JFK, Vietnam, and General MacArthur

[Michael Griffith]

Many of my fellow conspiracy theorists approvingly cite General MacArthur's opposition to using regular combat troops in South Vietnam, and they praise JFK for citing and relying on MacArthur's view. I find this curious because it has been widely recognized for decades that MacArthur was a disastrously incompetent general, not to mention a shameless publicity hound and a gigantic narcissist. Military historians always include MacArthur in their lists of overrated American military leaders and frequently put him at or near the top of the list.

MacArthur did a good job administering the U.S. occupation of Japan and overseeing Japan's emergence as a democratic state after the war. On balance, he did a solid, commendable job as the de facto governor of Japan during his time there, and he deserves great credit for this. However, as a military leader, he repeatedly displayed disastrous incompetence--not just incompetence, but disastrous incompetence.

MacArthur inexcusably allowed his bombers and fighters in the Philippines to be caught on the ground and virtually wiped out by the Japanese, even though Pearl Harbor had been attacked some eight hours earlier. MacArthur's refusal to follow orders and his fatally flawed deployment of his forces in the Philippines enabled the Japanese to seize the Philippines and led to the needless deaths of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers, not to mention thousands of Filipino civilians. 

The Philippines could have been held if MacArthur had not blundered so badly and had not disobeyed orders. Holding the Philippines would have markedly changed the course of the war in the Pacific for the better and would have saved many thousands of lives, arguably hundreds of thousands of lives.  

MacArthur's inept handling of the defense of Australia led to unnecessarily high casualties among Australian troops and nearly enabled the Japanese to seize the Kokoda Track. To this day, Australian military historians fault MacArthur for his handling of Australia's defense.

MacArthur's disastrous miscalculations in the Korean War are well known. He ignored clear and compelling intelligence indicators that Red China had a large force in North Korea and was poised to attack. The resulting Chinese assault cost thousands of American and South Korean troops their lives. 

What is not widely known among non-historians is that MacArthur's supposedly "brilliant" landing at Inchon in South Korea was poorly conceived and failed to achieve the results that could have been achieved if the landing had been done at Kunsan, which was the landing site favored by the Navy, by General Walker, and by the Joint Chiefs. MacArthur's choice of Inchon was a foolish mistake that avoided disaster only because North Korean president Kim Il Sung committed the astonishing blunder of not reinforcing Inchon even though he was warned by the Chinese that MacArthur was going to land there. If MacArthur had chosen Kunsan as the landing site, he could have captured the key city of Taejon much earlier and, more important, could have trapped the bulk of the North Korean forces that were assaulting the Pusan Perimeter. Instead, large numbers of those forces escaped and lived to fight another day.

There are other examples of MacArthur's incompetence as a combat leader, such as his handling of the Bonus Army confrontation before the war, but the above examples should suffice to show that he was not the skilled military leader that his defenders claim he was. 

https://www.pacificwar.org.au/Philippines/Japanattacks.html

https://www.pacificwar.org.au/battaust/MacArthurinAustralia.html

https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/WWII/MacArthursFailures

https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3074&context=td

https://wou.edu/history/files/2015/08/Lahia-Ellingson.pdf

https://www.grunge.com/475875/the-untold-truth-of-general-douglas-macarthur/

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

I should add, however, that MacArthur deserves great credit for condemning the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. MacArthur thought that nuking Japan was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Herbert Hoover that if Truman had modified the terms of the surrender to specify that the emperor would not be deposed, "the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt."

This was a very unpopular view at the time, even though many other senior American military officers agreed with it (including Dwight Eisenhower, Admiral Halsey, and Admiral Nimitz).

Because of the truly barbaric conduct of the Japanese army and the horrible suffering that Japanese forces imposed on civilians in several countries, not to mention the Japanese army's cruel mistreatment of our POWs, most Americans had zero sympathy for the Japanese. Most Americans believed that the Japanese deserved merciless retaliation. The vast majority of Americans were in no mood to distinguish between the many moderate Japanese who never wanted war in the first place and the Japanese militarists. 

[Gil Jesus]

50 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

I should add, however, that MacArthur deserves great credit for condemning the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. MacArthur thought that nuking Japan was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Herbert Hoover that if Truman had modified the terms of the surrender to specify that the emperor would not be deposed, "the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt."

This was a very unpopular view at the time, even though many other senior American military officers agreed with it (including Dwight Eisenhower, Admiral Halsey, and Admiral Nimitz).

Because of the truly barbaric conduct of the Japanese army and the horrible suffering that Japanese forces imposed on civilians in several countries, not to mention the Japanese army's cruel mistreatment of our POWs, most Americans had zero sympathy for the Japanese. Most Americans believed that the Japanese deserved merciless retaliation. The vast majority of Americans were in no mood to distinguish between the many moderate Japanese who never wanted war in the first place and the Japanese militarists. 

