[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2610-S2613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             COL. JOHN BOYD

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am very sad to report that Air Force 
Col. John Boyd died in West Palm Beach, FL, on March 9, 1997.
  He was 70 years old.
  He passed away after a long and difficult fight with cancer.
  His remains were laid to rest today in Arlington Memorial Cemetery.
  John was a native of Erie, PA. But John came to Iowa to go to 
college.
  Iowa is where his Air Force career began.
  He won an athletic scholarship to the University of Iowa and enrolled 
in the Air Force ROTC program.
  After graduating in 1951, he went to flight school. He earned his 
wings and began flying the F-86 Saber jet.
  Then he went to Korea with one goal: shoot down a MiG.
  Fortunately, for everyone concerned, that conflict came to an end 
before his wish came true.
  But to John that was one of the biggest disappointments of his life.
  Mr. President, I am proud that John Boyd was educated in Iowa.
  He was a great American who dedicated his life to public service.
  I would like to honor him by speaking briefly about some of his most 
important accomplishments.
  First and foremost, John Boyd was a legendary Air Force fighter 
pilot.
  But John was no ordinary jet jockey. He applied his vast intellect to 
understand the dynamics of air combat maneuvering at which he excelled.
  To do that, though, he had to teach himself calculus so he could work 
the formulas to quantify the problem.
  This was the problem he saw.
  Why did the heavier and slower American F-86 achieve near total 
domination of the superior MiG-15 encountered in Korea?
  John wanted an answer to the question.
  After doing some truly original and pioneering work, he began 
advancing a theory.
  His tactical ``Aerial Attack Study'' became the bible for air-to-air 
combat training.
  It was instrumental in the creation of the Fighter Weapons School at 
Nellis Air Force Base, NV.
  That's the Air Force equivalent of the Navy's ``Top Gun'' program.
  John being John, he never slacked off. He kept right on working and 
developing his theory of aerial combat.

[[Page S2611]]

