<p>With so much attention focused on Vietnam, Air Force leaders might have been forgiven had they ignored Europe. In fact, many years were to pass before the USAF named to its top post on the continent anyone of the stature of General Bruce K. Holloway, a decorated fighter pilot from two wars who headed up USAFE from 1965 to 1966. No matter how necessary it might be to guard against a Soviet/Warsaw Pact armored thrust through the Fulda Gap, Europe was not the place where careers were made.
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<p>Still, progress was made toward refining a more realistic air arm on the continent. Once, it had been taken for granted that fighters could be lined up on a runway, wingtip-to-wingtip. Now, USAFE began to shelter its Thunderchiefs and Phantoms in protective revetments. Airmen trained realistically to cope with the Soviets' growing arsenal of chemical weapons, and to fend off the parachute attack by spetznaz special forces troops which was likely to come with the first hours of war. Air Force officers began to study decoys, deception, and other techniques to foil the critical first hours of a Soviet attack. By 1970, the standard fighter and fighter-bomber in Europe was the F-4 Phantom, the aircraft against which all others had to be measured.
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<p>Another trouble spot which could easily have been ignored was Korea, where Pyongyang's hostile regime captured the US Navy spy ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) in January 1968 and launched commando raids against the south. At the very time Americans were reeling from the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, it looked as if a second war might erupt in Korea. More than 300 tactical warplanes were rushed to Korea from stateside bases, including F-4D Phantoms from the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina. That wing's commander, Colonel Charles E. Yeager, showed up at the American embassy in Seoul fearful that "that crazy Kim Il-Sung up in North Korea is getting ready to attack us any day now." The Korean operation vindicated a strategy of flexible response. The sudden, dramatic build-up of armed force caused the North Koreans to back down.
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<p>Perhaps because he was more conservative than his predecessors, President Nixon was able to secure backing for a withdrawal from Vietnam, a reduction of tensions in Korea, and a quest for detente with the Soviet Union and China. Air Force chiefs of staff, particularly General David C. Jones (1973-78), were no longer the 'larger than life' figures some of their predecessors had been, and were increasingly picked for their talent as politicians and pragmatists.
