Air University Review, September-October 1983

The Diversity of Leadership

Several recent books have added to our understanding of American military leadership. These include Leonard Mosley’s Marshall: Hero for Our Times, William S. McFeely’s Grant: A Biography, Fred I. Greenstein’s The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader, Richard Nixon’s Leaders, and Alanbrooke by David Fraser.* Greenstein’s book covers Eisenhower’s political career rather than his military leadership, but it does cite some startling paradoxes in Dwight Eisenhower’s character. In one chapter, Nixon discusses Douglas MacArthur and gives perspective to his complexities and achievements. Fraser’s book focuses on Lord Alanbrooke but also adds some material on Dwight Eisenhower. When these five volumes are added to prior works on American military leadership, an intriguing picture emerges. These earlier works include William Manchester’s American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, Douglas S. Freeman’s Lee, and Edgar F. Puryear, Jr.’s, Nineteen Stars.**

*Leonard Mosley, Marshall: Hero for Our Times (New York: Hearst Books, 1982, $19.00), 570 pages.

William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1981, $19.95), 592 pages.

Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1982, $16.95), 286 pages.

Richard Nixon, Leaders (New York: Warner Books, 1982, $17.50), 371 pages.

David Fraser, Alanbrooke (New York: Atheneum, 1982, $19.95), 604 pages.

**William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1978, $15.00), 960 pages.

Douglas S. Freeman, Lee, Abridged edition by Richard Harwell (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), 601 pages.

Edgar F. Puryear, Jr., Nineteen Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership (Novato, California: Presido Press, 1971, $8.95), 437 pages.

A major characteristic of successful field commanders was their savagery, their lust for battle. In a society saturated by liberal TV values, this quality may not be appreciated. Nonetheless, a field commander must have this lust for war to survive the ordeal and win. General Ulysses S. Grant displayed this quality prominently. For example, he laid siege to Vicksburg and starved and shelled his opponents into unconditional surrender. Despite terrible losses at Bloody Angle in Spotsylvania and at Cold Harbor, Grant continued his attack in Virginia at Petersburg and Richmond. Unlike Hooker at Chancellorsville, Grant did not retreat after defeat and relatively heavy casualties. When he was stymied at Petersburg and Richmond, Grant sent General Sherman on a rampage to Atlanta and Sheridan into the Shenandoah Valley. On 7 August 1864, he congratulated Sherman with a strong message of approval for his campaign: "Your progress . . .  has received the universal commendation of all loyal citizens as well as of the President . . ." (McFeely, p. 180) Grant instructed General Sheridan to follow the enemy "to the death" and produce a "barren waste" in the Shenandoah Valley. (Ibid.) Grant stated that whenever any of Mosby’s raiders were caught, they were to be hanged without a trial. Grant rejected Lincoln’s suggestion that he and Lee agree not to burn farms and towns. Grant told General Thomas that if General Hood retreated, he should continue to attack Hood and "give him no peace." (Ibid., p. 193) This last phrase perhaps best catches the spirit of Grant’s relentless attack and hostility toward his enemy. When he felt that he needed more troops, he wanted convalescents to be cleared out of military hospitals and sent to the front. Lee, on the other hand, did not terrorize the North in his two invasions that culminated at Antietam and Gettysburg nor did he loot and burn the towns (Harpers Ferry, Frederick, York, and Gettysburg) and farms in his path. He even instructed his men to pay farmers for provisions (in Confederate money). Lee was a relatively humane field commander, and this may be one of several reasons why he lost. A comparison of Grant and Lee suggests that Lee should have shed his gentleman-like behavior on the battlefield.

