Word: pentagonal
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There was one man in Washington who heard this warning siren loud & clear, but heard it as just one more note in an alarm from U.S. airmen all over the globe. From the reports on his broad mahogany desk in the Pentagon, General Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg, Air Force Chief of Staff, could see an air-power crisis closing on the U.S. at jet speed, while the U.S. was buzzing along in a B-29 frame of mind. "We are tempted to retreat from one fading hope to another," said Vandenberg two years ago, "without subjecting ourself to the discipline...
Missionary Work. But Vandenberg's biggest problem was to expound the meaning of the new power in air power to the Pentagon and the White House, to convince the nation that the U.S. Air Force had become the first line of defense. First there was some missionary work to do in his own backyard. If the other services were denying the Air Force its rightful responsibility, maybe it was because it too often seemed irresponsible. The prewar airman was bold and brave, and, for his time, precise, but he had managed to sell the public on the idea that...
...Force gasped when the new orders began to click out of the Pentagon: salute and discipline will be smartly observed; no flight clothing will be worn away from air bases; dangerously low flying and stunting are strictly prohibited. Vandenberg also took a hand in designing the new Air Force blue uniforms-and issued stern orders on the width of trousers, length of tunics and kinds of shoes to be worn. When an Air Force bulletin advised the use of suspenders instead of belts, airmen at Wright Field dubbed him "old braces for britches." In November 1950, when Vandenberg saw that...
...Squeeze. Outside the Pentagon, as the new chief of staff went to work, the U.S. itself was still retreating, in Vandenberg's phrase, "from one fading hope to another" in its military policy. The President's Advisory Committee...
Cain excitedly realized that maybe he had stumbled on a better story than the YB-60. But when he quizzed sources at Convair with "What did I see?" he got only blank stares. Finally, as the Pentagon group started back to Washington, one officer told the persistent newsman: "Don't write about it, and I'll see if I can get it released...