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| The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam Hyperion 736 pp.,$35 |
The cold, cold war
David Halberstam's final book – a comprehensive, compelling examination of the Korean War – is one of his best.
from the September 25, 2007 edition
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Halberstam spares no one in his account. He notes the failures of the Truman administration to maintain a capable military in the wake of World War II, a major factor in the early stumbles by American troops during the Korean War.
Red-baiting and McCarthyism wreaked havoc on otherwise sensible men, creating additional pressure to maintain a hard-line stance. Korea itself stood divided, with China's Chairman Mao eyeing an opportunity to exploit vulnerable US troops in the wake of Communist North Korea's plunge across the 38th parallel into South Korea – the move that started the conflict in June 1950.
A panoply of intriguing characters come into sharp focus under Halberstam's gaze, including Mao and President Truman as well as Joseph Stalin, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, military visionary George Marshall, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson.
His comparisons of Douglas MacArthur and Matt Ridgway, the two men who led US forces in Korea, offer a perfect primer on what went wrong – and right – with the American campaign.
Fade to black
The towering showdown between MacArthur and Truman again leaves the once-beloved soldier diminished in stature. Halberstam punctures the aging general's blowhard jingoism and slapdash strategy with devastating detail.
Among the examples cited: MacArthur never spent a single night in Korea.
Instead, he delivered orders from afar at his Tokyo command post. His lone stroke of genius, the surprise attack at Inchon, predicated his precipitous fall from grace. A Time magazine correspondent noted that Inchon proved costly "because it led to the complete deification of MacArthur and the terrible, terrible defeats that happened next."
MacArthur blustered and rewrote history before his adoring press corps for months and months, defying the orders of Truman and the White House all the while. The president compared MacArthur's vainglorious maneuvering to that of Lincoln's disastrous military leader, George McClellan. Finally, Truman fired MacArthur, suffering a short-term publicity backlash but winning the long-term historical debate.
Late in the book, Halberstam skips over large portions of the war's final two years, exhausted, no doubt, by the endless skirmishes over anonymous hills and villages for little to no gain on both sides.
That is a minor quibble in a book filled with insight and marvelous detail. Some of Halberstam's work in recent years smacked of a reporting treadmill, churned out too quickly. With "The Coldest Winter," it is clear that Halberstam invested all of his considerable talents – and energy – without being rushed to meet a publishing deadline.
Stalin's death in 1953 allowed the Chinese to throw off the yoke of Soviet pressure to keep fighting in Korea (Stalin offered no significant military support even as he prodded Mao to sacrifice Chinese soldiers in the name of Communism) and negotiate an end to war with the US.
No one won much of anything, but the ripples and lessons of political and military hubris echo to the present. "The Coldest Winter" is a fitting, warm tribute to the art of reporting, the most appropriate epitaph imaginable for David Halberstam.
In other words, he ranks as one of the best and brightest stars in American journalism with good reason.
• Erik Spanberg is a freelance writer in Charlotte, N.C.
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