LINK TO DOWNLOAD PDF: "America's Retreat from Victory The Story of George Catlett Marshall"
In this book, Senator McCarthy outlined Marshall's role in handing over China to the Communists after the end of WWII.
It is based on McCarthy's 72,000 word speech on the Senate floor for which he was roundly criticized. I suggest you read the book and determine for yourself if McCarthy had valid points or not. Given what we have seen today, I am not inclined to discount anything related to politicized military officers, not even back then.
Critical reading for anyone who wants a well-rounded view of where we are now, today, with Communist China. (Also interesting from the point of view of Marshall's life...of all the leaders of WWII, Marshall stands nearly alone for not having written a memoir. As Marshall famously said: "No publicity will do me no harm, but some publicity will do me no good."
As a teaser, here is an excerpt from McCarthy's book, where he discusses Marshall's inability, and three-times-changed story about where he was and what he was doing on the morning of December 7, 1941, to illustrate his concern with Marshall's inability to accurately remember where he was, as the Army Chief of Staff, when tens of millions of Americans would never, ever forget where they were. In his book, McCarthy offers this anecdote (from Reader's Digest in 1944 describing a press conference in Algiers where Marshall met with 60 Anglo-American correspondents in Algiers) as an indication that Marshall had significant intellectual gravitas, and so incompetency was not the more likely explanation:
McCarthy then points out how "interesting" it was when Marshall, when he testified on what he was doing the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked, was unable to remember accurately.
He originally said he had been out riding horseback and thus could not be contacted. Then, he said his memory had been refreshed, and he had been having breakfast with his wife. Then, an excerpt was published in a book from the diary of a well known Soviet Aviator named Litvinoff who flew from Russia to the United States, in which he stated that he met with Marshall at the airport that morning.
The upshot of this is that Marshall made decision after decision after decision in the war that benefited the Soviets, and then after the war, made the same series of decisions that benefited the Communist Chinese in their goal to conquer China.
He was a political appointee to rank, under the auspices and guidance of Eleanor Roosevelt. This is significant in my eyes, given the path of Marshall's military career.
He served in the first WW on General Pershing's staff and became good friends with him. After the war, his career languished, and in 1933, he looked up Pershing and asked him to intercede on his behalf
I never liked this.
Marshall went the political route, and Pershing tried to help him.
General Douglas MacArthur, who was Chief of Staff of the Army at that time, was willing, but said he thought that Marshall should go through the channels which he thought he should easily be able to do. To assist him in this and grease his path, MacArthur gave him command of the Eighth Regiment in Georgia, which was the finest unit in the army.
It was a plum assignment. Marshall botched it so badly, that the Eighth Regiment went, in one year, from the best in the country to one of the worst. MacArthur said he couldn't promote him.
Then, six years later, after then-Colonel Marshall had been relieved of command of the Eighth Regiment (for taking them from First to Worst) he was promoted over the heads of 20 Major Generals and 14 Senior Brigadiers.
A political appointee due to his time running a large CCC camp (not even the Army!) where he got exposure the civilian side of the government, and found that there were other ways to flag rank without the aid of the Army.
His guiding patrons were Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. That tells me something.
Then, if you look at his conduct during the war and how he worked with Hopkins to manipulate Roosevelt away from any Mediterranean operations which would have caused Europe and the Balkans to be split with the allies instead of allowing the Soviets to swallow those areas whole...which they did.
In my opinion, there is too much smoke for there not to be fire in this man regarding his actions on behalf of communist countries. This was a difficult pill for me to swallow (and likely, for many of you given Marshall's nearly God-like status granted him) but take it for what it is worth.
Very interesting!