  He wanted to take it to a higher plane.
  And he did.
  It culminated in the Energy Maneuverability Theory.
  This was a very important piece of work.
  John Boyd's Energy Maneuverability Theory was seminal in the 
development of two of our premier fighters: first the F-15 and then the 
F-16.
  That theory helped to shape the design of those two very important 
airplanes.
  So, Mr. President, John Boyd was truly a giant in the field of air 
warfare.
  When I first met John in early 1983, he was applying his genius in an 
entirely different field.
  He had retired from the Air Force and had set up shop over in the 
Pentagon.
  He was given a small consulting contract and a cubbyhole-size office 
to go with it.
  His Pentagon cubbyhole was the birthplace of some very important 
ideas.
  That's when I met John Boyd. He was just beginning his reform 
crusade.
  He was the leader of the Military Reform Movement.
  At that point in time, I was wrestling with the Reagan 
administration's plan to pump up the defense budget.
  I was searching for an effective strategy to freeze the defense 
budget.
  Cap Weinberger was the Secretary of Defense, and he kept asking for 
more and more money.
  The DOD budget was at the $210 billion level that year.
  But Cap Weinberger had plans to push it first to $300, then $400, and 
finally to $500 billion.
  The money sacks were piled high on the steps of the Pentagon.
  It seemed like there was no way to put a lid on defense spending--
that is until John Boyd walked in my office.
  To this day, I don't know how he got there. Ernie Fitzgerald may have 
introduced us. I don't quite remember.
  But John had a secret weapon.
  His secret weapon was Chuck Spinney.
  Chuck was an analyst in the Pentagon's office of Program Analysis and 
Evaluation, or PA&E.
  He had a briefing entitled ``Plans/Reality Mismatch.''
  John's plan was to use Spinney's material to expose the flaws in 
Weinberger's plan to ramp up the defense budget.
  So I asked DOD for Mr. Spinney's briefing but ran smack into a stone 
wall.
  At first, the bureaucrats tried to pretend it didn't exist.
  For example, Dr. Chu, Spinney's boss, characterized Spinney's 
briefing as nothing more than: ``Scribblings and writings gathered up 
and stapled together.''
  Well, that didn't wash. It just added fat to the fire.
  DOD could no longer suppress the truth.
  The Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe had already published major 
reports on Spinney's briefing. A number of other newspapers had it and 
were ready to roll.
  The press knew this was a substantial and credible piece of work.
  John's behind-the-scenes maneuvering finally led to a dramatic 
hearing that was held in the Senate Caucus Room in February 1983.
  It was an unprecedented event.
  It was the only joint Armed Services/Budget Committee hearing ever 
held.
  In a room filled with TV cameras and bright lights, Spinney treated 
the committee to a huge stack of his famous spaghetti charts.
  This was Spinney's bottom line: The final bill of Weinberger's 1983-
87 defense plan would be $500 billion more than promised. It was 
devastating.
  Mr. Spinney's outstanding performance won him a place on the cover of 
Time Magazine on March 7, 1983.
  And it effectively put an end to Weinberger's plan to pump up the 
defense budget.
  Two years later, my amendment to freeze the defense budget was 
adopted by the Senate.
  If John Boyd hadn't come to my office and told me about Chuck 
Spinney, the hearing in the Senate Caucus Room might not have taken 
place.
  And if that hearing hadn't happened like it did, I doubt we would 
have succeeded in putting the brakes on Weinberger's spending plans.
  The Plans/Reality Mismatch hearing was just one episode in the 
history of the military reform movement, but it is the one that brought 
me and John together.
  There were many others. John was always the driving force behind the 
scenes, giving advice, planning the next move, and always talking with 
the press.
  John Boyd always set an example of excellence--both morally and 
professionally.
  Mr. President, since John died, there have been several articles 
published about some of his exploits.
  There was a truly beautiful obituary--if such a thing exists--in the 
March 13 issue of the New York Times.
  It describes John's vast contributions to air warfare.
  Second, there is a more colorful piece, which will appear in the 
March 24 issue of U.S. News and World Report.
  That one is written by Jim Fallows and is entitled ``A Priceless 
Original.''
  Mr. Fallows describes some of John's important contributions against 
the backdrop of his unusual character traits.
  Then, there is the letter from the Marine Corps Commandant, General 
Krulak.
  General Krulak describes John as ``an architect'' of our military 
victory over Iraq in 1991.
  That's an oblique reference to John's ``Patterns of Conflict'' 
briefing. This piece of work had a profound impact on U.S. military 
thought.
  It helped our top military leadership understand the advantages of 
maneuver warfare. Those ideas were used to defeat Iraq.
  And finally, Col. David Hackworth has devoted his weekly column to 
John Boyd. It is entitled: ``A Great Airman's Final Flight.''
  I ask unanimous consent to have these reports printed in the Record.
  Mr. President, we have lost a great American--a true patriot. I will 
miss him.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 13, 1997]

       Col. John Boyd Is Dead at 70; Advanced Air Combat Tactics

                      (By Robert McG. Thomas, Jr.)

