15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century
Author: Stanley Weintraub
In the closing days of World War II, America looked up to three five-star generals as its greatest heroes. George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur personified victory, from the Pentagon to Normandy to the Far East. Counterparts and on occasion competitors, they had leapfrogged each other, sometimes stonewalled each other, even supported and protected each other throughout their celebrated careers. In the public mind they stood for glamour, integrity, and competence. But for dramatic twists of circumstance, all three -- rather than only one -- might have occupied the White House.
The story of their interconnected lives opens a fascinating window onto some of the twentieth century's most crucial events, revealing the personalities behind the public images and showing how much of a difference three men can make. Marshall and MacArthur were contemporaries and competitors. Eisenhower was MacArthur's underling, then Marshall's deputy, before becoming MacArthur's counterpart as a supreme commander, Ike in Western Europe, MacArthur in the Pacific. Each of the three five-star generals would go on to extraordinary postwar careers: MacArthur as a virtual viceroy of Japan, overseeing its transition to a new constitutional democracy, and then leading the UN forces in the Korean War; Marshall as secretary of state, author of the Marshall Plan, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; Eisenhower as president.
Fifteen Stars presents the intertwined lives of these three great men against the sweeping background of six unforgettable decades, from two world wars to the Cold War. It is history at its most dramatic yet most personal -- a triumph for Stanley Weintraub, our preeminent military historian.
New York Times Book Review
[An] object lesson in how even the most iron-willed president must always have strong, independent-minded commanders and, no less important, be willing to listen intently to them.
BookPage
A well-researched book that thoroughly examines the lives of three American military icons.
Washington Post Book World
[A] stormy tale.
News Journal
In 15 Stars, Weintraub hooks the reader early... One can clearly see Weintraub's penchant for finding greatness and hope wrapped within the darkness of war.
Desert Morning News
An interesting portrait of America's most prominent modern generals.
Edwin B. Burgess - Library Journal
The much-published Weintraub (arts & humanities, emeritus, Pennsylvania State Univ.; MacArthur's War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero) provides a detailed and absorbing gloss on the relationships among three extraordinary leaders. MacArthur dreamed of glory and expected the presidency; Marshall refused to plead for the battle command that would have made his name a byword; the gregarious Ike outstripped his former mentors. Fascinating reading; for all libraries.
Kirkus Reviews
All-purpose historian Weintraub (11 Days in December, 2006, etc.) charts the interlocking careers of three five-star generals who were giants in war and peace. Effectively delineating the arm's-length relationships among these towering figures, the author reserves his highest praise for George C. Marshall, who surely belongs with Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton on the short list of great American public servants never to have been president. Marshall was denied the sole job he ever coveted, command of the Normandy invasion, precisely because FDR found him indispensable, the only man in the army capable of simultaneously shielding Dwight D. Eisenhower in Europe and taming Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific. As the "organizer of victory," as Secretary of State and then Defense, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Marshall convincingly emerges from Weintraub's text as a man of uncommon modesty and integrity, the superior among his contemporaries. Marshall rapidly promoted the able Eisenhower, who labored for years unacknowledged under MacArthur, but Ike shabbily repaid his sponsorship by keeping silent during McCarthy-era attacks on Marshall's patriotism. Though he finds Eisenhower's easy postwar susceptibility to the blandishments of millionaire friends and hack politicians barely forgivable, Weintraub forthrightly credits Ike's mostly competent management of the European theater and his deft diplomacy among the Allies. It is the vain, self-pitying, self-promoting MacArthur who receives short shrift here. Justifiably finding MacArthur the man insufferable, Weintraub churlishly withholds credit where it's undoubtedly due. Although a deeply flawed character, MacArthur was hardly the constantmilitary blunderer depicted. His brilliant Inchon landing during the Korean War receives barely a page in this very long book, and his postwar resurrection of Japan seems more remarkable with each passing year, especially in light of America's similar project in today's Iraq. Personal bias notwithstanding, Weintraub ably uses his subjects' lives and work to reveal a great deal about their country's history in the second half of the 20th century. A complex narrative that properly elevates Marshall to his rightful place in the American pantheon.
