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The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War

Page 91

by David Halberstam


  “kill a horse”: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 738.

  as so many of our top strategists: Myers, Robert, Korea in the Cross Currents, p. 79.

  “Bring the boys home”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 338.

  had greatly angered MacArthur: Rovere, Richard, and Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The General and the President, p. 120.

  “from his command on April 11, 1951”: Acheson, Dean, Present at the Creation, pp. 126–127.

  “on behalf of the big bankers”: Cumings, Bruce, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II, p. 45.

  “pearls before swine”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 465.

  “‘You stand for everything that has been wrong for America for years’”: Chute, David, The Great Fear, pp. 42–43.

  “You owe it to Truman”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 547.

  “that little fellow across the street”: Halberstam, David, The Best and the Brightest, p. 332; author interview with John Carter Vincent.

  “a constituency of one”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 464.

  “than they have seen fit to use”: McLellan, David S., Dean Acheson: The State Department Years, p. 383.

  “Chiang going out”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 475.

  “and hang on to our friends”: Davis, Nuell Pharr, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, p. 294.

  “worldlier English prototype”: Cooke, Alistair, A Generation on Trial, pp. 107–108.

  “come to the brink, like Chambers”: Halberstam, David, author interview with Murray Kempton, The Fifties, p. 13.

  too many glitches in Hiss’s story: author interview with Homer Bigart, New York Times.

  “and could vouch for them absolutely”: Weinstein, Allen, Perjury, p. 37.

  “what I have to do”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 491.

  spoiling for a fight: author interview with Lucius Battle.

  Average Americans would have understood that: author interview with James Reston for The Best and the Brightest.

  “a tremendous and totally unnecessary gift”: Goldman, Eric, The Crucial Decade, pp. 134–135.

  “I hope they hang him”: Donovan, Robert, Tumultuous Years, p. 133.

  “Traitors in the high councils”: Goldman, Eric, The Crucial Decade, pp. 134–135.

  “a dead cat around his neck”: Ibid., p. 134.

  CHAPTER 13

  “when it came to the final responsible”: Gellman, Barton, Contending with Kennan, p. 14.

  “its preservation was tremendous”: Foot, Rosemary, The Wrong War, p. 60.

  “even I don’t make her nervous”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 150.

  “My voice now carried”: Kennan, George, Memoirs 1925–1950, pp. 294–295.

  “a ceremonial Chinese bow and a polite giggle”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 477.

  “and borders on recklessness”: Foot, Rosemary, The Wrong War, p. 39.

  “than with the Secretary of Defense”: Bradley, Omar, with Blair, Clay, A General’s Life, p. 519.

  “but don’t put any figure in the report”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Man, p. 499.

  “scaring me out of my shoes”: Acheson, Dean, Present at the Creation, p. 373.

  at Princeton, “saved us”: Isaacson, Walter, and Thomas, Evan, The Wise Men, p. 504.

  CHAPTER 14

  “just mild about Harry”: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 493.

  “And poor people of the United States”: Ibid., p. 320.

  not one of these fancy tractors: Abels, Jules, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 182.

  “clear thinking and forceful”: Bradley, Omar, with Blair, Clay, A General’s Life, p. 444.

  the pages of Sinclair Lewis: McCullough, David, Truman, pp. 324–325.

  “but did not know what they were getting”: Phillips, Cabell, The Truman Presidency, p. 47.

  “of democracy if it works”: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 525.

  “Ajax of the Ozarks”: Abels, Jules, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 95.

  “Truman, Harry Truman”: Goldman, Eric, The Crucial Decade, p. 83.

  “a dead Missouri mule”: Ibid., p. 19.

  “neck-and-neck race”: Manchester, William, The Glory and the Dream, p. 465.

  “from rocking the boat”: Abels, Jules, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 150.

  “keep this table vacant”: Ibid., pp. 12–13.

  “as a Washington lawyer and national”: McFarland, Keith D., and Roll, David L., Louis Johnson and the Arming of America, p. 133.

  got the Defense portfolio: Ibid., pp. 137–139.

