MacArthur's Last Stand Against a Winless War

On April 28, 1961-a decade after General Douglas MacArthur was fired for defying Harry Truman on Korea-the controversial commander hosted President John F. Kennedy at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where MacArthur and his wife lived in a suite on the 37th floor.

Who'd served as a patrol boat skipper in the Pacific in World War II where MacArthur had commanded, admired him.

In fact the lesson that MacArthur had learned about fighting a land war in Asia wasn't the result of his experience in Korea, but of his experience fighting the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. "You can certainly make that argument," historian and author Rana Mitter told this writer in a wide-ranging telephone interview, "Because at the time the Japanese were fighting the Americans in the Pacific, they were also fighting the Chinese on the Asian mainland. The U.S. was desperate to keep China in the fight because their armies were tying down hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops who might have been used against the Americans."

Never get involved in a land war in Asia, MacArthur had told Kennedy, because if you do, you will be repeating the same mistake the Japanese made in World War II-deploying millions of soldiers in a futile attempt to win a conflict that cannot be won.

In the meeting's wake, O'Donnell says, Kennedy "Regaled" his staff with MacArthur stories and MacArthur advice, which included yet another admonition that Kennedy not send troops to Vietnam, as the U.S. would be "Outnumbered on every side." Domestic problems, MacArthur advised Kennedy, should be a higher priority.

"I'd say the initiative that we should apply strategically and militarily," he allowed, "Is lacking in at least one wayit lacks a mission and allows the enemy to concentrate where he wishes." What MacArthur was talking about was shaping what military analysts call a national grand strategy, leveraging the country's most important assets against an array of enemies.

"The sea, beyond question, is ours," he said, "And that's the key to the blockade. Missiles and air will neutralize each other. In the last analysis, the difference will be the Navy." After a moment's hesitation, MacArthur capped his views by citing his own experience against the Japanese in the Pacific and against the Chinese on the Korean peninsula.

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