Also, General MacAthur met with the President in July of 1961 ( at a time when Laos was on the front burner ) and warned him to NOT get involved in a land war in Asia. It was advise the President took seriously. He also had some disparaging remarks for the then current Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Michael Griffith]

56 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

Also, General MacAthur met with the President in July of 1961 ( at a time when Laos was on the front burner ) and warned him to NOT get involved in a land war in Asia. It was advise the President took seriously. He also had some disparaging remarks for the then current Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Unfortunately, MacArthur's advice was misguided, badly misguided. Eisenhower had correctly warned JFK, as did the Joint Chiefs, that taking a stand in Laos was critical, absolutely crucial, especially for blocking Communist infiltration into South Vietnam. JFK's failure to prevent the Communists from controlling and using southeastern Laos as their key supply route proved to be disastrous.

Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs recognized what the North Vietnamese themselves later acknowledged: without the supply route through southeastern Laos, North Vietnam's war effort would have been severely limited, if not crippled. JFK failed to realize this and agreed to a coalition government in Laos, which enabled the Communists to control the southeastern part of the country.

Eisenhower was a much better general than MacArthur. JFK should have listened to Eisenhower.

[Douglas Caddy]

Those of us who were alive when General MacArthur returned to the U.S. after being fired by President Truman remember well how Americans in mass turned out in adoration as they judged him to be one of our nation's greatest leaders. When he came to Houston, I ran alongside his open limousine in a rousing parade from downtown enroute to his speaking before a huge crowd at Rice University stadium. I shouted to young Arthur MacArthur in the limousine who smiled and waved back.

In my mind's eye I can still see MacArthur walking out of the White House after JFK summoned him for advice on Vietnam and his telling the press that he had advised the President not to get involved in another land war in Asia. LBJ went on to get America bogged down in Vietnam in a war that we lost but made his Texas cronies rich. LBJ did not even bother to attend MacArthur's funeral.  

My opinion of him as being a truly Great Man endures to this day.

Take a moment and read his biography on Wikipedia.

Douglas MacArthur - Wikipedia

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 3/24/2023 at 2:22 PM, Douglas Caddy said:

Those of us who were alive when General MacArthur returned to the U.S. after being fired by President Truman remember well how Americans in mass turned out in adoration as they judged him to be one of our nation's greatest leaders. When he came to Houston, I ran alongside his open limousine in a rousing parade from downtown enroute to his speaking before a huge crowd at Rice University stadium. I shouted to young Arthur MacArthur in the limousine who smiled and waved back.

In my mind's eye I can still see MacArthur walking out of the White House after JFK summoned him for advice on Vietnam and his telling the press that he had advised the President not to get involved in another land war in Asia. LBJ went on to get America bogged down in Vietnam in a war that we lost but made his Texas cronies rich. LBJ did not even bother to attend MacArthur's funeral.  

My opinion of him as being a truly Great Man endures to this day.

Take a moment and read his biography on Wikipedia.

Douglas MacArthur - Wikipedia

Huh, it's interesting that you still view MacArthur as a truly great man. Most of your fellow liberals hold a very negative view of him. 

My view of him is mixed. Overall, in spite of his military blunders, I hold a moderately favorable opinion of him, because of the good job he did in overseeing Japan's occupation and reconstruction, because of his opposition to nuking Japan, because of his defense of constitutional liberty, and because he supported Senator Robert Taft in the 1952 GOP primary.

But, let there be no mistake: MacArthur's incompetence as a military leader resulted in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers. 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

 

The 10 Best Books on Douglas MacArthur - Brooksy (brooksysociety.com)

[Douglas Caddy]

Alice Widener, a syndicated newspaper columnist, told me of her interview of General MacArthur when he was living in the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

He told her that there was a spy in Seoul who betrayed his strategic military moves in the Korean War to the enemy. The only exception was the Inchon Landing, which he secretly planned that was a total success that changed the war.

Years later after she told me this story, I read a column by Walter Trohan in the Chicago Tribune that confirmed what MacArthur told Widener and named the spy who was in the British Embassy in Seoul. 

[Michael Griffith]

1 hour ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Alice Widener, a syndicated newspaper columnist, told me of her interview of General MacArthur when he was living in the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

He told her that there was a spy in Seoul who betrayed his strategic military moves in the Korean War to the enemy. The only exception was the Inchon Landing, which he secretly planned that was a total success that changed the war.

Years later after she told me this story, I read a column by Walter Trohan in the Chicago Tribune that confirmed what MacArthur told Widener and named the spy who was in the British Embassy in Seoul. 

I suggest you read John Toland's book on the Korean War, In Mortal Combat. I think it's the most balanced book on the Korean War in print. It's not perfect, but I think it's the best available.

The Inchon Landing, although it did succeed in liberating Seoul, allowed tens of thousands of North Korean troops to escape to fight another day. If MacArthur had landed at Kunsan, as suggested by General Walker, the Navy, and the Joint Chiefs, Seoul could have been freed sooner and without letting so many enemy troops get away.

MacArthur was very lucky that Kim Il Sung chose to ignore China's warning about Inchon. The Chinese knew that MacArthur was going to land at Inchon, and they duly warned Sung, but Sung, incredibly, failed to reinforce Inchon and kept focusing on the Pusan Perimeter. 

