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The Confederate Lawyer
October 9, 2013
Two Generals and Two Books
by Charles G. Mills
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GLEN COVE, NY —Two important publications have received inadequate attention. One is Robert Welch's The Politician (Belmont, 1964). The other is a speech by Joseph R. McCarthy, printed by the author as "The Story of General George Marshall" in 1952 and reprinted in book form by Devin-Adair in 1954 as America's Retreat from Victory.
The thesis of The Politician is that President Eisenhower either was a Communist or made a disloyal deal with the communists. The thesis of Senator McCarthy's speech is that General George Marshall's conduct can only be explained by a desire to help the Communists. Both authors make strong affirmative statements. In the long run, however, neither is persuasive because neither deals adequately with the contrary evidence. Despite their defects, both raise troubling questions that have never been adequately answered.
Neither Marshall nor Eisenhower would have achieved great prominence without the Soviet-American alliance. ... [the alliance that] provided their great career break.
Why did Marshall help the Communist clique in the State Department to betray Free China? Why did Marshall originally want the Soviet Union included in the Marshall Plan? Why did Marshall put General Joseph Stilwell in a position to sell out free China? What was Marshall's role at Yalta?
Why did Marshall and Eisenhower side with Stalin against Churchill in pursuing a strategy designed to turn central Europe over to the Communists? Why did Eisenhower and Marshall turn 2 million anti-Communist refugees over to the Communists after World War II for persecution and, frequently, death?
Why did Eisenhower allow the Soviets to overrun Hungary, and not obtain a single concession in favor of Hungarian liberty? Why did Eisenhower destroy Anthony Eden's career? Why did Eisenhower turn the Suez Canal over to a fanatical Moslem, a socialist dictator? Why did Eisenhower undermine the French in Algeria? Why did Eisenhower allow the Communists to take over in Cuba?
I believe that the answers to these questions lie in the careers of the two men. Both Eisenhower and Marshall could easily have retired as colonels, or possibly with one temporary wartime star, but both reached the rank of five-star general.
On the eve of World War II, the Army found Marshall unfit for promotion from colonel to brigadier general. Eisenhower never mastered the basic war skills of a two-, three-, or four-star general. Both, however, were brilliant military diplomats and administrators. More important, both shared Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vision of a great wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Neither Marshall nor Eisenhower would have achieved great prominence without the Soviet-American alliance. In later years, they sometimes waged the Cold War as loyal soldiers, but they cannot have forgotten that the alliance with the Soviets provided their great career break. This reality is enough to explain their betrayal of China, Hungary, Cuba, Anthony Eden, and the pieds noirs.
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The Confederate Lawyer column is copyright © 2013 by Charles G. Mills and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, www.fgfBooks.com. All rights reserved.
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Charles G. Mills is the Judge Advocate or general counsel for the New York State American Legion. He has forty years of experience in many trial and appellate courts and has published several articles about the law.
See his biographical sketch and additional columns here.
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