Equal-opportunity respect is a rare and valuable skill. Vannevar Bush, although a veteran academic at the start of the war, genuinely respected the military. “I have enjoyed associating with military men more than with any other group, scientists, businessmen, professors,” he wrote years later. The deference with which Bush treated officers helped him understand, and ultimately influence, the military far more than the many scientists and engineers who had tried, and failed, before him.