       Col. John R. Boyd, a legendary Air Force fighter pilot 
     whose discovery that quicker is better than faster became the 
     basis of a far-reaching theory that helped revolutionize 
     American military strategy, died on March 9 at a hospital in 
     West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 70 and had lived in Delray 
     Beach.
       The cause was cancer, his family said.
       To combat pilots of the late 1950's, it was always high 
     noon in the skies above the Nevada desert. A pilot, a crack 
     instructor at Nellis Air Force Base, perhaps, or a hotshot 
     Navy flier passing through would get on the radio to call him 
     out and within minutes Colonel Boyd would have another notch 
     in his belt.
       They did not call him 40-second Boyd for nothing. From 1954 
     to 1960 virtually every combat pilot in the country knew that 
     Colonel Boyd, a former Korean War pilot who helped establish 
     the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis, had a standing offer: 
     take a position on his tail, and 40 twisting, turning seconds 
     later he would have the challenger in his own gun-sights or 
     pay $40. Colonel Boyd never lost the bet in more than 3,000 
     hours of flying time.
       A high school swimming champion who won an athletic 
     scholarship to the University of Iowa, Colonel Boyd, a native 
     of Erie, Pa., had superior reflexes and hand-eye 
     coordination, but what made him invincible in mock combat was 
     something else.
       At Nellis he taught himself calculus so he could work out 
     the formulas that produced his repertory of aerial maneuvers 
     and led to his 1960 report, ``Aerial Attack Study,'' the 
     bible of air-to-air combat.
       His combat experience was limited to a few missions in 
     Korea, but they were enough to produce a breakthrough 
     insight. Wondering why the comparatively slow and ponderous 
     American F-86's achieved near total domination of the 
     superior MIG-15's, he realized that the F-86 had two crucial 
     advantages: better visibility and a faster roll rate.
       This, in turn, led Colonel Boyd to develop what he called 
     the OODA Loop, to denote the repeated cycle of observation, 
     orientation, decision and action that characterized every 
     encounter. The key to victory, he theorized, was not a plane 
     that could climb faster or higher but one that could begin 
     climbing or change course quicker--to get inside an 
     adversary's ``time/cycle loop.''
       The fast-cycle combat theory, expanded by Colonel Boyd into 
     a lecture he later delivered hundreds of times, has since 
     been widely applied to fields as diverse as weapons 
     procurement, battlefield strategy and business competition.
       One implication of the theory was that the best fighter 
     plane was not necessarily the one with the most speed, 
     firepower or range. Colonel Boyd, who enrolled at Georgia 
     Tech

[[Page S2612]]

     after his Nellis tour, was helping a fellow student with his 
     homework over hamburgers and beer one night when he had an 
     insight that led to a way to quantify his ideas. The 
     resulting Energy Maneuverability Theory, which allows precise 
     comparisons of maneuverability, is now a standard measure of 
     aerial performance.
       Assigned to the Pentagon in 1964, Colonel Boyd became an 
     important figure in a movement that started in response to 
     $400 hammers and other headline excesses of Defense 
     Department spending and soon expanded to question the need 
     for many hugely expensive weapons systems.
       Although he had allies in the Pentagon, Congress and 
     business, Colonel Boyd's ideas often went against the grain 
     of a military-industrial bureaucracy devoted to the 
     procurement of the most advanced, most expensive and (not 
     coincidentally, he felt) most profitable planes.
       Although his design ideas helped give the F-15 a big, high-
     visibility canopy, his major triumph was the F-16, a plane 
     lacking many of the F-15's high-tech, expensive features, but 
     which is far more agile and costs less than half as much, 
     allowing for the purchase of many more of them for a given 
     expenditure.
       Top Air Force officers were so opposed to the concept of 
     producing a plane that did not expand on the F-15's cutting 
     edge technology that Colonel Boyd and some civilian allies 
     developed it in secret.
       The plane was hailed for its performance in the Persian 
     Gulf war, a war whose very strategy of quick, flexible 
     response was based largely on ideas Colonel Boyd had been 
     promoting for years.
       Colonel Boyd, who maintained that the lure of big-money 
     defense contracts invariably perverted weapons assessment, 
     was so personally fastidious that during his years in the 
     Pentagon he became known as the Ghetto Colonel because he 
     lived in a basement apartment.
       He carried his notion of propriety to such an extreme that 
     when he retired in 1975 and began some of his most productive 
     work, as a Pentagon consultant, he insisted that his family 
     live on his retirement pay. Initially offering to work full 
     time without pay, he was persuaded to accept one day's pay 
     every two-week pay period, because he had to be on the 
     Pentagon payroll to have access to the building, before 
     retiring in 1988.
       He is survived by his wife, Mary; three sons, Stephen, of 
     Springfield, Va., Scott, of Burke, Va., and Jeff, of Delray 
     Beach, Fla.; two daughters, Kathryn, of Delray Beach and Mary 
     Ellen Holton of Centerville, Va.; a brother, H.G. Boyd of 
     Pompano Beach, Fla.; a sister, Marion Boyd of Erie, and two 
     grandchildren.
                                                                    ____