No one has ever been able to figure out exactly why MacArthur ignored the clear, compelling intelligence on the enormous Chinese forces near the Yalu River in October and early November 1950. This blunder rivaled his catastrophic handling of the defense of the Philippines after Pearl Harbor.

However, it is certainly true that in early November MacArthur belatedly recognized the danger and wanted to bomb the Yalu bridges to cut off the movement of Chinese troops and supplies into North Korea, and that Truman, showing weak nerve and bad judgment, at first prohibited the bombing and then, only after MacArthur protested vehemently, allowed it but with severe restrictions.

My main point is not to bash MacArthur overall but to point out that when it came to military matters, he was often incompetent, fatally incompetent. 
 

[Douglas Caddy]

Well

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I suggest you read John Toland's book on the Korean War, In Mortal Combat. I think it's the most balanced book on the Korean War in print. It's not perfect, but I think it's the best available.

The Inchon Landing, although it did succeed in liberating Seoul, allowed tens of thousands of North Korean troops to escape to fight another day. If MacArthur had landed at Kunsan, as suggested by General Walker, the Navy, and the Joint Chiefs, Seoul could have been freed sooner and without letting so many enemy troops get away.

MacArthur was very lucky that Kim Il Sung chose to ignore China's warning about Inchon. The Chinese knew that MacArthur was going to land at Inchon, and they duly warned Sung, but Sung, incredibly, failed to reinforce Inchon and kept focusing on the Pusan Perimeter. 

No one has ever been able to figure out exactly why MacArthur ignored the clear, compelling intelligence on the enormous Chinese forces near the Yalu River in October and early November 1950. This blunder rivaled his catastrophic handling of the defense of the Philippines after Pearl Harbor.

However, it is certainly true that in early November MacArthur belatedly recognized the danger and wanted to bomb the Yalu bridges to cut off the movement of Chinese troops and supplies into North Korea, and that Truman, showing weak nerve and bad judgment, at first prohibited the bombing and then, only after MacArthur protested vehemently, allowed it but with severe restrictions.

My main point is not to bash MacArthur overall but to point out that when it came to military matters, he was often incompetent, fatally incompetent. 
 

Well, JFK would disagree with you. He met three times with General MacArthur to seek his advice and counsel on military matters.

A New Take on General MacArthur’s Warning to JFK to Avoid a Land War in Asia – The Diplomat

[Michael Griffith]

On 3/30/2023 at 1:15 PM, Douglas Caddy said:

Well

Well, JFK would disagree with you. He met three times with General MacArthur to seek his advice and counsel on military matters.

Yes, I know, and it's tragic that MacArthur's advice contributed to JFK's awful blunder of agreeing to a coalition government in Laos. That terrible mistake allowed the North Vietnamese to control the southeastern part of Laos, which included their crucial supply route--the key part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail--into South Vietnam. That mistake cost many thousands of South Vietnamese and Americans their lives in the years to come. 

Ike and the Joint Chiefs correctly warned JFK that it was absolutely critical to take a stand in Laos, at least partly to prevent the Communists from using southeastern Laos as a supply conduit. But JFK, perhaps awed by MacArthur's vastly overrated military reputation, and sadly but understandably distrusting the Joint Chiefs after the Bay of Pigs debacle, ignored the Joint Chiefs' warning, even though Ike had likewise warned him that firm control of Laos was crucial. 

The Joint Chiefs damaged their credibility by their conduct before and during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but they happened to be correct about Laos. Their essential point about Laos was entirely sound, as later events painfully proved. 

[Michael Griffith]

And I should add that MacArthur was not the only American military leader to make costly blunders in WWII. 

The famed Admiral Nimitz, who usually displayed superb tactical skill, made the huge blunder of wasting American lives taking Iwo Jima. As is now widely recognized, Iwo Jima was strategically and tactically worthless. The Japanese early warning radar on Iwo Jima was duplicative of the early-warning radar on Rota Island, which continued to provide the Japanese with early warning for the rest of the war. We rarely used the air base on Iwo Jima after we captured it. Iwo Jima was useless to the Army and the Marines as a staging base. There was simply no need to waste American lives taking Iwo Jima.

And then there was General Buckner, who commanded the American assault on Okinawa. Despite having virtually total control of the air and sea over and around the island, along with having massive amphibious assets, Buckner opted for a dreadfully costly frontal assault on the heavily fortified Shuri Line, much to the pleasant surprise of the Japanese. Moreover, Buckner somehow failed to detect the Japanese movement to their prepared secondary defensive line behind the Shuri Line. Yet, when Buckner finally realized the movement had occurred, he once again opted for another, and even bloodier, frontal assault. 

A better general would have realized that the two Japanese forces on Okinawa were cut off and slowly starving. Very few supplies were getting through to them because of the U.S. Navy's blockade and American control of the air. He could have surrounded and then pinned in place the two Japanese forces with air raids, naval bombardment, and ground artillery bombardment, while securing most of the rest of Okinawa with very few losses. This would have not only saved the lives of thousands of Americans but also the lives of the thousands of civilians on the island who got caught in the crossfire, especially after the Japanese force in the south retreated to the secondary defensive line behind the Shuri Line.