A Historical Remembrance: George C. Marshall

William F. Buckley died last night, which makes me think that today is a good day to praise George C. Marshall, chief among those present at the creation who made the post-WWII world that has been such a blessing to all humanity--at least in comparison to all prevous world orders:

George Catlett Marshall, Jr.: (December 31, 1880 -- October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall supervised the U.S. Army during the war and was the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State he gave his name to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953...

It is fitting to remember George C. Marshall today. William F. Buckley had wishes as to how Joseph McCarthy should be remembered:

Hoisted from the Archives: Elliott Abrams, William F. Buckley, and Joe McCarthy Celebrate Joe McCarthy's Birthday: William F. Buckley: A Conspiracy so Immense: McCarthy's record is... not only much better than his critics allege, but, given his metier, extremely good.... [he] should not be remembered as the man who didn't produce 57 Communist Party cards but as the man who brought public pressure to bear on the State Department to revise its practices and to eliminate from responsible positions flagrant security risks...

And Tail Gunner Joe had wishes as to how George C. Marshall should be remembered. From McCarthy's Senate speech of June 14, 1951:

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this Government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.

Who constitutes the highest circles of this conspiracy? About that we cannot be sure. We are convinced that Dean Acheson, who steadfastly serves the interests of nations other than his own, the friend of Alger Hiss, who supported him in his hour of retribution, who contributed to his defense fund, must be high on the roster. The President? He is their captive. I have wondered, as have you, why he did not dispense with so great a liability as Acheson to his own and his party's interests. It is now clear to me. In the relationship of master and man, did you ever hear of man firing master? Truman is a satisfactory front. He is only dimly aware of what is going on.

I do not believe that Mr. Truman is a conscious party to the great conspiracy, although it is being conducted in his name. I believe that if Mr. Truman bad the ability to associate good Americans around him, be would have behaved as a good American in this most dire of all our crises.

It is when we return to an examination of General Marshall's record since the spring of 1942 that we approach an explanation of the carefully planned retreat from victory, Let us again review the Marshall record, as I have disclosed it from all the sources available and all of them friendly. This grim and solitary man it was who, early in World War II, determined to put his impress upon our global strategy, political and military.

It was Marshall, who, amid the din for a "second front now" from every voice of Soviet inspiration, sought to compel the British to invade across the Channel in the fall of 1942 upon penalty of our quitting the war in Europe.

It was Marshall who, after North Africa had been secured, took the strategic direction of the war out of Roosevelt's hands and - who fought the British desire, shared by Mark Clark, to advance from Italy into the eastern plains of Europe ahead of the Russians.

It was a Marshall-sponsored memorandum, advising appeasement of Russia In Europe and the enticement of Russia into the far-eastern war, circulated at Quebec, which foreshadowed our whole course at Tehran, at Yalta, and until now in the Far East.

It was Marshall who, at Tehran, made common cause with Stalin on the strategy of the war in Europe and marched side by side with him thereafter.

It was Marshall who enjoined his chief of military mission in Moscow under no circumstances to "irritate" the Russians by asking them questions about their forces, their weapons, and their plans, while at the same time opening our schools, factories, and gradually our secrets to them in this count.

It was Marshall who, as Hanson Baldwin asserts, himself referring only to the "military authorities," prevented us having a corridor to Berlin. So it was with the capture and occupation of Berlin and Prague ahead of the Russians.

It was Marshall who sent Deane to Moscow to collaborate with Harriman in drafting the terms of the wholly unnecessary bribe paid to Stalin at Yalta. It was Marshall, with Hiss at his elbow and doing the physical drafting of agreements at Yalta, who ignored the contrary advice of his senior, Admiral Leahy, and of MacArtbur and Nimitz in regard to the folly of a major land invasion of Japan; who submitted intelligence reports which suppressed more truthful estimates in order to support his argument, and who finally induced Roosevelt to bring Russia into the Japanese war with a bribe that reinstated Russia in its pre-1904 imperialistic position in Manchuria-an act which, in effect, signed the death warrant of the Republic of China.

It was Marshall, with Acheson and Vincent eagerly assisting, who created the China policy which, destroying China, robbed us of a great and friendly ally, a buffer against the Soviet imperialism with which we are now at war.

It was Marshall who, after long conferences with Acheson and Vincent, went to China to execute the criminal folly of the disastrous Marshall mission.

It was Marshall who, upon returning from a diplomatic defeat for the United States at Moscow, besought the reinstatement of forty millions in lend-lease for Russia.