General George Patton sought to stir up hatred in his troops. He constantly gave speeches to his soldiers in order to work them to a pitch. Two quotations from Puryear’s Nineteen Stars give the tenor of the mood Patton sought to convey. In 1942, he stated:

And where we can do the most good is where we can fight those damn Germans or those yellow-bellied Eyetalians, And when we do, by God, we’re going to go right in and kill the dirty bastards. We won’t just shoot the sonabitches. We’re going to cut out their living guts—and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. (p. 245)

He described war to his troops thus:

War is a killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they’ll spill yours. Rip ‘em up the belly, or shoot ‘em in the guts. (p. 248)

The objection might be raised that Eisenhower was a good field commander but, unlike Patton, was not known for his savagery. However, Eisenhower achieved distinction as Supreme Commander by skillfully handling temperamental generals from widely divergent backgrounds. According to Lord Alanbrooke, Eisenhower as a field commander had considerable difficulty in coordinating his attacks in North Africa and was promoted upstairs where he could handle political problems. (Fraser, pp. 315 and 323-24) Alanbrooke and General Montgomery were highly critical of Eisenhower’s strategy in Western Europe, when the latter went into the field again. (Ibid., pp. 454-67) They believed that Eisenhower failed to concentrate his forces and allocate sufficient reserves to counter the unexpected. These deficiencies, they maintained, made Allied forces vulnerable to the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. Eisenhower’s ability as a field commander is therefore open to question.

A second main characteristic common to these military leaders was their flexibility, their ability to adapt. Lee’s background and experience in the Army was that of an engineer. By the time of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee had become a master of both strategy and tactics. (Freeman, p. 303) He was able to survive physically four years of warfare in his late fifties during which he lived on a horse or in a tent. He had emotional resilience that permitted him to continue fighting effectively, even after the disaster of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg and the horror of the Battle of the Wilderness (May 1864).

General MacArthur was anything but the rigid stereotype of a bygone era, as the popular press has implied in recent years. When he became superintendent at West Point, he sought to broaden the offerings in the humanities and add social sciences to the curriculum. He called for officers who understood human feelings. When World War II began, MacArthur did not understand the uses of air power, but he soon learned to utilize this resource. Unlike the leaders of the Marine Corps, he had not participated in the development of amphibious warfare doctrine before the Second War. Nonetheless, he mastered this technique and made eighty-seven amphibious landings in the South Pacific. (Manchester, p. 322) His Inchon landing during the Korean War may be studied in the future as one of the classics of amphibious warfare. MacArthur had seen the bloodletting of frontal assault during World War I, and he shifted to an indirect strategy in the South Pacific. He simply bypassed such strongholds as Rabaul and seized relatively weak islands. He constructed airstrips on the latter and used air attacks to neutralize the strongly fortified islands. MacArthur considered the frontal assaults of the Central Pacific to be a waste of lives. He appreciated the mobility of Genghis Khan.

Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, the main proponent of indirect strategy, had deep respect for MacArthur’s strategy. (Manchester, p. 322) Lord Alanbrooke, never one to heap praise on American commanders, had the highest regard for MacArthur’s strategy and visited the general in Japan after the war. (Fraser, p. 507) MacArthur had never been a political leader before 1945, but he ruled Japan so capably that the Japanese people came to regard him with awe. He achieved a land reform bill so that by 1950, ninety percent of the farm land in Japan was owned by farmers themselves. (Nixon, p. 115) He gave women the right to vote; consequently, 39 women were elected to the Diet in 1946. (Ibid., p. 116) He established unions, and this may be one factor that has kept the Japanese Communists relatively weak. He was ordered to conduct limited war in Korea and quickly recognized that the American people would not accept this concept. In the next decade the American political leadership required another limited war, this time in Vietnam; it was a wrenching trauma domestically, to learn what MacArthur had recognized immediately. MacArthur could adapt—he could seize a new weapon, grasp the essence of a new situation (e.g., political leadership), or apply an old concept (mobility) to a new situation, and achieve maximum results. He may have given the impression of unbending rigidity in his dispute with President Truman, but flexibility was a theme that ran throughout his career.

