The General vs. the President by H.W. Brands

It was the first occasion when we as a nation had to learn how to fight a limited but intense war despite our having access to hundreds of atomic bombs.

The Korean War is largely a forgotten conflict (whether technically a war or not is immaterial) falling as it does between America’s overwhelming victory in World War II and its overwhelming defeat in Viet Nam. He explored a possible Republican Party candidacy for POTUS in 1944, ‘48, and ’52. During the last decade of his fifty-year Army career, he qualified as one of the most famous Americans never elected President although not for lack of desire on his part. But he conducted his entire military career in the shadow of politics, from the time as a young lieutenant when he served as an aide to his Three Star General father, to fifty years later in 1951 when President Truman fired him because of his political intrigues. No one doubted his courage, knowledge, intellect or personal charm. Nothing connected to the long, illustrious career of Douglas MacArthur was ever simple or clear.

And he did step on the line when he engaged in his own foreign policy in defiance of a clear policy that military officers should leave such pronouncements to their civilian masters. He never was insubordinate if one defines insubordination as defying a direct, written order. He never crossed the lines laid down by the administration. With brilliant finesse, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of United Nations forces in Korea, resisted President Truman and his administration’s policies regarding the conduct of the war. But he didn’t, and no amount of wishing could change the fact that he procrastinated.įor those not familiar with this intriguing story, Brands lays out the narrative with clarity and verve. “ I should have fired him six months sooner.” If Truman had done so, the history of both the Korean War and the last two years of Truman’s presidency might well have been different. THE PRESIDENT: MACARTHUR AND TRUMAN AT THE BRINK OF NUCLEAR WAR

The General vs. the President by H.W. Brands