Livorno (or, as the stiff-tongued British rechristened it, Leghorn) was once a busy port and a first-class naval base. Then, in World War II, Allied bombers smashed its port facilities and the retreating Germans blew up its sea wall. A year ago, the U.S. Army decided to make Livorno a big supply base, and sent a white-thatched colonel named Norman Vissering to do it. He found the port operating at 25% of capacity, the townspeople dispirited and 14,000 unemployed in a city of 150,000.
Three Hats. Vissering also discovered that much of the trouble could be traced to one man. The man...