"[FDR] acknowledged needing a primary adviser to coordinate the army, navy and air force operations. In July, he appointed Fleet Admiral William Leahy as chief of staff to the commander in chief, US Army and Navy. Unlike modern presidential chiefs of staff, Leahy's job was related primarily to the military. The sixty-seven-year-old former chief of naval operations had also served as governor of Puerto Rico and ambassador to France after the Nazi takeover- a thankless job if there ever was one. FDR thought Leahy's experience and seasoning would make him an ideal power broker to the big egos of the military command. And he was comfortable with Leahy. Their relationship dated back to FDR's years as assistant secretary of the navy, when Leahy had commanded the secretary's dispatch boat and they'd become friends. "He said [at a press conference] that I would be a sort of 'leg man' who would help him digest, analyze, and summarize a mass of material with which he had been trying to cope singlehandedly," Leahy recalled."
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Military leaders from the United StatesUnited States Navy peoplePeople from IowaNavy Cross recipientsUnited States Ambassadors to France
Original Language: English
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Sources
Bret Baier, Three Days at the Brink: FDR's Daring Gamble to Win World War II (2019), p. 237-238
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_D._Leahy
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William D. Leahy
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