I like Doug

So? :confused:

Whenever we talk about MacArthur on this forum someone brings this up, like somehow it matters. Is there some sacred law that no one is allowed to use nukes except against the Axis? And if they do, the universe will implode? I understand we all question MacArthur's abilities as a general but I swear you people are more horrified by the thought of him than you are of Genghis Kahn becoming President. It will not be "an utter nightmare" for anybody, except the Chinese if they don't pull out of Korea. Please, explain your thought processes, because I'm bewildered.

He's man whose ego far outstripped his competence and yet had the alarming ability to dodge responsibility for his failures. In Korea he essentially thought he had the right to ignore the wishes of mere politicians, a very dangerous quality in a general, a worse one in a president.
 

Phyrx

Banned
He's man whose ego far outstripped his competence and yet had the alarming ability to dodge responsibility for his failures. In Korea he essentially thought he had the right to ignore the wishes of mere politicians, a very dangerous quality in a general, a worse one in a president.
Is that it? What you said is all true, but the way people act you'd think he was some criminally insane psychopath waiting to drop the entire US nuclear arsenal on all of America's major cities. It's not like we've never had an incompetent President before, and to be honest, I think we've had much worse than MacArthur.
 
Is that it? What you said is all true, but the way people act you'd think he was some criminally insane psychopath waiting to drop the entire US nuclear arsenal on all of America's major cities. It's not like we've never had an incompetent President before, and to be honest, I think we've had much worse than MacArthur.

This was the age when nukes were not yet considered weapons of last resort. A trigger-happy POTUS could've done a lot of damage.
 
Is that it? What you said is all true, but the way people act you'd think he was some criminally insane psychopath waiting to drop the entire US nuclear arsenal on all of America's major cities. It's not like we've never had an incompetent President before, and to be honest, I think we've had much worse than MacArthur.

He doesn't have to be psychotic, he just has to be who he was at a time when only the US had the bomb and the means to deliver it. Consider his record in Korea, now give him control over the US nuclear arsenal in 1949, what do you think he's going to do with it?
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
MacArthur was a person of remarkable personal courage (SEVEN Silver Stars in WW I, at least a couple that could easily have gotten him the Medal instead). He was also an egotist of the first order of magnitude, a person with absolutely no concern or compassion for others, a person who saw and exercised duty and honor in a way that spit on his beloved corps and the nation which it serves.

There are remarkably few famous Americans who I can think of who would have been a worse president (Arron Burr comes to mind). The thought of MacArthur with no one holding his leash is literally terrifying.
 

mowque

Banned
I have him as a throw-away VP guy in my TL, on a losing ticket. He seems egomaniacal enough to think he could be in politics and colorful enough to give it a decent try. but he doesn't play well with others, which is bad.
 
MacArthur was a person of remarkable personal courage (SEVEN Silver Stars in WW I, at least a couple that could easily have gotten him the Medal instead). He was also an egotist of the first order of magnitude, a person with absolutely no concern or compassion for others, a person who saw and exercised duty and honor in a way that spit on his beloved corps and the nation which it serves.

There are remarkably few famous Americans who I can think of who would have been a worse president (Arron Burr comes to mind). The thought of MacArthur with no one holding his leash is literally terrifying.

So, you must have enjoyed his ... downfall in my Prodigal Songs TL ;)

In all seriousness, Mac had some good traits; he was a remarkably intelligent man, he was in favor of integrating the army, and so forth. But, as others have said, he was an egocentric who had little but disdain for civilian authority, and saw him as a Great Man (the later isn't neccesarily terrible; many in the course of history have seen themselves in the same light; some of them were even right)
Also, this was an age when the Nuclear Bomb was viewed as a conventional (albeit, drastic) weapon of war. Even Eisenhower possessed such an attitude, until the end of his first term/beginning of his second, where his thinking made a dramatic turn. Mac isn't the type of man who would be able to make such a turn of thought (he was someone who often refused to admit when he had been wrong, even when it was obvious)
Also, the use of Nuclear Weapons as a conventional weapon during this period would have set the dangerous precedent of their use during 'conventional' war. Also, it would have seriously hurt, if not destroyed, their prestige as "war enders". This would have been very bad once other natiosn begin to develope their own arsenals (and it would have become even more imperitive that every nation would want/need to develope such a stockpile in that environment.)
 
