A Question of Loyalty: (Continued from page 1)
Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial That Gripped the Nation

Billy Mitchell “was a man of his times and a man far beyond his times,” Waller writes. The general angered his superiors by calling for a separate Air Force, a Department of Defense, and unified command of the nation’s military in wartime—ideas that would not be realized until many decades after his death. He was a prophet as well. Eighteen years before it actually happened, Mitchell described in 1923 how Japan would launch an air attack on Pearl Harbor. “He predicted that air forces would be able to strike targets from afar with cruise missiles (fired seventy years later against Iraq) and unmanned aerial vehicles (used against Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan eighty years later),” Waller writes. Mitchell even predicted a 9/11-like attack that could cripple New York City.

But as the post-war years passed and the Army he served in languished, Mitchell became increasingly frustrated, particularly with the slow pace of aviation development. In 1925, a rigid airship, the USS Shenandoah, ran into a thunderstorm over Ohio and crashed, killing 14 men aboard. The dirigible disaster shocked the nation as much as the space shuttle accidents would in 1986 and 2003. Outraged by what he considered the Navy’s mishandling of the Shenandoah, Mitchell sparked a political firestorm by accusing both the sea service and the Army, and by inference President Calvin Coolidge, of treason and criminal negligence in the way they conducted national defense.

The maverick airman was put on trial in Washington for insubordination. The court-martial became a national media extravaganza—the 1920s equivalent of an O.J. Simpson trial in terms of press coverage. Hundreds of spectators, including Washington society’s elite and celebrities like Will Rogers, lined up outside the courtroom each day for seats during the seven-week trial. Hordes of reporters and even movie cameramen covered the proceedings gavel to gavel.

Drawing on thousands and thousands of pages of transcripts, court documents, lawyers notes, personal diaries and private letters, Waller tells Mitchell’s compelling biography through the trial, which he brings alive in a tense courtroom drama. “Buy this and get ready to hang on to your seat!” says Greta Van Susteren, attorney and Fox News anchor. “A gripping true-life trial. I loved it.”

A Question of Loyalty is a story about Washington politics and intrigue, about love and betrayal, about heroes in battle and glamorous women who can make or break military careers, about determined lawyers and powerful military men pitted against one another in a courtroom.

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