by Robert Coram
From the time Spinney entered the Air Force, he was considered a brash young officer. In 1968, as a twenty-four-year-old second lieutenant, he ran into Christie at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where both were after a $500,000 grant. Spinney outmaneuvered the Finagler, something rarely done. Christie thought Spinney was a “smart-ass lieutenant” but offered him a job at Eglin.
In the first staff study Spinney wrote, he recommended that the Air Force cancel a consulting contract with a national company. The CEO of the company took Spinney to lunch and said, “If you try to terminate my contract I will ruin your career.” Spinney looked at the bars on his collar and said, “Ruin my career? I’m a lieutenant. I can’t go down.”
When a high-ranking civilian who worked for the Army promoted someone to chair an important working group, someone whom Spinney thought incompetent, he had the temerity to ask, “Why in God’s name did you make that asshole the chairman? He doesn’t know anything.”
Another of Spinney’s early actions demonstrated both his impatience with regulations and his intrinsic passion about fiduciary responsibility. He needed a place to store records, so he had an empty building at Wright-Pat assigned to his office. Because many of the records he wanted to store were classified, he needed a vault. Rather than issuing contracts, he figured he could save taxpayer money by having employees scrounge materials around the base and build the office. The office was built without paperwork, but when it came time to hang a door on the vault, for technical reasons Spinney had to issue a contract. The base engineer came to inspect the door and looked around in amazement. He was in a facility that officially did not exist. It did not matter that Spinney had saved thousands of dollars, he had bypassed the system, and that was unacceptable. But what really upset the base engineer, a senior colonel, was that the young lieutenant had his own conference room and a desk with a big flag behind it. Flags are a perk reserved for generals. Eventually, the Air Force decided to keep the building, but Spinney had to give up his flag.
The Air Force sent Spinney to graduate school, where he got an MBA with an emphasis on applied statistics. Then he went to the Pentagon, where he had a job his superiors thought commensurate with his education: he delivered mail. Spinney often ran into Ray Leopold. They were the same age and the same rank, the only two young guys in the office. They were similar in many ways; the big difference was that Leopold was quicker but Spinney was deeper. Spinney heard of what Boyd was doing and said to Leopold, “I’d like to work with you.”
Boyd called Spinney in for an interview. Boyd was gaining weight because of all the candy and junk food he ate and was drinking a diet supplement called Metrecal. He drank two cans during the half hour they talked, then said, “Let’s go eat lunch.”
Spinney’s eyebrows rose. Colonels do not invite captains to lunch. At the cafeteria, Spinney watched Boyd pick up a plate and pile on lettuce and tomatoes and cheese and peppers and carrots and mushrooms and whatever else he could find. After Boyd stacked up a mountain of salad, he held up the line for almost five minutes as he tucked croutons into every nook and cranny and then lined the borders of his plate. Even though he walked slowly toward a table, he left a trail of croutons and vegetables. He sat down and tucked in. Spinney watched for several minutes and then said, “Colonel, I hope you don’t mind my asking. Don’t you enjoy your food?”
Boyd stopped shoveling for a minute. Puzzled, he stared at Spinney. Then, as if belaboring the obvious, he said, “It’s just fuel,” and resumed shoveling.
After lunch the two men talked further. Then Boyd said, “Okay, Tiger. We’ll try it out.”
The fourth Acolyte was now onstage.
He would stay in the battle long after the others moved on. And he would become the best known of them all.
The new year brought a stream of significant events into Boyd’s life. The battle over the lightweight fighter raged on two fronts: Christie dealt with budget battles and the ebb and flow of power politics, while Boyd computed E-M data for the two aircraft and planned the fly-off.
The biggest obstacle to the lightweight fighter remained Air Force intransigence in approving the aircraft for full-scale development. Boyd tried to overcome the opposition with a series of briefings, the point of which was that the lightweight fighter was needed and should go into production. The plan was to brief widely among the lower ranks and then begin working up through the generals, culminating in a briefing to the three-stars, the barons who ran the Air Force. In early 1974, Boyd learned he was facing a crisis: the three-stars were lying in wait. He was to brief up the ladder to them and then, once there was an impression that he had received a fair hearing, they would scuttle the lightweight fighter once and for all.
