"On the day that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur stood on the deck of the battleship Missouri and sternly ordered the Japanese representatives to sign the articles of surrender, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy was far from the scenes of power, delivering a routine speech for the president. Addressing the Midwest Farmer Observance, he spoke of responsibility and of duty, especially of the civilian's duty to make "our own system of government and our own way of life... work better in our land than other systems work in foreign lands. Let us not fear the competition of other systems." With the greatest war in history a thing of the past, it was time to rebuild the nation and the world. It was time to plan so that war would never again bring its destruction to man. In Leahy's mind the United States had a sacred duty of preserving the peace in spite of the dawning of the atomic age. His last years of service were dedicated to accomplishing that goal. There were those who believed, now that the war was over, there was no longer a need for a military chief of staff to the commander in chief. Despite the fact that the military men of the United States have never failed to yield to civilian direction and have never failed to lay down their offices when their terms have expired, there remains a paranoid lack of trust among many liberal newspapermen and politicians that the generals and admirals they have relied on to save them from the enemy somehow become the enemy when the guns have fallen silent."