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Airman White, working unobtrusively but brilliantly, won a different kind of war record as a stern, straight officer who thought primarily in terms of teamwork and morale. In the South Pacific he was the first general officer to enforce a longstanding order that enlisted men get flooring for their tents before the officers. Another day he requested a commendation for an Army lieutenant who shooed him away ("You goddam bastard") when he ventured, while out fishing one day, much too close to a Japanese-held area. His friends never have forgotten that he was always willing to trade his liquor rations for powdered ice cream.
Soon after the war Tommy White's reputation as an organizer got to be such that senior officers began to peg him as a future Air Chief of Staff. And when White got command of the Fifth Air Force in Japan to prove himself as a commander, he had time only for one of his two spare-time pursuits. Thus it was that he learned little more than one sentence of Japanese—Kono kawa ka? Sakana imasu ka?—which means roughly, "Are there any fish in this river?"
The Red Pearl Harbor. In late 1948 Tommy White went back to staff duties in the Pentagon and to a changing airpower scene. World War II had given place to cold war, the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Sunday-punch doctrine moved on to the doctrine of deterrence. In the Berlin airlift, the Air Force and its allies developed a crucial new political mission of feeding 2,500,000 people, created a starting point for Communism's decay. Although Korea had been a classic misuse (because limited and timid) of combat airpower, the Air Force was able at least to boost its budget from $3.5 billion in 1950 to $15 billion in 1953 to add 58 new wings and build new bases from Iceland to the Persian Gulf. But even as the U.S. airpower ring closed in on the Communists, the U.S.S.R. was developing what the Pentagon knows as thermonuclear capability. As he rose through key staff positions in Air Force headquarters, Tommy White—Air Force Director of Legislation and Liaison (1948-50), Air Force member of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1950), Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (1951-53), Vice Chief of Staff (1953-57)—invariably made it his business to emphasize how the Soviets were catching up.
Last July General Nathan Twining, third Chief of Staff of the USAF, was promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His Vice Chief of Staff, Tommy White—nonprofessionals had hardly heard his name—was appointed in his place. He came in at a bad time. President Eisenhower was talking reduction of forces, Congress was trimming $2.4 billion from the defense budget, the country at large was happily oblivious of the fact that Russian airpower was catching up. In his low-pressure style White rolled with the economy punch and concentrated on sprucing up his organization.
His key move was to send for General Curtis Emerson LeMay, the blue-jawed, battle-tested boss of SAC, to install him as Vice Chief of Staff. Some Pentagon types warned White that tough-fisted Curt LeMay might cause more trouble in the Pentagon china shop than he was worth —"Stay away from Omaha" they warned him—but West Pointer White and Ohio