The Second Most Powerful Man in the World
The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt's Chief of Staff
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Grove
About this listen
The life of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted and powerful advisor, Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief
“Fascinating...greatly enriches our understanding of Washington wartime power.” (Madeleine Albright)
Aside from FDR, no American did more to shape World War II than Admiral William D. Leahy - not Douglas MacArthur, not Dwight Eisenhower, and not even the legendary George Marshall. No man, including Harry Hopkins, was closer to Roosevelt, nor had earned his blind faith, like Leahy. Through the course of the war, constantly at the president's side and advising him on daily decisions, Leahy became the second most powerful man in the world.
In a time of titanic personalities, Leahy regularly downplayed his influence, preferring the substance of power to the style. A stern-faced, salty sailor, his US Navy career had begun as a cadet aboard a sailing ship. Four decades later, Admiral Leahy was a trusted friend and advisor to the president and his ambassador to Vichy France until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Needing one person who could help him grapple with the enormous strategic consequences of the war both at home and abroad, Roosevelt made Leahy the first presidential chief of staff - though Leahy's role embodied far more power than the position of today.
Leahy's profound power was recognized by figures like Stalin and Churchill, yet historians have largely overlooked his role. In this important biography, historian Phillips Payson O'Brien illuminates the admiral's influence on the most crucial and transformative decisions of WWII and the early Cold War. From the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and France, to the allocation of resources to fight Japan, O'Brien contends that America's war largely unfolded according to Leahy's vision. Among the author's surprising revelations is that while FDR's health failed, Leahy became almost a de facto president, making decisions while FDR was too ill to work, and that much of his influence carried over to Truman's White House.
“An excellent biography of perhaps the most notable navy officer in American history, and one of the most important, if neglected, figures in World War II history.” (Library Journal)
©2019 Phillips Payson O'Brien (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Compelling.” (Foreign Affairs)
“[A] first-rate biography.... O’Brien recounts [Leahy’s] astounding career in fascinating detail.” (The Christian Science Monitor)
“Whether it's the conferences at Tehran, Yalta, or Potsdam, Admiral Leahy stands out in the iconic photographs, in full uniform, just behind the Big Three. Why, though, was he there, and in so many other places that shaped the conduct of World War II and the early Cold War? As if more impressed by the uniform than by the man, historians until now have struggled to say. Phillips Payson O'Brien's biography at last gives Leahy his due, and in doing so shifts our understanding of the other great figures of that era. We're all going to have some serious rethinking to do.” (John Lewis Gaddis, professor of military and naval history at Yale University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of George F. Kennan: An American Life)
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By: Henry Hemming
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How Ike Led
- The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions
- By: Susan Eisenhower
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Susan Eisenhower
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower, nor has one person had to make such a varied range of them. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, he was able to give our country eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles. These were informed by his heritage and upbringing, his strong character and his personal discipline, but he also avoided making himself the center of things. He tried to be the calmest man in the room, not the loudest.
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A President of the UNITED States
- By Happy Doc on 09-10-20
By: Susan Eisenhower
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The Ambassador
- Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940
- By: Susan Ronald
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald reveals the truth about Joseph P. Kennedy's shockingly controversial tenure as ambassador to Great Britain on the eve of World War II.
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Needs a bit of editing
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-02-21
By: Susan Ronald
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The Abyss
- Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, John Hopkins
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded.
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Good book, but has some issues
- By Mike From Mesa on 11-10-22
By: Max Hastings
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Eight Days at Yalta
- How Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World
- By: Diana Preston
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last winter of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin arrived in the Crimean resort of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast, and intermittent bonhomie, they decided on the conduct of the final stages of the war against Germany, on how a defeated and occupied Germany should be governed, on the constitution of the nascent United Nations, and on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece.
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The book has the best female voice narration.
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-24
By: Diana Preston
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Nuclear Folly
- A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly 30 years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis. Serhii Plokhy offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground.
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A Must Read
- By Robert from Brookline on 08-22-21
By: Serhii Plokhy
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The Nazi Menace
- Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Road to War
- By: Benjamin Carter Hett
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in Eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history.
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Bad Melodramatic Reading
- By Tess on 08-18-20
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1941: The Year Germany Lost the War
- By: Andrew Nagorski
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling historian Andrew Nagorski takes a fresh look at the decisive year 1941, when Hitler’s miscalculations and policy of terror propelled Churchill, FDR, and Stalin into a powerful new alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.
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Interesting but problematic
- By Thor Olson on 06-14-19
By: Andrew Nagorski
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Eisenhower
- A Life
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson’s lively, succinct biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower explores how his legacy endures today In the rousing style he’s famous for, celebrated historian Paul Johnson offers a fascinating biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower, focusing particularly on his years as a five-star general and his two terms as president of the United States.
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Quick and to the point!
- By Grant Wentworth on 04-02-15
By: Paul Johnson
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Gambling with Armageddon
- Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis
- By: Martin J. Sherwin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Martin Sherwin not only gives us a riveting sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials, and going far beyond the scope of earlier works on this critical face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union — triggered when Khrushchev began installing missiles in Cuba at Castro's behest....