               [From Inside the Pentagon, Mar. 13, 1997]

                          Letter to the Editor

       To the Editor: I was deeply saddened to learn of the 
     passing of Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret.). How does one begin 
     to pay homage to a warrior like John Boyd? He was a towering 
     intellect who made unsurpassed contributions to the American 
     art of war. Indeed, he was one of the central architects in 
     the reform of military thought which swept the services, and 
     in particular the Marine Corps, in the 1980's. From John Boyd 
     we learned about competitive decision making on the 
     battlefield--compressing time, using time as an ally. 
     Thousands of officers in all our services knew John Boyd by 
     his work on what was to be known as the Boyd Cycle or OODA 
     Loop. His writings and his lectures had a fundamental impact 
     on the curriculum of virtually every professional military 
     education program in the United States--and on many abroad. 
     In this way he touched so many lives, many of them destined 
     to ascend to the very highest levels of military and civilian 
     leadership.
       Those of us who knew John Boyd the man knew him as a man of 
     character and integrity. His life and values were shaped by a 
     selfless dedication to Country and Service, by the crucible 
     of war, and by an unrelenting love of study. he was the 
     quintessential soldier-scholar--a man whose jovial, outgoing 
     exterior belied the vastness of his knowledge and the power 
     of his intellect. I was in awe of him, not just for the 
     potential of his future contributions, but for what he stood 
     for as an officer, a citizen, and as a man.
       As I write this, my mind wanders back to that morning in 
     February, 1991, when the military might of the United States 
     sliced violently into the Iraqi positions in Kuwait. 
     Bludgeoned from the air nearly round the clock for six weeks, 
     paralyzed by the speed and ferocity of the attack, the Iraqi 
     army collapsed morally and intellectually under the onslaught 
     of American and Coalition forces. John Boyd was an architect 
     of that victory as surely as if he'd commanded a fighter wing 
     or a maneuver division in the desert. His thinking, his 
     theories, his larger than life influence, were there with us 
     in Desert Storm. He must have been proud at what his efforts 
     wrought.
       So, how does one pay homage to a man like John Boyd? 
     Perhaps best by remembering that Colonel Boyd never sought 
     the acclaim won him by his thinking. He only wanted to make a 
     difference in the next war . . . and he did. That ancient 
     book of wisdom--Proverbs--sums up John's contribution to his 
     nation: ``A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledge adds 
     to his strength; for by wise guidance you will wage your war, 
     and there is victory in a multitude of counsellors.'' I, and 
     his Corps of Marines, will miss our counsellor terribly.--
     Proverbs 24:5-6
           Sincerely,

                                                  C.C. Krulak,

                                       General, U.S. Marine Corps,
                                   Commandant of the Marine Corps.

       Editor's Note: Col. John Boyd, who retired from the Air 
     Force in 1975, died March 9 at age 70. A fighter pilot of 
     legendary ability, Boyd was the author of several pivotal 
     explorations of warfighting theory, including ``Destruction 
     and Creation'' (1976), ``Patterns of Conflict'' (1981), and 
     ``Conceptual Spiral'' (1991).
       While still in the Air Force, Boyd was largely responsible 
     for the early design of the F-15 and F-16 fighters, and 
     contributed significantly to the design of the A-10 close air 
     support aircraft. His ``energy maneuverability theory'' is 
     still in use in designing aircraft for maximum performance 
     and maneuverability.
       Boyd is probably best known for developing the concept of 
     the ``OODA Loop,'' short for ``observe, orient, decide, 
     act''--effectively a guide to anticipating enemy moves in a 
     fast-paced battle and heading them off at the pass. The term 
     was widely used during the 1991 Persian Gulf war in reference 
     to the U.S. force's ability to get ``inside'' Iraq's 
     decisionmaking cycle.
       Boyd is considered the father of the Air Force's original 
     ``fighter mafia'' and, after his retirement, a key leader of 
     the military reform movement in the 1980s.
                                                                    ____