It was Marshall who, for 2 years suppressed General Wedemeyer's report, which is a direct and comprehensive repudiation of the Marshall policy.

It was Marshall who, disregarding Wedemeyer's advices on the urgent need for military supplies, the likelihood of China's defeat without ammunition and equipment, and our "moral obligation" to furnish them, proposed instead a relief bill bare of military support.

It was the State Department under Marshall, with the wholehearted support of Michael Lee and Remington in the Commerce Department, that sabotaged the $125,000,000 military-aid bill to China in 194S.

It was Marshall who fixed the dividing line for Korea along the thirty-eighth parallel, a line historically chosen by Russia to mark its sphere of interest in Korea.

It is Marshall's strategy for Korea which has turned that war into a pointless slaughter, reversing the dictum of Von Clausewitz and every military theorist since him that the object of a war is not merely to kill but to impose your will on the enemy.

It is Marshall-Acheson strategy for Europe to build the defense of Europe solely around the Atlantic Pact nations, excluding the two great wells of anti-Communist manpower in Western Germany and Spain and spurning the organized armies of Greece and Turkey-another case of following the Lattimore advice of "let them fall but don't let it appear that we pushed them."

It is Marshall who, advocating timidity as a policy so as not to annoy the forces of Soviet imperialism in Asia, had admittedly put a brake on the preparations to fight, rationalizing his reluctance on the ground that the people are fickle and if war does not come, will hold him to account for excessive zeal.

What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence. If Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest. If Marshall is innocent of guilty intention, how could he be trusted to guide the defense of this country further? We have declined so precipitously in relation to the Soviet Union in the last 6 years. How much swifter may be our fall into disaster with Marshall at the helm? Where Will all this stop? That is not a rhetorical question: Ours is not a rhetorical danger. Where next will Marshall carry us? It is useless to suppose that his nominal superior will ask him to resign. He cannot even dispense with Acheson.

What is the objective of the great conspiracy? I think it is clear from what has occurred and is now occurring: to diminish the United States in world affairs, to weaken us militarily, to confuse our spirit with talk of surrender in the Far East and to impair our will to resist evil. To what end? To the end that we shall be contained, frustrated and finally: fall victim to Soviet intrigue from within and Russian military might from without. Is that farfetched? There have been many examples in history of rich and powerful states which have been corrupted from within, enfeebled and deceived until they were unable to resist aggression. . . .

It is the great crime of the Truman administration that it has refused to undertake the job of ferreting the enemy from its ranks. I once puzzled over that refusal. The President, I said, is a loyal American; why does he not lead in this enterprise? I think that I know why he does not. The President is not master in his own house. Those who are master there not only have a desire to protect the sappers and miners - they could not do otherwise. They themselves are not free. They belong to a larger conspiracy, the world-wide web of which has been spun from Moscow. It was Moscow, for example, which decreed that the United States should execute its loyal friend, the Republic of China. The executioners were that well-identified group headed by Acheson and George Catlett Marshall.

How, if they would, can they, break these ties, how return to simple allegiance to their native land? Can men sullied by their long and dreadful record afford us leadership in the world struggle with the enemy? How can a man whose every important act for years had contributed to the prosperity of the enemy reverse himself? The reasons for his past actions are immaterial. Regardless of why he has done what be did, be has done it and the momentum of that course bears him onward. . . .

The time has come to halt this tepid, milk-and-water acquiescence which a discredited administration, ruled by disloyalty, sends down to us. The American may belong to an old culture, he may be beset by enemies here and abroad, he may be distracted by the many words of counsel that assail him by day and night, but he is nobody's fool. The time has come for us to realize that the people who sent us here expect more than time-serving from us. The American who has never known defeat in war, does not expect to be again sold down the river in Asia. He does not want that kind of betrayal. He has had betrayal enough. He has never failed to fight for his liberties since George Washington rode to Boston in 1775 to put himself at the head of a band of rebels unversed in war. He is fighting tonight, fighting gloriously in a war on a distant American frontier made inglorious by the men he can no longer trust at the head of our affairs.

The America that I know, and that other Senators know, this vast and teeming and beautiful land, this hopeful society where the poor share the table of the rich as never before in history, where men of all colors, of all faiths, are brothers as never before in history, where great deeds have been done and great deeds are yet to do, that America deserves to be led not to humiliation or defeat, but to victory.

The Congress of the United States is the people's last hope, a free and open forum of the people's representatives. We felt the pulse of the people's response to the return of MacArthur. We know what it meant. The people, no longer trusting their executive, turn to us, asking that we reassert the constitutional prerogative of the Congress to declare the policy for the United States.