  “I’ll give ’em hell”: Donovan, Robert, Tumultuous Years, p. 16.

  “with them and not at them”: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 675.

  “smug, arrogant, and supercilious”: Abels, Jules, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 141.

  “Brownell lamented years later”: author interview with Herbert Brownell for The Fifties.

  “I thought I was”: Smith, Richard Norton, Thomas Dewey and His Times, p. 26.

  “looking under beds”: Ibid., p. 507.

  “obstinately laboring president”: Abels, Jules, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 180.

  “let’s get on with the job”: Phillips, Cabell, The Truman Presidency, pp. 243–244.

  why Truman had won: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 712.

  CHAPTER 15

  not augur well for the future: Life magazine, December 20, 1948.

  as Omar Bradley wrote: Bradley, Omar, with Blair, Clay, A General’s Life, p. 549.

  to stay clear of him: Goulden, Joseph, Korea, p. 155; Donovan, Robert, Tumultuous Years, pp. 260–262.

  “stop kicking him around”: Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War, pp. 184–185.

  “the communists in China”: Donovan, Robert, Tumultuous Years, p. 261.

  “of willpower and courage”: author interview with Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ed Rowny; Toland interview with Rowny, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

  might exceed battle: Ridgway, Matthew B., The Korean War, p. 36.

  “great national asset”: Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War, pp. 188–189.

  “and its position in the U.N.”: Goulden, Joseph, Korea, pp. 161–162.

  “worst appointment Truman ever”: McCullough, David, Truman, p. 741.

  “does away with the Navy”: Heinl, Robert, Victory at High Tide, pp. 6–7.

  “one mental case with another”: Bradley, Omar, with Blair, Clay, A General’s Life, p. 503.

  “I can’t and he’s one of the”: Ferrell, Robert (editor), Off the Record, p. 189.

  as Indigo-China: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 234; Oshinsky, David, A Conspiracy So Immense, p. 36.

  to do the Lord’s work: Melby, John, The Mandate of Heaven, p. 135.

  “with or without Russian aid”: Rovere, Richard, and Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The General and the President, p. 195.

  “illiterate, peasant son of a”: Kahn, E. J., The China Hands, p. 82.

  “became the Government’s chief”: Tuchman, Barbara, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, p. 303.

  “without money or influence”: Ibid., p. 316.

  “to try and unify China”: Kahn, E. J., The China Hands, p. 184.

  most likely quite ill: Melby, John, The Mandate of Heaven, p. 55.

  Marshall quickly answered: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 574.

  “how would I extricate them”: author interview with Walton Butterworth for The Best and the Brightest.

  “of these boobs”: Melby, John, The Mandate of Heaven, p. 97.

  “the largest troop movement”: Zi Zhongyun, No Exit?, p. 25.

  of some 1.2 million Japanese soldiers: Ibid., p. 27.

  “from disregarding my advice”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 574.

  CHAPTER 16
/>   “we will take it away from them”: Fairbank, John, and Feuerwerker, Albert, The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13, p. 758.

  “Uncle Chump from over the Hump”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 758.

  “smell of corruption and decay”: Melby, John, The Mandate of Heaven, p. 44.

  “into campaigns of mobile warfare”: Fairbank, John, and Feuerwerker, Albert, The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13, p. 764.

  the wildest of boasts: Payne, Robert, Mao, p. 227.

  “of feint and deceit”: Salisbury, Harrison, The New Emperors, p. 6.

  “doesn’t he generalize”: Swanberg, W. A., Luce and His Empire, p. 282.

  “whether it is wise to continue to supply his troops”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 634.

  “our supply officer”: Salisbury, Harrison, The New Emperors, p. 8.

  “more of our equipment than the Nationalists did”: Rovere, Richard, and Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The General and the President, pp. 214–215.

  “the end is at hand”: Melby, John, The Mandate of Heaven, p. 289.

  “almost a fanatical fervor”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 634.

  “the Yangtze with broomsticks”: Rovere, Richard, and Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The General and the President, p. 214.

  so he canceled the dinner: Zi Zhongyun, No Exit?, pp. 101–102.