Christie helped devise a plan that would bypass the three-stars. General George Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, was like the SecDef in that he wanted to leave a legacy for his time in the Building. The greatest single desire of the Air Force was to increase the force structure—that is, the number of wings in the Air Force. Christie convinced Schlesinger to allow the Air Force to grow from twenty-two to twenty-six wings if the chief of staff would push the lightweight fighter and the A-10 into production. Schlesinger insisted on one caveat: the lightweight fighter would remain an air-to-air fighter and would not be wired for delivery of nuclear weapons.
Brown quickly accepted the plan. But he had a small problem. His three-stars were going to object. Swallowing the lightweight fighter was bad enough, but when the ugly and ponderous A-10 was added, the medicine was too bitter for the Blue Suiters. They might stage a bureaucratic revolt. How and when to tell them about the deal was a serious political matter.
Sprey and Christie passed the word about the deal to Boyd. Boyd was elated. His briefing with the three-stars was soon. “Can I tell them?” he asked. Sprey and Christie saw no reason why not. The secretary had not told them to keep the agreement quiet.
On the day of his big briefing, Boyd waited in the spacious, well-appointed briefing room. He must have smiled to himself as he watched the parade of three-stars enter the room. These were the men who made things happen in the Air Force. They, too, must have been smiling.
One of the generals nodded and said, “Colonel, you may begin.”
Boyd picked up a wooden pointer and strode to the front of the dais. He stood on the edge, his toes curling downward, and rapped the pointer against his palm. He nodded at the sober group of generals, paused a delicious moment, and said, “Gentlemen, I am authorized by the secretary of defense to inform you this is not a decision brief. This briefing is for information purposes only.”
Boyd paused a moment and let the generals absorb this. They looked at each other and then looked at Boyd. He continued. “The secretary and the chief of staff have decided to go into production with the lightweight fighter.”
The generals sat rigidly through the briefing. There were no questions. When Boyd finished, the generals stood up and filed out. As they left, one muttered, “That fucking Boyd.”
And the next Wednesday night at the Old Guard Room, the story was told and retold of how Boyd did a cape job on a roomful of three-stars. He shoved his arms out as if he were holding a cape, wiggled his hands, and said, “They charged right off the precipice.” Two weeks later the Air Force struck back. A two-star was called to testify before a congressional committee. The Air Force saw this as a great opportunity and convinced a congressman who was sympathetic to the military to question the two-star about the uselessness of the lightweight fighter and then move to overrule the secretary of defense.
Answering obviously scripted questions, the two-star told Congress the lightweight fighter was not needed and that he was not at all sure how it might be utilized. The F-15 was the airplane the Air Force wanted. The general said that the lightweight fighter was being shoved down the throat of the Air Force by Tom Christie and the TacAir shop. The congressmen nodded and made veiled threats against the Air Force.
Christie and Spinney and Leopold soon heard o
f the testimony. Leopold called Boyd and told him what happened and then grew silent as Boyd began talking. Leopold’s eyes grew wider and wider. He put down the phone and turned to Spinney. “You won’t believe what Boyd just said.”
“What’s that?”
“He said he was going to have to fire his first general.”
The two young captains stared at each other. The idea of a colonel firing a two-star simply could not be assimilated. Such things do not happen in the military.
But then the SecDef called the chief of staff and asked him whether or not he was in charge of the Air Force. A few days later the two-star was given twenty-four hours to clean out his desk and leave the Pentagon. Other Pentagon generals saw what happened to the two-star. The Fighter Mafia had struck back and the generals could read the tea leaves. There could be no more obstacles for the lightweight fighter. It was cleared to go into production.
That evening at happy hour, Chet Richards and a group of Marine aviators gathered around Boyd. Christie and Sprey were there, too. Boyd looked at the faces of his friends and nodded in satisfaction. “Nobody thought I would ever get beyond major,” he said. “But here I am a colonel.” He paused. “And I’m taking out generals.”