The time has come to reassert that prerogative, to oversee the conduct of this war, to declare that this body must have the final word on the disposition of Formosa and Korea. They fell from the grasp of the Japanese empire through our military endeavors, pursuant to a declaration of war made by the Congress of the United States on December 8, 1941. If the Senate speaks, as is its right, the disposal of Korea and Formosa can be made only by a treaty which must be ratified by this body. Should the administration dare to defy such a declaration, the Congress has abundant recourses which I need not spell out.

Comments

[Martin Ross]

Every time someone mentions that "We need a Marshall Plan" to solve this or that problem, I always want to ask them two things -
Do you actually know what the Marshall Plan was?
Do you know anything at all about the man for whom the Marshall Plan was named?

George Catlett Marshall was a remarkable human being. I hesitate to call him a great man only because that phrase is thrown around too easily.

[Neal]

From http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/stories/Ike-Wisconsin.htm

One of the best known and most notorious members of the conservative faction within the Republican Party was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Through his position as a member of the Senate Un-American Activities Committee, he had become nationally famous by publicly denouncing various people as “communist sympathizers” or “downright traitors.” Eisenhower was repulsed by McCarthy’s reckless claims. Ike lamented the Senator’s abusive treatment of witnesses before the Committee. But Eisenhower also believed he needed the electoral votes of Wisconsin to win the presidency, and he did not speak publicly about McCarthy’s activities.

Silence worked for a time, but Eisenhower was trapped by circumstances he should have avoided. Early in the presidential campaign Senator McCarthy issued a scathing condemnation of George Marshall, who had served as President Truman’s Secretary of State after retiring from the Army. The Senator said the former Chief of Staff was, “part of a conspiracy so immense, an infamy so black, as to dwarf any in the history of man.” This was absurd, but in 1952 it was dangerous to point out how absurd McCarthy’s charges were, especially if you were the Republican candidate for president.

Working in his campaign train in Illinois, on his way to make a September 2nd speech in Milwaukee, Eisenhower amended his campaign speech to include a paragraph soundly denouncing the junior Senator from Wisconsin for having bizarrely defamed George Marshall. One of the campaign staffers notified McCarthy of Ike’s intentions. The Governor of Wisconsin, Walter Kohler, and Senator McCarthy flew to Peoria, Illinois, to confront Eisenhower before he got to Wisconsin. Ike met privately with McCarthy and the General told his staff that he had made no commitment to delete the paragraph condemning the attack on George Marshall.

The next day Eisenhower’s future Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams, met with Eisenhower after Governor Kohler told him that including the paragraph in the speech would cause serious problems for the Republicans in Wisconsin. When he sat down with Eisenhower, Adams urged him to take out the paragraph rebuking McCarthy. Adams, whom Ike respected for his political acumen, managed to convince Ike to make his statement on behalf of Marshall later in the campaign -- in a state other than Wisconsin.

But the trap had already closed. Unbeknownst to Eisenhower or Sherman Adams the original text of the speech had already been given to reporters. They waited in Milwaukee, eagerly composing headlines to use about Eisenhower’s stinging condemnation of McCarthy. With Kohler and McCarthy on the platform behind him, Eisenhower delivered his usual campaign speech without the paragraph he had written or any words about either Marshall or McCarthy. His single reference to the matter was a lame and oblique sentence, “The right to question a man’s judgment carries with it no automatic right to question his honor.” When the speech was over, McCarthy was photographed shaking hands with Eisenhower.

The next day newspapers around the nation condemned Eisenhower for failing to deliver his ringing support for his mentor, the renowned George Catlett Marshall. Herblock published a cartoon showing McCarthy standing in a dirty pool holding up a sign reading, “ANYTHING TO WIN.” President Truman, who regarded George Marshall as one of the truly great Americans, was furious over Eisenhower’s ingratitude. Truman fiercely attacked Eisenhower and the public disputes between the two men now took on a bitter, personal quality. From that day on, the staffers on the campaign train called September 2, 1952, “That terrible day.”

True to form, George Marshall never uttered a public reference or wrote a word on the subject. If Eisenhower ever apologized to his mentor, it is unknown. Over thirty years later Marshall’s wife, who had been terribly hurt at the time, said to Marshall’s biographer, Forrest Pogue, “Don’t attack President Eisenhower about the McCarthy thing; he did everything in the world to make it up to George and me.” But, of course, there was in fact no way to “make it up.”