Whenever we talk about MacArthur on this forum someone brings this up, like somehow it matters. Is there some sacred law that no one is allowed to use nukes except against the Axis? And if they do, the universe will implode? I understand we all question MacArthur's abilities as a general but I swear you people are more horrified by the thought of him than you are of Genghis Kahn becoming President. It will not be "an utter nightmare" for anybody, except the Chinese if they don't pull out of Korea. Please, explain your thought processes, because I'm bewildered.

I have little problem with him giving the advice to the President, his actions after were the problem.

Not to mention his actions with the Bonus Marchers.

As for the idea of using nukes in the 40s and 50s in some quarters it was unthinkable. In others it was just a big bomb that we had alot more of then the Communists. The taboo against the battlefield use of nukes didn't set in until the Soviet's had the missiles to nuke American cities.
 
So? :confused:

Whenever we talk about MacArthur on this forum someone brings this up, like somehow it matters. Is there some sacred law that no one is allowed to use nukes except against the Axis? And if they do, the universe will implode? I understand we all question MacArthur's abilities as a general but I swear you people are more horrified by the thought of him than you are of Genghis Kahn becoming President. It will not be "an utter nightmare" for anybody, except the Chinese if they don't pull out of Korea. Please, explain your thought processes, because I'm bewildered.

As others have said, Mcarthur was a great man but a very flawed man. He was a brilliant general but a fantastic egotist. The "taboo" regarding nuclear bombs is that he was a man that wanted to use them conventionally as a general weapon. Can you imagine if nukes were seen as somethign which could be deployed like an airstrike or artillery bombardment? It sets a very dangerous standard for warfare.
 
Not bad traits

He's man whose ego far outstripped his competence and yet had the alarming ability to dodge responsibility for his failures. In Korea he essentially thought he had the right to ignore the wishes of mere politicians, a very dangerous quality in a general, a worse one in a president.

Yes MAC did have the problem of ignoring politicians. In the Case of Korea he was right. We would not be having the problems with NK now had he been able to conduct the war as a General not conduct it the way Truman did. IMHO Truman micro managed the war and set a bad precedent that led to Vietnam. MAC and Patton were 2 great Generals who could look ahead, and they did predict the future very well, use what they had to try to change it. If the US had listened to them maybe no Cold War, Korea or Vietnam.
 
Yes MAC did have the problem of ignoring politicians. In the Case of Korea he was right. We would not be having the problems with NK now had he been able to conduct the war as a General not conduct it the way Truman did. IMHO Truman micro managed the war and set a bad precedent that led to Vietnam. MAC and Patton were 2 great Generals who could look ahead, and they did predict the future very well, use what they had to try to change it. If the US had listened to them maybe no Cold War, Korea or Vietnam.

Doug believed his own press clippings and forgot that he answered to the President, not the other way around.

He also should have been court-martialed for the disaster that was the Philippines. If I had been FDR, I would have pulled Wainwright out and left Doug
 
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I have him as a throw-away VP guy in my TL, on a losing ticket. He seems egomaniacal enough to think he could be in politics and colorful enough to give it a decent try. but he doesn't play well with others, which is bad.

There is no way he would accept the second place job. He would give a new meaning to 'Imperial Presidency'
 
Oh gawd... the last time I pulled out my biographies of MacArthur I ended up amused, angry and contemptuous, all at the same time. Luckily I'm already off sick from work today with stomach flu, so any symptoms can be attributed to MacArthur if I get those books out. Right.... off I go!
 
That being said, it would be an utter nightmare, a nuclear, glow-in-the-dark one.

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in gas
From what I've tasted of chlorine
I hold with those who'd burn like styrene

But being done again with ease
I know I know enough of spite
To claim that for death disease
Lays also waste
And Mac'd be pleased

yours,
Sam R.
 
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