A few days later the Air Force made a last-ditch attempt to shoot down the lightweight fighter. A big part of Schlesinger’s sales pitch for the lightweight fighter, one particularly convincing to congressmen, was that NATO countries were lining up to buy it. The Air Force moved to kill the international sales by saying the lightweight fighter was too limited in range to do anything but defend the home drome.
At last Boyd announced the fuel fraction and range of the lightweight fighter. He added insult to injury by comparing it with the F-15. The lightweight fighter not only had greater range than the F-15, it had greater range than any fighter in the Air Force. Of course foreign purchasing officials were euphoric, while Air Force generals reeled in shock.
One bewildered general called Boyd in and said, “I thought this was a short-legged airplane. It flies farther than the F-15.”
“Well, sir, it is short-legged. It’s just that the F-15 is shorter legged.”
Now there was nothing else the Air Force could do to stop the lightweight fighter and the A-10. Both were going into production. The Fighter Mafia had won.
For the moment.
In June, Lieutenant Colonel James Burton reported to Boyd as his new deputy. Burton was a Chosen One—a graduate of the first class at the Air Force Academy and the first Academy graduate to attend the Air Force’s three professional schools: Squadron Officers School, Air Command and Staff College, and Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He had a masters degree in business and had done the course work for a masters in mechanical engineering. Every promotion had been below the zone and now he was five years ahead of his contemporaries in the race to the top. He was a water-walker, the ultimate Zoomie, the quintessential Blue Suiter who had the inside track at becoming general and a good shot at becoming chief of staff.
Spinney was dismayed. He thought Burton standoffish, too serious, too remote, and too much a careerist. Even though Burton was perhaps ten years younger than Boyd, somehow he seemed older. Spinney went to Boyd and said, “Colonel, that guy is big trouble. Don’t hire him.”
“No, he’s okay,” Boyd said. “I checked him out.”
Boyd saw something that both Spinney and Leopold had missed.
In later years people would say Boyd “converted” Spinney and Leopold and turned them from promising careers. But in truth they were not converted; they simply never lost the principles and idealism common in most young officers. Once they raised their hands and took an oath to serve their country, they never wavered. It was their contemporaries who were converted, who bought into the beliefs and mores of careerists, who slowly and insidiously were corrupted by the Building. Burton was different from Spinney and Leopold. He was not a young idealist. He was an honored member of the Brotherhood of the Building. But Boyd sensed that Burton had an unbending spirit, an uncompromising heart, and a backbone forged of carbon steel. He looked into Burton’s eyes and saw a man with the persistence of a rutting moose. He knew that rarely is a Blue Suiter turned around. But if it happens, and if all the virtues that drove Jim Burton so fast on the road to being someone could be redirected into his doing something, the man could change the world.
Burton was the most improbable of the Acolytes.
Now they were all together, all save one: Christie the Finagler, Sprey the Intelligent, Leopold the First, Spinney the Brash, and Burton the Unbending. For the next decade they revolved around Boyd, asserting themselves in various degrees before coalescing into the most powerful ad hoc group the Building had ever seen.
Burton’s conversion was slow, but when it finally came he would astonish the Acolytes as much as he astonished his Academy classmates. He would show that one man can make a difference. He was to have an enormous impact on the Building.
But first he had to go through his trial by fire.
Burton’s parents divorced when he was young and he was raised by a grandmother. He never had a father. From as far back as he can remember, he had the desire to accomplish things. He was president of his senior class in Normal, Illinois, and a member of the national honor society for four years. An outstanding athlete, he was an all-conference and all-city quarterback and earned letters in baseball and basketball. He was offered a chance to play professional baseball but instead became one of the 10,000 Illinois candidates for the eight openings in the very first class at the Air Force Academy. There, he was captain of the baseball team and during his junior year was third in the nation in the college batting championship. Curtis LeMay was chief of staff when Burton graduated, and the general saw that members of that first Academy class were given special treatment at every step in their careers. They were the Chosen Ones.
