Book : The General Vs. The President Macarthur And Truman At

-Titulo Original : The General Vs. The President Macarthur And Truman At The Brink Of Nuclear War

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Review The General vs. The President is that rare military chronicle that becomes an instant page-turning classic. -San Antonio Express-NewsFast-paced, dramatic, and amply illustrates why Truman’s stock has been on the rise in recent decades. -Boston GlobeA vivid accounting of an event that was, on the surface, a personality conflict between two strong-minded figures and, at the bottom, a courageous act that solidified civilian authority over the military in wartime. -Dallas Morning NewsBrands spikes the shadowboxing between [Truman and MacArthur] with vivid dispatches from the battlefield that give his tale a get-along kick. -TIMEA highly readable take on the clash of two titanic figures in a period of hair-trigger nuclear tensions. . . . History offers few antagonists with such dramatic contrasts, and Brands brings these two to life. -Los Angeles Times “Two American heroes tested and tried at their most inspired hours. . . . An exciting, well-written comparison study of two American leaders at loggerheads during the Korean War crisis.” -Kirkus Reviews, starred review At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world, when he suggested that General Douglas MacArthur, the willful, fearless, and highly decorated commander of the American and U.N. forces, had his finger on the nuclear trigger. At a time when the Soviets, too, had the bomb, the specter of a catastrophic third World War lurked menacingly close on the horizon. A correction quickly followed, but the damage was done; two visions for America’s path forward were clearly in opposition, and one man would have to make way.The contest of wills between these two titanic characters unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of a faraway war and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur’s forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era. About the Author H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The General vs. the PresidentPROLOGUEDecember 1950Clement Attlee didn’t like appearing flustered. The British prime minister’s predecessor, Winston Churchill, was the one who indulged in dramatics: the speeches about blood, sweat and tears; finest hours; Iron Curtains. Attlee had evicted Churchill from 10 Downing Street at the end of World War II in no small part because the British people wanted less drama and more predictability. Yet the sudden news from America had even Attlee sweating. The House of Commons was debating the optimal course of British foreign policy when the BBC brought word that Harry Truman was brandishing the atom bomb against China. This itself horrified the British lawmakers. The American president was the only person in history who had ordered the use of the monstrous weapon, and a man who had atom-bombed Japan might, without additional scruple, do the same to China. But there was a crucial new element, these five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that made the prospect still more appalling. The Russians had the bomb, too, and were China’s allies. A nuclear war in 1950 would not be one-sided. And there was something else, something that pushed the alarm level in Britain far past that of any previous Cold War crisis. By Truman’s own statement, the decision on use of the atom bomb rested with the American field commander in Korea, Douglas MacArthur. Attlee and many others in Britain could think of no one more frightening than MacArthur to have control of the bomb. MacArthur was brilliant, brave and imaginativ