As my jaw dropped, my eyes opened

First, some personal background to explain this particular post.  I have a fairly good but only a general layman's knowledge of WWII, although that tends to be concentrated on the European side of the conflict.  In any event, my specialist reading more or less stopped from the summer of 1945.  I know virtually nothing of the next 20 to 30 years other than what I read in the papers at the time - yes, quite!  I must have been dimly aware of the gap in my knowledge because I can think of no other reason to explain why I purchased David Halberstam's book The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.  Anyway, I did and I read it and, as my title above suggests, I was both shocked and educated.  This is a first class history book but it is also part-horror story and an almost un-put-downable thriller.  I stress "almost" because there were places where I was so moved by pity or anger that I simply could not read any more for a while.  What Halberstam describes is the best of America and the worst of America!

Let me sketch in the background for those, like me, who are woefully ignorant of the situation between 1945 to 1950.  At the end of WWII in the Far East, the Russians and the Americans agreed to divide Korea, hitherto a Japanese colony, with the northern half given to Stalin's tender mercies, and the southern under the stewardship of Washington.  Frankly, the USA was not particularly enamoured with the country and in their first policy mistake they failed even to include it in their defence strategy plans because they did not consider it important enough.  The north was run by the first of the Kim family, a megalomaniac, the first of a dynasty as we are now finding out.  From the very beginning Kim was agitating to be allowed to attack the south which he was convinced would rise up in support of his communist faith.  However, he was restrained by Stalin, the most cautious of careful dictators.  The south was run by Syngman Rhee whose latent dictatorial tendencies were only just held in check by the Americans.  He, too, needless to say, was eager to march his (mostly useless) army north in order to re-unite his country.

During those five years most attention in the Far East was directed towards China and the mammoth struggle going on in the civil war between Mao and Chiang, the nationalist leader.  The USA, under the generally wise leadership of Harry Truman refused (thank God!) to commit American troops to the war but under pressure from the vociferous (and Republican) China lobby he did spend huge amounts of treasure in the form of money and military equipment.  This was despite growing proof on the ground, and the confirmed suspicions of some smart young men in the State Department, that Chiang’s nationalists were so corrupt, so cowardly and so ineffective that it was all a colossal waste of time and effort.  During this period, as we all know, Mao finally won and Chiang was forced to flee to Taiwan (Formosa, as it was called then).  However, Chiang’s clever, smooth, corrupt and corrupting operators in Washington continued to provide political ammunition to the Republicans which they in turn fired at Truman’s Democrat administration.  They were aided in this by the despicable Henry Luce who owned most of the influential papers and magazines.

Meanwhile, sitting in Tokyo like a latter-day Roman consul, was General Douglas MacArthur.  There are almost no words to describe this man but here are few to give you the flavour of the man - boastful, preening, lying, cheating, insubordinate, delusional psychopath.  It is understandable, but not necessarily forgivable, that Truman took so very long to sack this monster who, primus inter pares, was most responsible for the dreadful casualties amongst American (and allied) lives during the first part of the war.  His two principal ‘cohorts-in-crime’, Ned Almond (Chief of Staff)and Charles Willoughby (Intelligence Chief), should, in my opinion, have been put up against a wall with MacArthur between them and all three shot dead!

Again and again in this tragic tale we see the Janus-like aspects of this war, which was to be repeated ad nauseum in Vietnam, in which all reasonable and intelligent observers on the ground could see what was the truth of the matter but none of it filtered to the top with sufficient strength to correct the picture in the minds of their leaders.

Halberstam’s book moves effortlessly between the freezing fox-holes of the Chosin Reservoir to the air-conditioned offices in the White House and the Congress.  He makes clear that all the leaders involved made major miscalculations.  Stalin let Kim mount his attack confident that America would not intervene.  MacArthur advanced to the Yalu River equally convinced that China would not intervene.  Mao ordered his armies across absolutely confident that with their communist faith to inspire them they would overcome advanced technology and sweep the soft Americans into the sea.  MacArthur was insistent that the Chinese would never attack an American army and when they did exactly that, he and his cohorts, steeped as they were in their racist estimation of the “laundrymen” they were fighting, boasted that they would not only defeat them in Korea but given the chance, they and Chiang’s forces in Taiwan would invade and conquer China itself.

It is a fascinating if appalling story, well told, and, above all, invaluable as a guide to how the American system works, or, as in this case, failed to work.

 

Comments

[dearieme]

"His two principal ‘cohorts-in-crime’": I'm sorry to see that you've taken up the habit of the misuse of "cohort" to imply an individual. Tut bloody tut.

[JK]

Hate to do this to you David (HA!) but you brought the era up. I suppose you're aware the first American to die in Viet Nam did so in the year 1948?

What's that?

http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140073248

[Andra]

David, I must congratulate you on that exegesis.

I have just spent several minutes reading and then re-reading it and I have learned more about the Korean War than I ever imagined.
I have to say it's not a period of the last century that I have dwelt in overmuch. Pretty much all I know, apart from M.A.S.H of course, is recalling a couple of Aussie soldiers who were friends of my father's and would visit our house from time to time when they were home on leave.

I can see that I have much to learn about this "incident".

You've whetted my appetite and I shall investigate. Sounds as if "The Coldest Winter" would be a good place to start.

Taa!

[David Duff]

"Cohort" - and me an ex-military man! Oh, the shame, the shame!

JK, in the light of the Korean experience the American involvement in Vietnam is even more inexplicably stupid.

Try it, Andra, it will teach and explain much of what went on after Korea ended. Plus, the curious contortions of teh American body-politic.