The Final Storm (70 page)

The fame that follows Tibbets adds considerable pressure to a marriage that has struggled for most of its seventeen years. In 1955, the struggle ends, as Paul and Lucy Tibbets are divorced.

Tibbets is named to serve on the staff of the American contingent to NATO, and with his marriage over, moves to France, settling in the town of Fontainebleau, near Paris. As part of a more international social scene, Tibbets is introduced to Andrea Quattrehomme, a French divorcée. Though there is a language barrier between them, that soon fades, and in 1956 they marry.

Bored with his NATO duties, Tibbets returns to the States in 1956 and is assigned to the 308th Bomber Wing at Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia. He soon understands that the position is one of repairing
an outfit with a dismal reputation, and his own reputation is enhanced by his success. Thus he is called upon to address the same challenge with other units, and is assigned to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. But there are rewards to this kind of service, and in 1959 Tibbets is promoted to brigadier general. Always on General LeMay’s radar, Tibbets is called again to Washington, and in 1961 assumes leadership of the Office of Strategic Analysis for the Strategic Air Command, and a year later develops the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, which serves as SAC’s watchdog for any potential enemy activities that might threaten the United States. As such, he is now managing what is in essence the nerve center for secret military communications worldwide.

In 1964 Tibbets’s career takes a completely different turn when he is assigned to the Military Assistance Group to India. But Tibbets’s celebrity becomes an albatross, as India’s government follows an increasingly leftist philosophy that brands the United States the world’s most dangerous power. One newspaper in particular offers the opinion that Paul Tibbets “should not be allowed to breathe the air of India.” Despite the political controversy, the government does accept the American military’s assistance in modernizing India’s air force, and Tibbets assists in the construction of a series of radar stations in the Himalayan Mountains, along India’s border with China. Tibbets and his wife spend nearly two unpleasant years in India, and Tibbets is relieved when, in 1966, he is recalled to Washington. But he is offered command of the Department of Defense Transportation, which in effect makes him the port master of every American debarkation center, whether air, land, or sea. It is not a position that appeals, and Tibbets realizes that his thirty-year career with the air force should be concluded.

Tibbets and his wife take the opportunity for an unfettered vacation in Europe, but it is interrupted when he receives word that his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, has died.

In the Vietnam War years, the tone of the nation shifts significantly against the military, and Tibbets finds himself targeted increasingly by antinuclear sentiment. He is stunned to read reports in European magazines that claim, among other things, that Paul Tibbets is confined to an insane asylum, resulting from his grief over the Hiroshima bombing. Though he tries to avoid the public spotlight, he becomes painfully aware that he has become a symbol of what some are insisting is America’s darkest hour.

In 1976 Tibbets becomes president of the civilian Executive Jet Aviation Company, and relocates to Columbus, Ohio. The company has a
troubled past financially, but Tibbets does for them what he has done for the various air force commands throughout his life, and within a short time the company prospers.

In 1986 Tibbets retires, and in 1989 writes his memoirs. But he cannot escape the occasional outbursts of controversy and vitriol aimed at him for his role in the war, and he responds aggressively to some of the criticism against him in an updated edition of the memoir, published in 1998. He writes:

Though many reports over the years suggest that General Tibbets endured his later years in an agony of guilt, his own quote on the cover of his memoir best sums up his feelings: “To me, [the bomb] meant putting an end to the fighting and consequent loss of lives. In fact, I viewed my mission as one to save lives rather than take them. The intervening years have brought me many letters and personal contacts with individuals who maintain that they would not be alive if it had not been for what I did. Likewise, I have been asked in letters and to my face if I was not conscience stricken for the loss of life I caused by dropping the first atomic bomb. To those who ask, I quickly reply, ‘Not in the least.’ ”

He dies in Columbus, Ohio, in 2007, at age ninety-two.