The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today

295 Pages·2012·7.86 MB·English

by  Thomas E. Ricks

ALSO BY THOMAS E. RICKS
The Gamble
Fiasco
A Soldier’s Duty: A Novel
Making the Corps
THE
GENERALS
American Military Command from World War II to
Today
THOMAS E. RICKS
THE PENGUIN PRESS
New York | 2012
THE PENGUIN PRESS
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North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England First published in 2012 by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group
(USA) Inc.
Copyright © Thomas E. Ricks, 2012
All rights reserved
Photograph credits appear here.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ricks, Thomas E.
The generals : American military command from World War II to today / Thomas E. Ricks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59420-404-3
1. Generals—United States—History—20th century. 2. United States— History, Military—20th century—
Case studies. 3. Command of troops— History—20th century—Case studies. I. Title.
E745.R53 2012
355.0092'2—dc23
[B]
2012015110
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
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For those who died following poor leaders
There are no bad soldiers, only bad generals.
—Saying attributed to Napoleon
CONTENTS
ALSO BY THOMAS E. RICKS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH

PROLOGUE: Captain William DePuy and the 90th Division in Normandy,
summer 1944
PART I
WORLD WAR II
1. General George C. Marshall: The leader
2. Dwight Eisenhower: How the Marshall system worked
3. George Patton: The specialist
4. Mark Clark: The man in the middle
5. “Terrible Terry” Allen: Conflict between Marshall and his protégés
6. Eisenhower manages Montgomery
7. Douglas MacArthur: The general as presidential aspirant
8. William Simpson: The Marshall system and the new model American general
PART II
THE KOREAN WAR
9. William Dean and Douglas MacArthur: Two generals self-destruct
10. Army generals fail at Chosin
11. O. P. Smith succeeds at Chosin
12. Ridgway turns the war around
13. MacArthur’s last stand
14. The organization man’s Army
PART III
THE VIETNAM WAR
15. Maxwell Taylor: Architect of defeat
16. William Westmoreland: The organization man in command
17. William DePuy: World War II–style generalship in Vietnam
18. The collapse of generalship in the 1960s
a. At the top
b. In the field
c. In personnel policy
19. Tet ’68: The end of Westmoreland and the turning point of the war
20. My Lai: General Koster’s cover-up and General Peers’s investigation
21. The end of a war, the end of an Army
PART IV
INTERWAR
22. DePuy’s great rebuilding
23. “How to teach judgment”
PART V
IRAQ AND THE HIDDEN COSTS OF REBUILDING
24. Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, and the empty triumph of the 1991 war
25. The ground war: Schwarzkopf vs. Frederick Franks
26. The post–Gulf War military
27. Tommy R. Franks: Two-time loser
28. Ricardo Sanchez: Over his head
29. George Casey: Trying but treading water
30. David Petraeus: An outlier moves in, then leaves

EPILOGUE: Restoring American military leadership
PHOTOGRAPHS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
PROLOGUE
Captain William DePuy and the 90th Division in
Normandy, summer 1944
C
aptain William DePuy of the 90th Division saw it all in northwestern France
in the summer of 1944.
On June 13, 1944, a few days after the 90th Infantry Division went into
action against the Germans in Normandy, Lt. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, to whom
the division reported, went on foot to check on his men. “We could locate no
regimental or battalion headquarters,” he recalled with dismay. “No shelling was
going on, nor any fighting that we could observe.” This was an ominous sign, as
the Battle of Normandy was far from decided, and the Wehrmacht was still
trying to push the Americans, British, and Canadians, who had landed a week
earlier, back into the sea.
The 90th’s assistant division commander, Brig. Gen. “Hanging Sam”
Williams, also was looking for the leader of his green division. He found the
division commander, Brig. Gen. Jay MacKelvie, sheltered from enemy fire,
huddling in a drainage ditch along the base of a hedgerow. “Goddammit,
General, you can’t lead this division hiding in that goddamn hole,” Williams
shouted. “Go back to the CP. Get the hell out of that hole and go to your vehicle.
Walk to it, or you’ll have this goddamn division wading in the English
Channel.” The message did not take. Within just a few days the division was
bogged down and veering close to passivity. “Orders may have been issued to
attack, but no attacks took place,” remembered DePuy. “Nothing really
happened. Infantry leaders were totally exhausted and in a daze. There was a
pervasive feeling of hopelessness.”
In June 1944, DePuy was fighting to stay alive—no small feat in the
bloody, World War I–like combat of that summer. One infantry company in the
90th began the day with 142 men and finished it with 32. Its battalion
commander walked around babbling, “I killed K Company, I killed K