War or defense has dominated world affairsfrom budgets to foreign policyfor more than 15 years. Nonetheless, the nation's academicians still brush off the study of war as a matter best left to professional military men. Result: a hard-to-fill hole in the education of civilians who shape U.S. policy at home and abroad.
Now a Harvard Law School professor has made a start at filling the gap. Lanky balding W. (for Walter) Barton Leach, 55, brigadier general U.S.A.F. Reserve knew much of his broad subject firsthand. A onetime secretary to the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lawyer Leach became an operations...