William D. Pawley

William Douglas Pawley was a cross between Indiana Jones and Donald Trump. A self-made millionaire with little education, he immersed himself in whatever business venture he chose and usually came out on top. As a sales representative for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Pawley travelled to China in the 1930s and positioned himself as the one source of American military aircraft for the Chinese government. Eventually, he worked to support the Flying Tigers, the American volunteers flying for the Chinese Air Force, and built an airplane factory in India to give the Allies air power in Asia. President Harry Truman appointed Pawley as ambassador to Peru (1945-46), and to Brazil (1946-48). When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president, Pawley switched parties, campaigned for Ike, and was later assigned to the State Department. During this period, he dealt with world leaders on sensitive national security matters, such as back-door diplomacy in the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo in Cuba at the time of Fidel Castro's takeover, and in a plot to overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954. Later, in an effort to discredit President John Kennedy, Pawley financed secret Operation Tilt to help Russian missile officers defect from Cuba to the United States. This episode, involving a cast of characters from Mafia members to soldiers of fortune, was one of many in an adventure story beyond belief. Anthony R. Carrozza's in-depth biography looks at the extraordinary life of a man whose work influenced thirty years of American and international relations during World War II and the Cold War, and whose death resulted from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.