15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century

• Author: Fred L. Borch Iii
• Pages: 09

202 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 193

15 STARS: EISENHOWER, MACARTHUR, MARSHALL:

THREE GENERALS WHO SAVED THE AMERICAN CENTURY1

REVIEWED BY FRED L. BORCH III2

Like Nineteen Stars,3 in which author Edgar "Bo" Puryear examined the military careers of Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall, and Patton to see if there was a common denominator for outstanding leadership skills, author Stanley Weintraub compares and contrasts the careers of more "stars"-in this case, three men who held the super-rank of five-star general: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and George C. Marshall. Weintraub's goal, however, is quite different. He seeks to show how the three most influential five-star generals in U.S. history had interlocking careers that spanned more than five decades, and how their combined efforts were critical to America's victory in World War II and the rebuilding and re-integration of post-war Germany and Japan. Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall, Weintraub maintains, "saved the American century."4 It is a bold claim, and some might ask if it unjustly overlooks the contributions of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in shaping the face of American history. Whether Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall "saved" the American century is open to question, but 15 Stars convincingly shows that these three Army officers had a truly remarkable impact on modern history.

More importantly, the book succeeds in demonstrating that the contributions of Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall are best understood by examining their lives together, adding a texture and depth to each man that a stand-alone biography can only achieve with difficulty. In fact, Weintraub's unique approach to examining how their lives were intertwined, and how that affected history, sets 15 Stars apart from other recently published military biographies. Members of the Regiment who take the time to read this fine book will not be disappointed.

Weintraub, a professor emeritus at Penn State University, is an accomplished author of biography and military history5 who writes clearly and succinctly. He makes Eisenhower, MacArthur and Marshall come alive.

MacArthur was senior to both Eisenhower and Marshall; he was the only four-star general and Army Chief of Staff in the early 1930s, while Eisenhower and Marshall were still mid-grade officers. After retiring, he took a job as "Military Advisor" to the semiautonomous Commonwealth of the Philippines, with the rank of Field Marshal and "a gold eleven ounce marshal's baton" courtesy of Philippine President Manuel Quezon.6 In Weintraub's view, MacArthur may have been a brilliant and able officer, but he was vain, pompous, and egotistical to a fault. Eisenhower, then a lieutenant colonel on MacArthur's staff in Manila, was appalled at his chief's personality. He recognized, however, that only "egotism [and] exclusive devotion to one's own interests" motivated MacArthur.7 As then-Major General Enoch H. Crowder, who had once been an aide to MacArthur's father and who had subsequently served as The Judge Advocate General in World War I, put it: "Arthur MacArthur was the most flamboyantly egotistical man I had ever seen- until I met his son."8

MacArthur had an unbelievable public relations machine. In Weintraub's view (shared by this reviewer), he took credit for the good and managed to deflect the bad. His failure to defend the Philippines after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was inexcusable, yet MacArthur managed to get a Medal of Honor out of it. His island-hopping strategy was the key to victory in the Pacific in World War II, and his bold, daring, and wildly successful amphibious landing at Inchon in 1951 continues to inspire students of military history...