A third characteristic of the more successful American military leaders is an ability to perceive the whole. Grant was able to grasp the whole of the Civil War. He did not use charts and pins to perceive the whole. He simply thought in terms of the whole. An example can be found in his orders of September 26th and 27th, 1864. On those two days, he sent clear, concise orders and information to Generals Sheridan, Sherman, Butler, Halleck, and Meade. (McFeely, pp. 186-87) He knew what had to be done in each sector of the total effort. General George C. Marshall demanded and got good briefers, officers who enabled him to see a world war in its various theaters of operation. (Mosley, pp. 270-71) He listened to everything that occurred—from a minor raid to the latest information on German strategic moves. One of MacArthur’s main problems may have been his inability to see the whole of American interests. For example, in the congressional hearings after his dismissal in Korea, MacArthur made recommendations concerning the global policies of the United States but admitted that he was not acquainted with the European studies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Manchester, p. 801) Nevertheless, he had been quite able to perceive the whole of his theater in the Southwest Pacific during World War II.

A fourth characteristic of American military leaders emerges, but it applies specifically to field commanders. Successful field commanders were able to control the generals who fought under their command. Grant did not tolerate insubordination from his generals; he relieved General John McClernand for insubordination. When Grant went to Tennessee, he refused to go to see General Hooker; Grant stated very clearly that if Hooker wanted to see him, Hooker could come to him. Thus he quickly established the position of ascendancy over his generals. In Virginia, Grant withheld authority from Meade. He wrote to Secretary of War Stanton that if General William Rosecrans did not attack, he should be arrested (unless the President would agree to his being relieved). (McFeely, p. 187) Grant refused to allow General John Thomas to go into winter quarters after the victory at Nashville. There was no doubt among Grant’s subordinate generals as to the locus of authority.

Lee, on the contrary, failed to control the obstreperous General James Longstreet. Longstreet had insisted before the invasion of the North to Gettysburg that the campaign was to be offensive in strategy, but defensive in tactics. Lee failed to remind him bluntly who was chief. (Freeman, p. 308) On 2 July 1863, Longstreet delayed the attack at Gettysburg until Lee rode over to his forces. Lee should have placed him under military arrest at that moment. On 3 July 1863, Longstreet argued against attacking Meade, and so Lee was left with the alternative of having Pickett make his ill-fated charge. After this disaster, Lee still failed to remove Longstreet. After he surrendered at Appomattox, Lee told Longstreet: "My interest and affection for you will never cease." (Freeman, p. 498) Surely such noble sentiments would not have come from Grant for a disobedient general.

During training exercises in California in 1941, Patton let his officers know exactly who was their commander. He trained his officers and troops in temperatures averaging 120°. At the end of the day, he forced his officers to run a mile, while he himself ran a mile and a quarter. (Puryear, p. 253) He ordered his officers to paint their rank insignia on their helmets, despite their objections that this made them targets for snipers. In one incident, he relieved a commander for going around a town instead of through it. He watched medical reports, and if a unit had excessive cases of trench foot, Patton relieved its commanding officer. There could be no doubt in the Third Army about who was the top commander. One can debate whether Eisenhower was actually able to control Montgomery, and one can also argue whether Eisenhower was a first-rate field commander.

A final characteristic to be noted among American military leaders is the complexity of their personalities. In May 1861, Grant was a quiet clerk in a hardware store in Galena, Illinois. People talked of his "vacant expression" as he walked to and from work each day. (McFeely, p. 66) In 1863, Lincoln was in danger of being replaced as the Republican candidate in the 1864 election, and Grant was being discussed as a possible replacement. In December 1863, Grant announced publicly that he would not be a candidate in 1864, since his first business was to crush the rebellion. In two and one-half years, Grant went from a depressed hardware clerk to a famous general and possible presidential candidate. Surely, this is one of the strangest stories in American history. As a general, Grant was politically shrewd. He first visited the White House without his wife, who would probably have aroused the jealousy of Mary Lincoln. He knew the importance of Sherman’s victory for the Republican Party in 1864 and described the occupation of Atlanta as a "political campaign." (McFeely, p. 188) At the end of the war, he had Lincoln at his side in City Point, Virginia. When Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, Grant tried to get Lee’s help in dissolving the Confederacy. However, when he became President, Grant’s political naiveté contributed to a presidency marred by its corruption.