  “No sir, I do not”: Koen, Ross Y., The China Lobby in American Politics, p. 90.

  “greater military power than any ruler”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 673.

  CHAPTER 17

  “without even a gesture of assistance”: Christensen, Thomas, Useful Adversaries, p. 70.

  the China they knew was dying: Herzstein, Robert, Henry Luce and the American Crusade in Asia, p. 5.

  so different and so poor: Halberstam, David, The Powers That Be, pp. 57–58.

  “remembered for centuries and centuries”: Swanberg, W. A., Luce and His Empire, p. 186.

  “in the early 1950s in the same way”: author interview with Professor Alan Brinkley.

  “on most issues, isolationists”: Ibid.

  “is traceable to Chiang”: White, Theodore H., In Search of History, pp. 176–178.

  “to guard against”: Ibid., pp. 205–206.

  “couldn’t get a job as dog-catcher”: Kahn, E. J., The China Hands, p. 10.

  “the gigantic task ahead”: Swanberg, W. A., Luce and His Empire, p. 266.

  “he was too intelligent not to”: Wellington Koo oral history, Columbia University.

  “I know the man”: Cray, Ed, General of the Army George C. Marshall, p. 686.

  the Atlantic, the Democratic one: Rovere, Richard, and Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The General and the President, p. 230.

  for a changed China policy: Ibid., p. 213.

  “Would you send your own sons”: Zi Zhongyun, No Exit?, p. 260.

  “quite another thing to plan resultful aid”: Phillips, Cabell, The Truman Presidency, p. 286.

  “The animals,” Truman said: Halberstam, David, The Fifties, p. 56.

  “pouring money down a rathole”: papers of Matthew Connelly, Harry S. Truman Library.

  “I’ll bet you that a billion dollars”: Lilienthal, David E., The Journals of David E. Lilienthal: Vol. II, p. 525.

  “I spoke American to him”: Wellington Koo oral history, Columbia University.

  such was reality: Ibid.

  “Back to the mainland!”: Kahn, E. J. The China Hands, p. 247.

  CHAPTER 18

  able to catch their breath: Appleman, Roy, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, p. 289.

  got to use it first: author interview with Charles Hammel.

  “bleeding to death”: Fehrenbach, T. R., This Kind of War, p. 138.

  “then you are asking for trouble”: Goncharov, Sergei, et al., Uncertain Partners, p. 155.

  “the forgotten commander of the forgotten war”: Mike Lynch interview in the Toland papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

  “then we’ll stay here until”: Mike Lynch interview with Clay and Joan Blair, U.S. Army War College Library.

  “how many reserves have you dug up”: Appleman, Roy, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, p. 335; author interview with Layton Tyner.

  that night or the next one: author interview with George Russell.

  or seven football fields: author interview with Joe Stryker; letter from Master Sergeant Harold Graham to Berry Rhoden, June 29, 1951.

  “where the hell anyone else”: author interview with Erwin Ehler.

  “impossible at night”: Ibid.

  “Like millions of ants”: author interview with Terry McDaniel.

  “we were the turkeys”: author interview with Rusty Davidson.

  “to the point of being invisible”: author interview with George Russell.

  to try to get his squad out of there: author interview with Berry Rhoden.

  managed to keep going: letter from Master Sergeant Harold Graham to Berry Rhoden.

  “Best thing I ever tasted”: Ibid.

  “and you’ll be in Charley Company”: Knox, Donald, The Korean War, Vol. II, pp. 62–63; author interview with Joe Stryker.

  were simply too much for him: Mike Lynch interviews in the Toland papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

  “what to do to stop it”: Ibid.; Heefner, Wilson, Patton’s Bulldog, p. 220; author interview with Layton Tyner.

  was now extended beyond September 4: Appleman, Roy, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, pp. 462–463; Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War, pp. 250–251.

  “began to get a very shaky feeling”: author interview with Lee Beahler.

  “Yes, sir,” Fry replied instantly: author interviews with Lee Beahler and Gino Piazza.

  “All right, Sergeant, carry on”: Ibid.; author interview with Charles Hammel.

