Senator Webb Channels Ike

In the Democratic response last night to the President’s State of the Union address, Senator James Webb (Fasc.-Vir.) enlisted a ghostly ally in the Democratic campaign against Iraq, General Dwight Eisenhower. In the Senator’s words,

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

The parallel between Ike and today’s Democrats would be perfect if only General Eisenhower had –

• furiously denounced the decision to intervene in Korea, and

• announced that he would pull American troops out “in short order”, and

• directed more criticism at the (far from ideal) South Korean government than at our enemies, and

• led a party, half of whose members opposed or didn’t care about American success in the war.

As Senator Webb says, President Eisenhower “brought the Korean War to an end” – not, however, through “strong regionally-based diplomacy” and pulling our soldiers off the battle line. What he actually did to persuade the Chinese Communists that it was time to negotiate seriously is thus described by Max Hastings (not a pro-American writer – his lamentations over the alleged plight of communist POW’s have a distinct contemporary ring):

On May 19 [1953], the Joint Chiefs recommended direct air and naval operations against China and Manchuria, including the use of nuclear weapons. There should be no gradual escalation of force, they argued, but a dramatic surprise attack [sort of like a surge?]. The next day the National Security Council endorsed the JCS recommendations.

Dulles, the Secretary of State, was visiting India. He told her Prime Minister, Nehru, that a warning should be conveyed to Chou En Lai [the Red Chinese premier]: if peace was not speedily attained at Panmunjom, the United States would begin to bomb north of the Yalu. The Pentagon had recently carried out successful tests of atomic artillery shells. The implication was plain. So, too, was the significance of Eisenhower’s public announcement that the Seventh Fleet would no longer be committed to preventing military operations between Formosa and the mainland of China. Nationalist guerillas, armed and trained by the CIA, embarked upon an intensified program of raids against the mainland, more than 200 in the first five months of 1953, according to Peking.

It will never be certain how close the United States came to employing nuclear weapons against China in the spring and summer of 1953, or how far the JCS study and the Dulles warning were intended as bluffs. If such they were, there is no doubt of their success.

– The Korean War, pp. 318–19 (1987)

Within a week after Secretary Dulles’ chat with Nehru, “it was apparent that the Communists were ready to accept the modified American proposals for the exchange of prisoners” [p. 323]. An armistice was signed on July 27th.

One final point to bear in mind is that, although the outcome of the Korean War disappointed most Americans, the U.S. achieved its original objective of preserving South Korea from communist rule. Our country’s enemies could be under no delusion that they had won a great triumph. That will scarcely be the case if America heeds Senator Webb’s plea for passivity, followed by retreat, in Iraq.

Addendum: Delivering the State of the Union response is quite an honor, particularly for a man who has been a Senator for less than a month. It’s interesting that the leadership of the Democratic Party had no qualms about putting forward as its public face someone whose campaign was marked by barely covert antisemitism. Also interesting is the party leadership’s lack of interest in repudiating the anti-Jewish ravings of Jimmy Carter and Wesley Clark.

It would be a gross exaggeration to call the Democrats a party of antisemites , yet it seems on the way to becoming one in which irrational hostility toward Jews and Israel is a tolerated point of view, just as racism was in the first half of the last century. I await signals that any of the Democratic Presidential contenders is troubled by that development.

Comments

[Joseph T Major]

Dulles was playing Civilization.

You know . . .

Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!