            [From U.S. News & World Report, March 24, 1997]

                          A Priceless Original

                           (By James Fallows)

       True originality can be disturbing, and John Boyd was 
     maddeningly original. His ideas about weapons, leadership, 
     and the very purpose of national security changed the modern 
     military. After Boyd died last week of cancer at age 70, the 
     commandant of the Marine Corps called him ``a towering 
     intellect who made unsurpassed contributions to the American 
     art of war.'' Yet until late in his life, the military 
     establishment resisted Boyd and resented him besides.
       Boyd was called up for military service during the Korean 
     War and quickly demonstrated prowess as an Air Force fighter 
     pilot. More important, he revealed his fascination with the 
     roots of competitive failure and success. U.S. Planes and 
     pilots, he realized, did better in air combat than they 
     should have. In theory, the Soviet-built MiG they fought 
     against was far superior to the F-86 that Boyd flew. The MiG 
     had a higher top speed and could hold a tighter turn. The 
     main advantage of the F-86 was that it could change from one 
     maneuver to another more rapidly, dodging or diving out of 
     the MiG's way. As the planes engaged, Boyd argued, the F-86 
     could build a steadily accumulating advantage in moving to a 
     ``kill position'' on the MiG's tail.
       Boyd extended his method--isolating the real elements of 
     success--while maintaining his emphasis on adaptability. In 
     the late 1950s, he developed influential doctrines of air 
     combat and was a renowned fighter instructor. In the 1960s, 
     he applied his logic to the design of planes, showing what a 
     plane would lose in maneuverability for each extra bit of 
     weight or size--and what the nation lost in usable force as 
     the cost per plane went up. Within the Pentagon, he and 
     members of a ``Fighter Mafia'' talked a reluctant Air Force 
     into building the F-16 and A-10--small, relatively cheap, yet 
     highly effective aircraft that were temporary departures from 
     the trend toward more expensive and complex weapons.
       Warrior virtues. After leaving the Air Force as a colonel 
     in 1975, Boyd began the study of long historical trends in 
     military success through which he made his greatest mark. He 
     became a fanatical autodidact, reading and marking up 
     accounts of battles, beginning with the Peloponnesian War. On 
     his Air Force pension, he lived modestly, working from a 
     small, book-crammed apartment. He presented his findings in 
     briefings, which came in varying lengths, starting at four 
     hours. Boyd refused to discuss his views with those who would 
     not sit through a whole presentation; to him, they were 
     dilettantes. To those who listened, he offered a worldview in 
     which crucial military qualities--adaptability, innovation--
     grew from moral strengths and other ``warrior'' virtues. Yes-
     man careerism, by-the-book thought, and the military's 
     budget-oriented ``culture of procurement'' were his great 
     nemeses.
       Since he left no written record other than the charts that 
     outlined his briefings, Boyd was virtually unknown except to 
     those who had listened to him personally--but that group grew 
     steadily in size and influence. Politicians, who parcel out 
     their lives in 10-minute intervals, began to sit through his 
     briefings. The Marine Corps, as it recovered from Vietnam, 
     sought his advice on morale, character, and strategy. By the 
     time of the gulf war, his emphasis on blitzkrieglike 
     ``maneuver warfare'' had become prevailing doctrine in the 
     U.S. military. As a congressman, Dick Cheney spent days at 
     Boyd's briefings. As defense secretary, he rejected an early 
     plan for the land war in Iraq as being too frontal and 
     unimaginative--what Boyd would have mockingly called ``Hey 
     diddle diddle, straight up the middle''--and insisted on a 
     surprise flanking move.
       John Boyd laughed often, yet when he turned serious, his 
     preferred speaking distance was 3 inches from your face. He 
     brandished a cigar and once burned right through the necktie 
     of a general he had buttonholed.

