[cameraeye]

I have always felt that was the case. He would have started a war with the “b@stards”(his words) Russians and we would have become a different people because of it.

[runninglips]

He would not have started a war, but he would have been impossible to ignore, along with Macarthur on the subject of partial warfare, political BS. He most assuredly was killed by forces within our own govt.

[PapaBear3625]

I have always felt that was the case. He would have started a war with the “b@stards”(his words) Russians and we would have become a different people because of it.

More to the point, he would have been relentless about the threat of Communism, he would have found out about the extent of Communist infiltration under FDR, and if he spoke out the common people would have listened to him. He was a threat to the Communists in the US, and to the Dem party.

[LS]

If we would have gone to war with the USSR on mainland Europe in 1946, even with atomic bombs, it would have been an absolute disaster. The U.S. public was already incredibly tired of war---look at Ambrose's "Band of Brothers," to see that for the first time European soldiers set to go to the Pacific were "interested in medals" because medals got you points toward getting out. We had capped our infantry at 89 divisions deliberately so that we would outproduce Germany and Japan---but the Soviets could put close to 200 divisions in the field, not counting their recalcitrant allies.

These were not Iranian type "human waves" as were used in Stalingrad, but crack fighting troops that rolled over the Wehrmacht. And they had top equipment because we gave it to them (except for their tanks and artillery, which often used our designs). It would have been a disaster of the first order to send about 80 divisions (allowing for some to police Japan and the Pacific) against 200+.

We didn't have a bomber capable of flying to Moscow and back with atomic bombs (see "Hollow Threat" by USAF Col. Harry Borowski) and only had 100 bombs period by about 1947. When you account for planes shot down---in a-bomb raids you can bet every single Soviet fighter would be up---a-bombs would not have proven tactically useful in an invasion.

Our strat was the right one, as Reagan ultimately showed: box them in, make Communism fail economically, don't give an inch of new ground. Play defense militarily, offense economically and technologically.