QUOTE : History, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Who was this five-star admiral of the Second World War, who left barely a trace of himself in the historical record? In the literature he is usually painted with a few broad strokes of the brush, and the overall effect is unflattering. Four charges have been laid against King, growing simultaneously louder and less coherent as they have reverberated through the historical echo chamber. First, that he was a foul-tempered martinet who was utterly ruthless and as mean as a snake. Second, that he was a narrow-minded navy partisan, who cared only for the parochial interests of his service. Third, that he did not support the “Europe-first” policy, and campaigned to make the Pacific the main theater of the war. Fourth, that he harbored an obsessive animosity against the British, and did his best to undermine the alliance. There was some truth in the first of those four charges, though King’s abrasiveness and ruthlessness have been exaggerated, and were facets of a more complex personality. As for the second, third, and fourth, they do not stick.