[[Page S2613]]

     He would telephone at odd hours and resume a harangue from 
     weeks before as if he'd never stopped. But as irritating as 
     he was, he was more influential. He will be marked by a small 
     headstone at Arlington Cemetery and an enormous impact on the 
     profession of arms.
                                                                    ____


             [From King Features Syndicate, Mar. 18, 1997]

            Defending America, A Great Airman's Final Flight

                        (By David H. Hackworth)

       Col. John R. Boyd of the United States Air Force is dead.
       Future generations will learn that John Boyd, a legendary 
     fighter pilot, was America's greatest military thinker. He's 
     remembered now by all those he touched over the last 52 years 
     of service to our country as not only the original ``Top 
     Gun,'' but as one smart hombre who always had the guts to 
     stand tall and to tell it like it is.
       He didn't just drive Chinese fighter pilots nuts while 
     flying his F-86 over the Yalu River during the Korean War, he 
     spent decades causing the top brass to climb the walls and 
     the cost-plus, defense-contractor racketeers to run for 
     cover.
       He was not only a fearless fighter pilot with a laser mind, 
     but a man of rare moral courage. the mission of providing 
     America with the best airplane came first, closely followed 
     by his love for the troops and his concern for their welfare. 
     Many of the current crop of Air Force generals could pull out 
     of their moral nose dive by following his example.
       After the Korean War, he became known as ``40-Second'' Boyd 
     because he defeated opponents in aerial combat in less than 
     40 seconds. Many of his contemporaries from this period say 
     he was the best fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
       Not only was he skilled and brave, but he was also a brain. 
     The Air Force recognized this and sent him to Georgia Tech, 
     not to be a ``rambling wreck,'' but to become a top graduate 
     engineer. It was there that he developed the fighter tactics 
     which proved so effective during the Vietnam War, and the 
     concepts that later revolutionized the design of fighter 
     aircraft and the U.S.A.'s way of fighting wars, both in the 
     air and on the ground.
       He saved the F-15 from being an 80,000-pound, swing-wing 
     air bus, streamlining it into a 40,000-pound, lean and mean 
     fixed-wing fighter, which Desert Storm proved still has no 
     equal.
       Boyd was also a key player in the development of the F-16, 
     probably the most agile and maneuverable fighter aircraft 
     ever built, and costing half the price of the F-15. The top 
     brass didn't want it. To them, more expensive was better. 
     Boyd outfoxed them by developing it in secret.
       Chuck Spinney, who as a Pentagon staffer sweated under 
     Boyd's cantankerous, demanding tough love says, ``The most 
     important gift my father gave me was a deep belief in the 
     importance of doing what you think is right--to act on what 
     your conscience says you should act on and to accept the 
     consequences. The most important gift Boyd gave me was the 
     ability to do this and survive and grow at the same time.''
       Boyd never made general--truth-tellers seldom do in today's 
     slick military because the Pentagon brass hate the truth, and 
     try to destroy those who tell it. They did their best to do a 
     number on John. But true to form, he always out-maneuvered 
     them.
       Norman Schwarzkopf is widely heralded as the hero of Desert 
     Storm, but in fact, Boyd's tactics and strategy were the real 
     force behind the 100-Hour War. Stormin' Norman simply copied 
     Boyd's playbook, and the Marines were brilliant during their 
     attack on Kuwait.
       As USMC Col. Mike Wyly tells it, Boyd ``applied his keen 
     thinking to Marine tactics, and today we are a stronger, 
     sharper Corps.''
       His example inspired many. He affected everyone with whom 
     he came in contact. He trained a generation of disciples in 
     all the services, and they are carrying on his good work, 
     continuing to serve the truth over self.
       For those who know, the name Boyd has already become a 
     synonym for ``doing the right thing.'' His legacy will be 
     that integrity--doing the hard right over the easy wrong--is 
     more important than all the stars, all the plush executive 
     suites and all the bucks.
       God now has the finest pilot ever at his side. And He, in 
     all His wisdom, will surely give Boyd the recognition he 
     deserves by promoting him to air marshal of the universe.
       For sure, we can all expect a few changes in the design of 
     heaven as Boyd makes it a better place, just as he did planet 
     earth.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.

                          ____________________