Lee’s personality is obscured by Freeman, who gushed about this gallant Southern gentleman. Freeman could describe the War Between the States with a calm objectivity, but when he turned to the subject of the Southern gentleman (Lee), all proportion broke down, and he presented a one-sided, stilted version of a person about whom we would like to know more.

Patton was by no means the single-minded warrior presented to the public by journalists during the war years. Patton was able to use his neuroses to lead men to victory. He was an exhibitionist. His clothes were specially tailored and had brass buttons. He wore pink riding breeches and two pearl-handled pistols, each decorated with four stars. He had his helmet shellacked and stars had been painted on it. When he came to inspect a unit, his arrival was announced by a siren or a multiple tone French horn. (Puryear, p. 250) But he used his problem (exhibitionism) to lead an army. He stated that troops fight for hero worship and a desire for glory. Patton made himself that hero to the advantage of his country. Whatever his emotional constellation may have been, he sublimated it in the interests of leading troops for the defense of his country. The ability to sublimate indicates a complexity in the personality of a man otherwise thought to be childlike in his simplicity.

General Marshall had a "sixth sense," an intuitive grasp that enabled him to select outstanding leaders (e.g., Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton). He may not have appreciated MacArthur as a person, but he recognized his ability. Consequently, he urged President Roosevelt to order MacArthur to leave for Australia to lead the Allied forces. On 7 December 1941, Marshall’s competence could be questioned. When he finally realized the importance of the intercepted Japanese messages and ordered a warning sent to Pacific commands, the Army signal service between Washington and Honolulu had broken down. A subordinate used the ordinary commercial cable system to inform Pearl Harbor, and the telegram arrived after the Japanese attack. Marshall should have made sure that the message got through on time and not relied on the word of Colonel Bratton that "everything was in order." (Mosley, p. 182) Or he could have called Pearl Harbor by phone, despite the danger of interception. His exceptional performance during the war as chief of staff cannot be doubted. His performance in the postwar era as secretary of state was exceptional. The Marshall Plan, for example, was a major factor in keeping the Communists from seizing power in France and Italy. Marshall appeared placid but was a bundle of contradictions.

Fred Greenstein’s work on Eisenhower’s presidency shows the enormous divergence between the "public Eisenhower" and the "private Eisenhower." His public self was that of a golfer, but he worked constantly. He appeared to be amiable and good-natured, but in private he was cold, determined, and had problems controlling his temper. He claimed that he was not a politician, but he knew how to make the government function in a highly effective manner. He prevented crises, so the intellectuals saw his presidency as dull. Only recently have scholars begun to value the political leadership of Dwight Eisenhower.

MacArthur was certainly a complex man. Under President Hoover, he had led the expulsion of the veterans who marched on Washington for a bonus during the depression. His speeches on his return to the United States after his sojourn in Korea sound like the outpouring of the most dogmatic reactionary. His rule of Japan, however, was remarkable for its liberal reform. In World War I, he was a fighter who showed no fear of battle. Yet when he was informed of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at 3:40 A.M. on 7 December 1941, he did not order the American air force at Clark Field to attack Japanese troop ships. This air force was consequently destroyed, largely on the ground, by a Japanese attack somewhere between 12:10 and 12:35 P.M. the same day. (Manchester, p. 237) How can his inability to react immediately to the Japanese attack be explained except by paralyzing fear?

None of the authors considered in this review were able to explain the complexity of these military leaders. In no instance was an author able to clarify how various causative factors interacted to produce a military leader. Somehow, these military leaders appear to have had inborn qualities that cannot be explained by reference to their early backgrounds or training or experience. They were extraordinary men, contradictory, and in some undefinable way set apart from their contemporaries.

In summary, these American military leaders showed several salient characteristics: savagery, adaptability, an ability to perceive the whole, an ability to control their subordinates, and complexity of personality.

Gallaudet College
Washington, D.C.

Kenneth J. Campbell (A.B., Kenyon College; M.A., Johns Hopkins University; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Maryland) is associate professor at Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C., and president of Strategic Power Analysis Corporation. Dr. Campbell served on the faculty at University College of the University of Maryland from 1961 to 1981. He has published articles in the Foreign Intelligence Literary Scene and The Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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