[dilbert dogbert]

Thanks for the post Prof, I only dimly remember that time. My only source of info was my radical mom and an occasional newspaper. Not much time spent listening to news or reading newspapers and there was no TV or the internet.
I read the headline on the NYT web page and thought that they were following the axiom of saying nothing bad about the dead.

[Neal]

Now how's this for circles in circles...

William F. Buckley wrting in his review of "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism", by Ann Coulter

at http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1200/article_detail.asp

(quote)

...Senator McCarthy, I wrote a few years ago (in my novel, The Redhunter), here and there gave evidence of being the prototypical John Bircher—the man who believes that the objective consequences of a man's deeds reflect his subjective designs. Coulter approvingly recalls the sentence from McCarthy's speech against General George Marshall that makes exactly that point. "If Marshall was merely stupid," McCarthy said, "the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve America's interests." That sentence declares, in a word, that George Marshall was in fact a Communist agent. One pauses, if only for a tiny moment. Could Ann Coulter really believe that? Naw. She is just making rhetoric, as in the Pinch-is-a-traitor column......

There is a lot of such fun and shrewdness as this in Ann Coulter's book, but there is also mischief, which of course can be fun. Especially mischief about the other guy.

(end quote)

Bill Buckley has passed on to Ann Coulter the fine tradition of holding the bully-boys coat during the pummeling of the worthy public servant.

[PaulC]

Martin Ross: "Do you actually know what the Marshall Plan was?
Do you know anything at all about the man for whom the Marshall Plan was named?"

And if you're discussing Iraq policy with a Republican you might want to add "Do you know it is not spelled 'Martial Plan'?"

(apologies to Paul Krugman who first used this pun as far as I know)

[Cal]

I think the Prof.'s running "let's not forget" series of Nat'l Review pieces penned by WFB denigrating King and the Civil Rights movement is more damning than the above. WFB was wrong on so much on so many levels. We will have to suffer through all the tripe that will be said about him in the coming week. It is nice to know that his life's work culminated in BushCo. taking over the White House and that WFB went to his rest knowing that BushCo was a disaster for the country and his movement.

The just desserts for Bush will be -- blessed with long-lived genes -- he will live the next forty years knowing that he was the worst President in US history.

[howard]

this is a good chance to repeat a story i've told here before.

i was a teenager, in the late '60s, and one night my mother and i were watching firing line, and my mother, a diehard liberal, said "boy that bill buckley is smart."

"no mom," i replied. "he's articulate. if he were smart, he wouldn't say so many dumb things."

[derrida derider]

You know, McCarthy was a vile man and his purpose in that speech was vile. But it is bloody good rhetoric - with the possible exception of Barack Obama, we don't get speeches like that any more.

[melissa]

Thanks for this. I've been reading bits and pieces about Marshall in the last few years. He was a hero (& acquaintance) to my dad. A very early memory is my parents dressing to attend Marshall's funeral

[greensmile]

I find in the uncanny parallels of the careers of William F Buckley and William Sloan Coffin the very heart of the mystery of why some of us turn out liberal and others less disposed to random humanity.

I list a few of the parallels at http://pithingcontest.blogspot.com/2008/02/tale-of-two-williams-judging-tree-by.html

[greensmile]

I find in the uncanny parallels of the careers of William F Buckley and William Sloan Coffin the very heart of the mystery of why some of us turn out liberal and others less disposed to random humanity.

I list a few of the parallels at http://pithingcontest.blogspot.com/2008/02/tale-of-two-williams-judging-tree-by.html

[greensmile]

I find in the uncanny parallels of the careers of William F Buckley and William Sloan Coffin the very heart of the mystery of why some of us turn out liberal and others less disposed to random humanity.

I list a few of the parallels at http://pithingcontest.blogspot.com/2008/02/tale-of-two-williams-judging-tree-by.html

[greensmile]

ok, that was not on purpose. do not hit refresh after submitting has accepted your captcha...the submission will re-occur.

[cbooker]

Forgive my obtuseness, but I believe we are asked to put the transitive property to work here: Buckley honors McCarthy, McCarthy slanders Marshall, therefore Buckley slanders Marshall. I have no reason, really, to doubt it, although it seems a bit of a stretch. Could it be that Buckley was indeed the Ur-Colbert - a "high status, well-intentioned idiot"? Certainly he acknowledged some of his earlier idiocy, which suggests that Churchill's admonition about liberals and conservatives is a two-way street.