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Important History
- By J. B. Evans on 06-12-21
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The Quiet Americans
- Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War - a Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Scott Anderson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Scott Anderson
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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A Tragedy for One
- By Amazon Customer on 09-23-20
By: Scott Anderson
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When France Fell
- The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
- By: Michael S. Neiberg
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.
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Proceeds from a faulty premise
- By Buretto on 12-11-21
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The Hopkins Touch
- By: David Roll
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hopkins Touch offers the first portrait in over two decades of the most powerful man in Roosevelt's administration. David Roll shows how Harry Hopkins, an Iowa-born social worker who had been an integral part of the New Deal's implementation, became the linchpin in FDR's - and America's - relationships with Churchill and Stalin, and spoke with an authority second only to the president's.
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Hopkins - the glue of the tripartite coalition
- By Chrissie on 05-19-13
By: David Roll
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The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
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Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
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Bad
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Marshall and His Generals
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General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the US Army during World War II, faced the daunting task not only of overseeing two theaters of a global conflict but also of selecting the best generals to carry out American grand strategy. Marshall and His Generals is the first and only book to focus entirely on that selection process and the performances, both stellar and disappointing, that followed from it. Stephen Taaffe explores how and why Marshall selected the Army's commanders.
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Marshall's Black Book
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The Man Who Ran Washington
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For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a pause-resisting portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
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We Need Baker Now More Than Ever
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By: Peter Baker, and others
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Team America
- Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and the World They Forged
- By: Robert L. O'Connell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
By the first half of the twentieth century, technology had transformed warfare into a series of intense bloodbaths in which the line between soldiers and civilians was obliterated, resulting in the deaths of one hundred million people. During this period, four men exhibited unparalleled military leadership that led the United States victoriously through two World Wars: Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, George Marshall, and Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower; or, as bestselling author Robert O’Connell calls them, Team America.
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AVOID. Don't waste your credits here.
- By Subway on 06-29-22
What listeners say about The Second Most Powerful Man in the World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Del M. Hanson
- 08-10-20
Enjoyable, but ...
While there is no doubt that Admiral Leahy was a great man with significant influence on national policy, I doubt he actually walked on water.
The author spends a lot of time building up the Admiral by running down other significant figures of the time, primarily General Marshall during and after the war, and President Eisenhower.
The author also uses a lot of supposition: because of x, Admiral Leahy must have thought y, and therefore did z.
He also does not clearly tell us what the Admiral wanted to do as an alternative - for instance he wholeheartedly opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine, but does not give us the Admiral’s proposed solution.
All that being said, I enjoyed the book. There’s no question that Admiral Leahy was a great man with significant influence on national policy, and it’s regrettable that he is not as well remembered as some of his contemporaries.
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- Daniel Lonergan
- 06-21-22
A truly underappreciated historic figure!
Anyone that thinks they well read on WWII history should read this book. Because of his modesty and dislike for the spotlight, William Lehie's contributions are greatly underappreciated
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- Roger Henderson
- 06-02-23
A must for students of WWII/early Cold War history
It's almost embarrassing that I didn't know whom William Leahy was. Any understanding of American involvement in WWII is incomplete without understanding Admiral Leahy's role. Any biography of FDR or Truman would be incomplete without understanding his role in their administrations. Solid gold.
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- Brian M. Mark
- 02-15-23
Wonderful Book
One of the best books about WW2 I have ever read. It honors a man who gave everything for our country.
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- James D. Pimentel
- 07-04-23
Leahey in presidential history
In David McCullough’s book on Truman Leahey is mentioned once in passing at the end of the book. It may prove the point that the author is making about the obscurity of Leahey or it may be a case of over emphasis on Leahey’s place in presidential history.
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- steve garcia
- 06-30-19
enjoyed entire book.
very intersting. I Didn't no much about man. changed opinion on many incidents that I thought I knew about.
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- Frederick
- 09-19-20
An inside view of the the people. And the history in the making
A wonderful listen. a story well researched and well told of great men making history .
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- David Mcfarland
- 09-02-22
Great look behind the scenes
What a great look at the details of how Admiral Leahy affected the outcome of World War II.
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- Michael O. Kelly
- 09-01-23
We need a New Leary
My definition of a man’s man, a patriot, and a leader. I hope our country empowers the next Admiral Leary.
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- Orson Scott Card
- 07-31-19
Splendid history of a forgotten Great Man
While Leahy's contribution to America's war effort during WWII was completely dependent upon FDR's trust in him, Leahy earned that trust many times over. His modesty -- he avoided fame and pushed credit onto other people -- this book restores him to his place. Also, he was wiser than anybody else in his belief that no invasion of Japan was necessary, and the A-bomb should never be used. That Truman, on advice of everyone else, ignored him does not change the fact that Leahy stood alone and steadfast against the tide. And his many accomplishments should be remembered. The narration is superb; Grove knows his business. And Phillips Payson O'Brien is an author to remember.
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2 people found this helpful