the usual watches and did the only thing that made sense to him. "On that black night somewhere in the Philippines," he later recalled, "the advice of my grandfather returned to me: 'Don't worry about things over which you have no control.' So I set up a cot on deck and went to sleep.

Midway wasn't much of a place. Two tiny islands, crisscrossed by airstrips, totaled barely fifteen hundred acres on the edge of a lagoon circled by a jagged reef. But in May 1942, Midway may have been the most heavily defended acreage in the Pacific. Certainly

In all, Yamamoto deployed 162 ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, practically its entire fighting force, in support of the Midway operation. (No

Other men would get to command the spear point; Nimitz would calmly and diligently manage the arm that held the spear.

Nothing could ever replace the treasure of America's men and women killed or forever maimed by Japan's attack, but Nimitz looked around Pearl Harbor and decided that it could have been much worse. On the list of physical casualties, there were three glaring omissions that would prove to be major strategic blunders on the part of the Japanese.

But perhaps the greatest asset was the surviving oil tanks. Had 4.5 million barrels of fuel oil been blown up, what was left of the Pacific Fleet would have been forced to limp back to the West Coast and have its operations in the Pacific severely curtailed. That action, not Japan's sinking of a few aging battleships, would have given Japan the free rein it sought in the South Pacific.

The ultimate test of any military commander, however, is that he rises or falls with whatever glories or misfortunes befall his command. Sometimes he is responsible, sometimes he is not, but as the commander he is always accountable nonetheless. Had

In a minute and a half Halsey's destroyers had done a million and a half dollars' worth of damage" in a mock attack that should have been a rude wake-up call to the battleship admirals.

The ultimate test of any military commander, however, is that he rises or falls with whatever glories or misfortunes befall his command. Sometimes he is responsible, sometimes he is not, but as the commander he is always accountable nonetheless

But Nimitz was very careful not to criticize Halsey in any way or to allow even a hint of controversy to enter the official records.

MacArthur "might have made a better showing at the beaches and passes, and certainly he should have saved his planes on December 8," a newly appointed brigadier general who had long served as the general's aide confided to his diary. "But," wrote Dwight D. Eisenhower, "he's still the hero.

If the government was ever to be destroyed, Polk concluded, it would be by "the alluring and corrupting influence of executive patronage.

To Nimitz, the solution was obvious. Admiral Sims was right: the carrier, not the battleship, was the chief capital ship, and the concentric-circle formation should have the carrier at its center.