The General vs. The President

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

H.W. Brands The General vs. The President tells a story of an episode in history where the entire country was united behind one of the players in a political duel, yet history now looks back at the event quite differently. Several years after the fact, most could admit that they were mostly incorrect in their choice of who was right and who was wrong.

In one corner was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur – hero of World War II and magnanimous conqueror of Japan. Arrogant, cocky, and walked with a swagger with his ubiquitous sunglasses and corn-cob pipe.  In the other corner – the 34^th President of the United States, Harry S. Truman.  Considered an “accident” by many. This meek, mild-mannered former hat shop manager was nominated as Roosevelt’s Vice President 5 weeks before death finally claimed FDR’s life.  Truman and MacArthur were quite the odd couple.

Unfortunately, even after the worst war in human history had finally concluded months after Truman was sworn in, the world was far from a peaceful place.  It was bad enough with Stalin and Communist Russia making unpleasant waves throughout the East.  By 1948, Mao-Tse Tung and the Red Chinese also took over the fledgling Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek.  What does the leader of the free world do? Well, MacArthur has a lot of ideas. Many good, most loved, but calmer heads such as Truman’s must prevail in many instances – despite what the country in a patriotic fervor might think.  When Red China’s communist neighbor North Korea invades its counterpart in the south, some sort of action is required.

So we see and hear the bickering go back and forth between the Truman and MacArthur. Most of it is done behind each other’s back, but the desire of each seems to be that the adversary eventually gets the message.  It doesn’t help when the General repeatedly makes his views quite obvious with the press with no concern of his boss’s toes being stepped on during the process.  After Red China enters the Korean “Police Action” (after MacArthur assured his Commander and Chief that such a thing would never happen), Truman is left with no other option other than to fire MacArthur.  The headlines then roared.

So MacArthur returns home to a widely appreciative country. Crowds gather, ticker tape parades are thrown, and women swoon and faint at the sight of the 70-year-old hero.  The masses would much rather have the General as their President than their bi-spectacled docile leader, and MacArthur drops many hints at such a goal for 1952.

The mood starts to slowly change during the Senate hearings of the general. There are a few in the halls of congress that refused to get sucked up by the burst of jingoism, and after many days in the “hot seat”, the masses finally have time to digest. Unbeknownst to many in the public, the godlike MacArthur had in fact committed many gaffes during the Korean theater, and the fervor that has enraptured the nation slowly fades away.  Just like old soldiers that never die.

This book was a very concise read.  I’ve read about the events in pretty through detail in William Manchester’s “American Caesar” (about MacArthur) and David McCullough’s “Truman”, yet Brands does an excellent job educating the novice.  I’m not sure of his actual purpose for focusing on such an event in history that has already been well documented.  It could be that he felt a book was necessary that shows us how blind we can be when caught up with patriotic zeal.  Such lessons are important. There are many that say that politics has gotten worse in last few decades. I’m not entirely sure I would agree with that sentiment. The difference, I believe, is instant access to newswires via the internet and social media that seem to spread such information at an accelerated pace. Brands shows us (as he has in many of his books about famous people) that partisan politics and bickering has always existed – you just never found out about what someone said until the next day’s papers.

This book is a great tale of how one can look back on history with much clearer vision and understanding than one might be able to do when we are in the thick of the events.  MacArthur is still looked at fondly by most, yet most historians now agree that Truman wasn’t really such a bad guy, nor a bad president, after all.