  “I never saw a man so cool”: Ibid.

  If the engineers had not been perfectly: author interview with Jesse Haskins.

  there was no way to save him: author interview with Vaughn West.

  maybe you should cry: Ibid.

  spoke with forked tongues: author interview with Lee Beahler.

  it really was just that bad: author interview with George Russell.

  “he had done everything right”: author interview with Lieutenant General (Ret.) Harold G. Moore.

  the great mass of people: Paul Freeman oral history at U.S. Army War College Library.

  “for his own good”: Ibid.

  as if he were a member of the board: Ibid.

  “do my best as a professional soldier”: letters of Paul Freeman, courtesy of Anne Sewell Freeman McLeod.

  had been able to forget that moment: author interview with Berry Rhoden.

  he had received the Silver Star: author interview with Jack Murphy.

  it seemed like a small miracle: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 19

  “when he was a military genius”: Perret, Geoffrey, Old Soldiers Never Die, p. 548.

  “scuddle up to the Manchurian”: Cumings, Bruce, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II, p. 692.

  he had ever encountered: Heinl, Robert, Victory at High Tide, p. 30.

  “and Inchon had all of them”: Ibid., p. 24.

  “solidifying chocolate fudge”: Ibid., p. 26.

  “an ideal place for mines”: Ibid., p. 27.

  “Bradley is a farmer”: Ibid., p. 10.

  “made aware of the details”: Ibid., p. 40.

  “Barrymore and John Drew could hope”: White, William Allen, The Autobiography of William Allen White, pp. 572–573.

  “I studied dramatics under him”: Lee, Clark, and Henschel, Richard, Douglas MacArthur, p. 99.

  “So MacArthur went over to the senator”: Eisenhower, Dwight D., At Ease, p. 214.

  “as if he hadn’t seen her for years”: Allison, John, Ambassador from the Plains, p. 168.

  “If I were asked, however”: Heinl, Robert, Vict
ory at High Tide, p. 40.

  “breed timidity and defeatism”: MacArthur, Douglas, Reminiscences, p. 349.

  “I wouldn’t have taken that promise”: author interview with Bill McCaffrey.

  “Once we start ashore”: Heinl, Robert, Victory at High Tide, p. 40.

  to resist such a great personal: author conversations with Fred Ladd, 1963.

  “the Navy will take you in”: Heinl, Robert, Victory at High Tide, pp. 40–42; Manchester, William, American Caesar, pp. 576–577; Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War, pp. 231–232.

  “Spoken like a John Wayne”: Smith, Robert, MacArthur in Korea, p. 78.

  “an astonishing course of deceit”: Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War, p. 236.

  “you’d best get on with your briefing”: Goulden, Joseph, Korea, pp. 209–210.

  “What?” according to John Chiles: Blair, The Forgotten War, p. 229.

  outside the reach of the Chiefs: author interview with Matthew B. Ridgway.

  ten months younger than he was: Oliver P. Smith oral histories at Columbia University and U. S. Marine Corps History Division.

  Marines and Army, in the command: Oliver P. Smith’s personal log at U.S. Marine Corps History Division.

  “mercurial and flighty”: Russ, Martin, Breakout, p. 17.

  airpower was another thing: Ibid., p. 208.

  CHAPTER 20

  his mind-set, and his personality quirks: author interview with Chen Jian.

  as the most likely target: Goncharov, Sergei, et al., Uncertain Partners, p. 149.

  “I have never considered retreat”: Shen Zhihua, Cold War International History Project, Winter 2003, Spring 2004.

  “the stuff of legends”: Simmons, Edwin H., Over the Seawall, p. 23; author interview with Edwin H. Simmons.

  while relatively few Japanese surrendered: author interview with Edwin H. Simmons.

  “that read easier in newspapers”: Oliver P. Smith oral history at Columbia University.

  “I’ll see that they are carried out”: Alexander, Joseph, The Battle of the Barricades, p. 19.

  without confirmation from Division: author interview with Edwin H. Simmons.

  “to kill a handful of green troops”: Toland, John, In Mortal Combat, p. 205.

 

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