Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

In early 1981, the Reform Movement received another big boost, both in public awareness and credibility, when Jim Fallows published his first book, National Defense, to an extraordinary reception. The book was an elaboration of the articles he published in the Atlantic Monthly. It was a damning indictment of the Pentagon and the defense industry, and it portrayed Boyd and the Reformers as men who might have the solution to all that was wrong. One of the strongest sections of the book dealt with how Boyd originally had perceived the F-16 and what it had become in the hands of the Air Force—how “enhancements” had converted the once-nimble fighter into an all-weather bomber. The buttonhook turn was something of the distant past.