If you listen to the Bletchley Park or Los Alamos scientists, they were God’s gift, etc, etc,
In reality, there was a layer of minds above them, selecting, guiding, and judging them. The minds you never have and never will hear about.
I knew a guy who was in the OSS in WWII — his IQ guaranteed he would always be “the smartest guy in the room”. His career after the war was one of uniquely great accomplishments. I asked him why his work during WWII was in such a backwater area (on the front of all places!) He got very modest, and said his superiors (he knew them all the way up) were just conduits and he was a pawn. He said there was a super layer of command that he could sense, but never confirm. That layer was where the really bright people anonymously operated. He said he once got into a dispute with Stilwell, and figured his career, if not his life, was over. Then, for no apparent reason, he was given all the leeway and resources he needed. No one, not Stilwell, not any of his superiors, let on that there was ever a problem. He mumbled something about them all being pawns.
“In reality, there was a layer of minds above them, selecting, guiding, and judging them. The minds you never have and never will hear about.”
Well, that’s true - people like Vannevar Bush, James Conant, and General Groves.THOSE people really fascinate me.
For example, Groves purchased the land for Oak Ridge before he was actually authorized. He signed for virtually the entire silver stockpile of the US in order to make the magnets and wiring at Oak Ridge. After the project, he returned all but a few ounces to the US Treasury, which may have been lost to tarnish.
Bush was just a flat genius - but not a “young gun” at the time.
These people really fit the designation, “Big Men”.