Table of Contents:
Preface: Intersected Lives ix"Our Tails Are in the Air" 1
Managing the Shop 23
Sea Changes 51
Dreaming of Commands 76
Counterparts 103
Turning to Offense 132
Running a War, and Running for Office 164
The Best Man 186
Goodenough Island to Grosvenor Square 212
"A Satisfactory Foothold" 244
Victory Delayed 275
Reclaiming the Lost Ground 304
The End of the End 337
Postwar Postings 368
Postwar Bureaucracies 399
MacArthur's War and Eisenhower's Peace 429
General to President 462
Fading Away 486
Afterword: Opportunity, Celebrity, Personality 505
Source Notes 509
Acknowledgments 525
Index 527
See also: Turfgrass Science and Management or Understanding Health Insurance 6e
Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace
Author: George Weigel
Cutting against the grain of conventional wisdom, New York Times best-seller George Weigel offers a compelling look at the ways in which Catholic social teaching sheds light on the challenges of peace, the problem of pluralism, the quest for human rights, and the defense of liberty. In this major contribution to public theology, one of America's most prominent public intellectuals offers a meticulous analysis of the cultural foundations of the free society, as he makes a powerful case for the role of moral reasoning in meeting the threats to human dignity posed by debonair nihilism, jihadist violence, and the brave new world of manufactured men and women.
Against those who would argue that public theology is unsafe for democracy, Weigel shows how contemporary Catholic thinking can help all people of good will grapple with the great issue of our time: how do we live freedom wisely and well? In doing so, he creates a new angle of vision on the state of the West in the first decades of the 21st century, even as he proposes solutions to present problems that draw on the perennial wisdom of the past.
Publishers Weekly
In this collection of 12 previously published essays, each revised considerably for this volume, noted Catholic pundit Weigel (Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope) ranges provocatively over a diverse selection of topics from social justice and abortion to atheism and just war. Underlying many of the essays is the idea of Christians as "resident aliens" in modern democracies who must, by their very callings, live in the world but not be of the world. As he observes, sometimes Christians may feel more like "residents" when their views of justice or compassion are more compatible with the world's views (as in Vatican II), but many times they will feel more like "aliens" (as during the Nazi regime) because their call to justice conflicts directly with that of the reigning political powers. Weigel points out that the Church can best influence public policy when it is a community of faith and love that emphasizes the flourishing of the individual over the success of a totalitarian state. While Weigel's deeply considered reflections on the Iraq War as a just war are certain to provoke reaction among his critics, his thoughtful essays on democracy and religion offer new insights into the meaning of Catholic social doctrines for the 21st century. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.City Journal
Weigel's learned, clearly written, and tightly argued essays stand as the best evidence for his claim that the Christian tradition is indispensable for any serious discussion of the challenges facing our country.
Gary Gillum - Library Journal
Had a non-Catholic come to the reference desk looking for information about the climate of American Catholicism in the months leading up to a recent visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the White House, this reviewer would have recommended Weigel's (Catholic studies, Ethics & Public Policy Ctr.; Pope John Paul II: Witness to Hope) latest collection of prodigious and excellent writings. In it, he offers an "against the grain" vision of politics, economics, and human dignity in the face of violence, chaos, and religious indifference in a way that is not chastising of his liberal brethren and American Catholics. His 12 sensitive, openly honest, and hopeful discourses should shed much light on the thinking of today's informed and religiously conservative Catholics. Throughout, Weigel shows himself versed both in the contemporary political climate and in the past and current encyclicals by Vatican II, Pope John Paul II, and other popes. Further, he openly acknowledges the church's past mistakes-many of which Pope Benedict XVI has aired in his own writings-as well as proposes solutions for the future. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
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