If Spinney and Leopold looked at Burton with disdain, he looked upon Boyd and his captains with even more. “This guy is crazy,” Burton thought. Boyd was usually late to work, was slovenly, and disobeyed orders. He referred to generals as “perfumed princes” or “weak dicks” who would put their lives on the line for their country but not their jobs. Burton cringed when Boyd told how he had been at a party and invited a general to hear one of his briefings and the general said, “No thanks. I don’t want to be told how dumb I am.”
Burton was further astonished when he heard Spinney say Boyd ordered him to the Pentagon at midnight to correct a single letter in a transparency that was to be used in a briefing the next day. Technicians in the Pentagon graphics shop hated to see Boyd come in the door. He made them stop whatever they were doing to take care of his needs. When they complained of their workload he said, “If there is a higher priority than mine, I’ll be glad to wait. But this is for Secretary Schlesinger.” It amazed Burton that Boyd had back-channel dealings with Schlesinger, that it was not at all uncommon for Boyd to receive a phone call, seize books or studies or charts, and say, “I have to go see Schlesinger.”
It is the nature of a careerist to mold and fit himself to his commanding officer. So Burton resolved to adjust. He would try to understand Boyd and he would begin by using Leopold and Spinney as interpreters. “What does he mean by that?” became a frequent question. Or “Why is he doing that?”
The relationship between Boyd and the two young captains was not easily fathomed. There was very little military protocol. Leopold and Spinney joked about Boyd’s loudness, his table manners, and his other idiosyncracies. But it was clear that both men revered Boyd. They competed for his attention and approval.
Burton came to work one July morning and found Boyd and Leopold and Spinney finishing an all-night job: drafting a one-page letter for a general. The general wanted Boyd to write a policy letter that would give guidance in generating new ideas throughout the Air Force. Boyd wanted more time but the general said, “I want it bad,” and ordered Boyd to have it ready the next day. Boyd worked until about 10:00 P.M.,
then called Leopold and Spinney at home and told them to report to work immediately; they had a big job. Leopold said, “Yes, Sir,” and jumped into his car. But Spinney complained and said, “Why should I come down there at midnight? That’s bullshit.” Boyd fired back, “Because you’re a fucking captain and I’m a colonel and I say get your ass down here now.” Once Leopold and Spinney arrived, Boyd said they needed to relax before they began drafting the letter. It was hot and the Pentagon air-conditioning was turned off. Boyd opened the windows and the three men took off their shirts. Boyd began telling stories. He told of growing up in Erie, of burning down the hangars in Japan, of being Forty-Second Boyd, of Georgia Tech, and of how he stole a million dollars’ worth of computer time at Eglin and then deflected the inspector general’s investigation. He told how he hosed a big-shot civilian at Eglin and cleaned out a colonel who wouldn’t pay overtime to a secretary. He told them of his work on the F-15 and the surrealistic stories from NKP. He had them holding their sides with laughter. After several hours of war stories, Boyd decided everyone needed to rest. So they slept atop desks until about 5:00 A.M., when Boyd awakened his charges and the three men drafted the letter. Boyd examined their work, then added a final sentence: “After this course of action is considered, we respectfully recommend that it be disapproved.”
Spinney stared at Boyd. “We spend all night working on that and then you say it should be thrown out?”
Boyd signed the letter. “He wants it bad, he gets it bad.”
On July 27, 1974, Boyd received the last ER of his Air Force career. It was fire walled on the front side and the narrative opened with “Colonel Boyd is a very unique and superior officer.” The ER said Boyd was “singularly responsible” for developing the F-15 and that his E-M work formed the basis for the lightweight fighter. It said Boyd was “unique in his ability to study, dissect, analyze and assemble ideas in a useful form so they can be transmitted into future actions.” The ER told how Boyd was working on a Development Plan that would be the basis for developing future airplanes and technology. The ER was indorsed by a three-star who said Boyd made an “immeasurable contribution” to the Air Force with his E-M Theory.