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Chapter 15 - “Ever a Fighter So”
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Chapter 15 “Ever a Fighter So” arry Truman broke his heart. A planned Highjump II never jumped. Beset by sudden controversy, Dick Byrd, a prematurely aged sixty, found himself sinking into irrelevance. The year 1948 was too soon for another massive naval expedition to the South, and by 1949 the Byrd brothers were anathema to the White House. Harry, along with StromThurmond of South Carolina, had become a leading critic of Fair Deal policies within the Democratic Party, whereas Richard had become identified with the navy’s unpopular and bitter opposition to an armed forces “merger.” To many, World War II had demonstrated beyond question the need to unify the services for the sake of efficiency and greater mission clarification. The navy soon realized it could not defeat the unification impulse; it could only hope to shape the legislation in such a way as to defend its interests. With his history of successfully fighting airpower zealots like Billy Mitchell, and his direct entrée to the innermost circles on the Hill, Richard soon found himself in the middle of a cluster of very nasty fights. From the end of the war to midcentury, the brothers worked pretty much in tandem to define and defend the navy’s position and sustain its entrenched administrative rights and prerogatives. Richard also pressed for the promotion of friends and colleagues whom he believed had served the nation well, got Harry to secure a West Point appointment for Admiral William Leahy’s son, and worked hard to see that favorable navy pay legislation was passed. Just before departing for Antarctica in mid-December 1946 he supplied his older brother with a very detailed account of “how the Republican leaders felt about the Merger.” “While I am away,” he added ten days later, “please 431 help the Navy Harry old fellow all you possibly can—the good Lord knows they are going to need it. Those in authority and my great friends are Admirals Nimitz, Ramsey, Denfeld, Sherman, Radford, Robbins. I hope you will counsel with these officers whenever they want to see you.”1 By the summer of 1949 planning for Operation Highjump II had reached the advanced stages. Ships (including the huge “battle carrier” Franklin D. Roosevelt), men, planes, and equipment had all been earmarked for a further massive aerial and ground assault to unlock the last secrets of the southern continent. Then, in mid-August, Navy Secretary Dan Kimball, at the behest of Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, abruptly canceled the expedition. Stung, outraged, disheartened, Byrd promptly told Kimball “just what I thought of what he had done.” For a moment , Richard believed he had gotten away with it; Kimball had not seemed “very offended.” The admiral soon learned differently. In the days and weeks after the decision he found that his “strong statements to top officials have only resulted in my humiliation and degradation.” Senator Ed Robertson, Harry’s colleague from Virginia, wrote Richard that he was “sick at heart to read the news of the cancellation of the Antarctic Expedition. I know how you had set your heart on trying to round out and complete, as far as possible, the wonderful work you had already accomplished on the Antarctic Continent.” Robertson had no doubt where the blame lay. “Truman has all the publicity angles and Johnson is trying to get as many as possible away from him for [a presidential run of his own in] 1952.” The Byrd brothers seized on every rumor and tale to fix responsibility for the awful deed. “I hear Walter Winchell made a statement that Truman had a fit after my success in Virginia in the primary,” Harry wrote, “and, by reason of that, he cancelled your expedition.” He had not heard the broadcast himself, Harry added, “but several people called me up.” Other elements of the conservative press took up the cry. “Obviously, the Navy is not abandoning the expedition because it wishes to,” George E. Sokolsky charged. “It has been ordered to give it up by the President of the United States who dislikes Byrds. The expedition would have been in charge of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, our greatest explorer and brother of Senator Harry Byrd. Enough said!” Jack Lait bemoaned “The Sinking of Task Force 66.” “Reports” indicated “that the President killed the project in a spirit of schoolboy pique against the admiral’s brother, Senator Harry F. Byrd, who routed the ticket Truman was backing in the Virginia State elections.” The president, Lait...