A good piece of visionary writing by General Douglas MacArthur
How to give a speech - "101"
April 19, 1951- Speech
Mr.
President, Mr. Speaker and distinguished members of the Congress:
I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep
humility and great pride - humility in the wake of those great architects of
our history who have stood here before me, pride in the reflection that this
home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.
Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race.
I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are
fundamental and reach quite beyond the realm of partisan considerations. They
must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to
prove sound and our future protected.
I trust, therefore, that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I
have to say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.
I address you with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading twilight of
life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country.
The issues are global, and so interlocked that to consider the problems of one
sector oblivious to those of another is to court disaster for the whole. While
Asia is commonly referred to as the gateway to Europe, it is no less true that
Europe is the gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of the one cannot fail
to have its impact upon the other.
There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts,
that we cannot divide our effort. I can think of no greater expression of
defeatism.
If a potential enemy can divide his strength on two fronts, it is for us to counter
his efforts. The Communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in
one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector. You cannot appease
or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining
our efforts to halt its advance in Europe.
Beyond pointing out these general truisms, I shall confine my discussion to the
general areas of Asia...
While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in
support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a military standpoint,
proved a sound one. As I say, it proved a sound one, as we hurled back the
invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives
within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground
forces.
This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not
contemplated when our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders;
a situation which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the
realistic adjustment of military strategy. Such decisions have not been
forthcoming.
While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into
continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did
urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim
was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.
Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize the sanctuary
protection given the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in
the conduct of the war made necessary --
(1) The
intensification of our economic blockade against China.
(2) The
imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast.
(3)
Removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's coastal area and of
Manchuria.
(4)
Removal of restrictions on the forces of the republic of China on Formosa, with
logistical support to contribute to their effective operations against the
Chinese mainland.
For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces
committed to Korea and to bring hostilities to an end with the least possible
delay and at a saving of countless American and Allied lives, I have been
severely criticized in lay circles, principally abroad, despite my
understanding that from a military standpoint the above views have been fully
shared in the past by practically every military leader concerned with the
Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I called for reinforcements, but was informed that reinforcements were not
available. I made clear that if not permitted to destroy the enemy built-up
bases north of the Yalu, if not permitted to utilize the friendly Chinese force
of some six hundred thousand men on Formosa, if not permitted to blockade the
China coast to prevent the Chinese Reds from getting succor from without, and
if there were to be no hope of major reinforcements, the position of the
command from the military standpoint forbade victory.
We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and at an approximate area where
our supply-line advantages were in balance with the supply-line disadvantages
of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with
its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized his
full military potential.
I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a
solution.
Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said in effect that
I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more
revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very
destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling
international disputes.
Indeed, on the second day of September, 1945, just following the surrender of
the Japanese nation on the battleship Missouri, I formally
cautioned as follows:
"Men
since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages
have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle
disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so
far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality
of larger international scope have never been successful.
"Military
alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving
the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of
war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will
not devise some greater and more equitable system, our Armageddon will be at
our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual
recrudescence, an improvement of human character that will synchronize with our
almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and
cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit
if we are to save the flesh."
But once war is forces upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply
every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory,
not prolonged indecision.
In war there is no substitute for victory.
There are some who for varying reasons would appease Red China. They are blind
to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that
appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance
where this end has justified that means, where appeasement had led to more than
a sham peace.
Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands
until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only alternative. Why, my soldiers
asked of me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field? I could
not answer.
Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all-out war with China.
Others, to avoid Soviet intervention. Neither explanation seems valid, for
China is already engaging with the maximum power it can commit, and the Soviet
will not necessarily mesh its actions with our moves. Like a cobra, any new
enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military
or other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis.
The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action
is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our
purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment
while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and
devastation.
Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has
risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude
of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather
than slavery. Their last words to me were: "Don't scuttle the
Pacific."
I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met all tests there,
and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every
way.
It was my constant effort to preserve them and end this savage conflict
honorably and with the least loss of time and a minimum sacrifice of life. Its
growing bloodshed has caused me the deepest anguish and anxiety. Those gallant
men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always.
I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army,
even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish
hopes and dreams.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West
Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember
the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which
proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and
just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the
light to see that duty. Good-by.
posted by Juliana L'Heureux at 2:09 PM
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