"From the beginning of his service as chief of naval operations and fleet commander- a fusion of responsibilities unknown in the navy's history- King proved he would fight the war his way, which meant an institutional focus on the Pacific war, a focus so intense that King himself botched the war on the German U-boats in 1942. He simply ignored this failure and pushed for more offensive action in the Pacific. He disagreed with cautious colleagues or superiors more often than not. He said no with routine abruptness to FDR, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, George C. Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, and the British representatives on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He had an overriding strategic goal: to destroy the Japanese military might and to detach the U.S. Navy from the thrall of the British and MacArthur. Unlike MacArthur, King had no roots in Congress, the media, or any political party. Instead, he depended entirely o his absolute sense of purpose and strategic correctness to insist that the Allies could not defeat the Japanese along the Malay barrier at an acceptable cost in time and lives."