Assumed a societal last that long from which it will come its like we can be happy that same stupid argument over the same shit forever and ever. But anyway, thanks everyone for coming. Of course, we will be happy to sign your numerous copies of our books that you were buying. Some of the books that wall street journal recommends. Book tv covered many of the authors and you can watch on our website booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] well, good afternoon, my name is bill legget on behalf of the stores owners, welcome to the store. Its a pleasure to have you here and a pleasure to hear winston, the winning of world war ii. Mr. Groom will answer questions. Its great to welcome winston where he worked as a reporter and washington star. Hes an author of both fiction and nonfiction, summers die, forest g you recollect mp and tonights book the generals. Another gift is his style which makes his work informative and a page turner, so please welcome winston groom. [applause] first, i would like to thank everybody coming out to hear me in this lovely day in washington, d. C. I have been on a book tour for a couple of weeks now. I learned something about what people want to know. One of the first questions that im usually asked is why did you choose these three men and my answer is they embodied, i believe, supercharacteristics of courage, patriotism, which seemed to be traits that are on the wing somewhat today, but i dont think we are going to find out if thats a problem until we god forbid have another big war. The second question is pertinent, people have asked, what do you think these three generals would do today in the face of the enemies we are looking at, these unfortunate attacks on france last night, im going to say, i dont know what they would do but i think what they would do is they would assemble a reinforced mechanize ed division of which they are about half a dozen in this country at the present, drawing and they would take them over to where thesis is people are and these people about 1520,000 of the best trained, the toughest, wellarmed and meanest in the planet. They would go to the isis people in about a week. As general pattent said, light through a goose. [laughter] the todays generals would not have the authority to do this deed. It would have to come from the administration and i dont know what is going to happen with this administration visavis the isis people, but i can tell like anybody with a brain can tell that they are very dangerous. Right now they are either occupying or seeking to occupy several countries in the middle east and with all of those countries assets and resources including oil, banks, they consolidate have the ability to purchase very dangerous weapons of mass destruction, and sooner or later they are going to have to be dealt with. With that in mind, lets continue. These three guys, marshall, patton and macarthur, they served in the phillipines before the turn of the century and after the turn of the century in the Mexican Border until the war came along. Marshall was a terrific organizer, always was and always had been. He became general chief of staff, General Macarthur was a kernel and then became a general. Got his first star. General patton became involved in tanks, but he lead an enormous tank attack. General macarthur, lets go back, after the First World War became the superintent of superintendent. He resigned to become in the field army at the behest of the president because the flip knows were worried about the japanese. Macarthur said that he would assemble an army. Well, it ran out of time. General marshall continued with his terrific organizing skills. He didnt have to stay in the army. He was offered a job by banking, jpmorgan. Vice president , he would have been millions of dollars, but he was a soldier and thats what he was trained to do and thats what he did. So he turned them down. Neither was general patton necessary for him to stay in the army because he was the richest man in the army. He would go to military bases as a young lieutenant or captain with a stream of ponies and a yacht and his fellow officers didnt he actually participated in the olympics in sweden which came from the old greek olympics, its a marshall event. You have about half a dozen Different Things that you do and in the old greek version they actually kill one another, but in the new version they set it up to be as though you were military and had to ride and shoot and sword fight and you had to swim and you had to shoot a pistol and patton at that point was a captain and he was very good at all of these things because he was the best horsemen in the army and he was one of the best shots in the army and he was the best swordsman in the army. They design it had new v calvary. And he knew how to swim because his family owned it. [laughter] each of these men had to live up to something and their family, their fathers usually. General macauthors father became the commanding general of the army, but in macarthurs youth he was still a young captain and posted on this military forts out in the west where they were still fighting the indians and macarthur remembers seeing flaming arrows coming across the walls of these forests. He learned to write and shoot before i learn today read and write. And marshalls father, they were from pennsylvania and his dad was a very successful businessman until his business failed and theres no way really telling but my suspicion that marshall was such a great organizer because he was trying to live up to not failing as his father had done. He was a superb at organizing. He had gone to vmi and he missed all the wars that we fought, but pattons grandfather had been a confederate general who was killed in one of the last battles of the war. Patton had grown up with stories about him, about his grandfather and he always wanted he wanted to be a soldier from almost the day he was born for some reason, and he was always nervous that he wouldnt live up to the bravery of ancestors. He was always tempting death to find out and prove himself. One day on the battlefield in france in world war i, general patton and macarthur found themselves talk to go each other right in the middle of the fight where all the men were crouched down in fox holes, they continued the conversation as patton later wrote to each other, neither one wanted to be the first one to say, get down. [laughter] that was the kind of stuff that these guys were made of. Back often, in fact, was said to be perfectly oblivious death. He was standing in the battlefield trying to find out what was going on. He was medical mortified to lea. Macarthur had not only had a phillipines army and American Army. President roosevelt ordered General Macarthur to leave the phillipines. Was taken later to australia where he became the commander in chief of the southwest pacific area, and he made a vow through the press, i shall return, which quickly became with dark days of the war it became the iconic slogan of all the americans because they heard this and this was something that they wanted to do. I shall return was written on coffee cups and bottom of ashtrays and cigarette trays and walls and trains, i shall return and return he did. It took him three years. The japanese had had years to occupy numerous islands and there are numerous islands in that part of the pacific but rather than take every one of them he would simply what did he call it, bypassing and he leads the japanese wither on the vine and saved a lot of men. When he finally landed back in the phillipines in 1944 on an island, he almost lost that fight because admiral who was the Navy Commander of big battleship, decoyed up a hundred miles out of the wave by a japanese trick. They took a bunch of their carriers that didnt have any planes on them and sent them up as a sacrificial lamb and General Macarthur at this point had been on the beaches for about three days, and all of his transport, ammunition and certainly the entire fleet appeared. They had come to the streets of San Bernardino where admiral was supposed to have been but they came through and fortunately, and im writing about this in my next book, its called generals. This was a Small Task Force of aircraft carriers, maybe a half or even less the size of the big aircraft carriers and basically no armor, they were escorted by three u. S. Destroyers which are basically like a yacht or something. This huge japanese was consistent of five battleships. Two of them were the battleships with 18inch guns and certainly better armored and they suddenly appeared to this aircraft carriers, escort aircraft carriers commanded by the commander ziggy and someone report today ziggy that they could see about 20 miles away, they had telescopes. Hahs got to be admiral hazy. Well, no, its not admiral hazy, its the japanese. Take another look. And the plane radioed back, sir, theyre shooting at me. I know its the japanese. They have a big red sun on the flag. Well, everybody went into a grand panic. They begged him to come back. He was engaged in the aircraft carriers. He was reluctant to do so. To make a long story, which i will, this little group of six destroyers and destroy escorts and aircraft escort carriers held off the entire japanese surface fleet. The only thing i can compare it is a High School Team beating the dallas cowboys. They sanked most of the destroyers ultimately but they launched torpedos on them and the aircraft, they werent prepared for this, they said they would launch them anyway because if they sanked, they would lose the planes. They would go straight for the enormous battleship, machine bullets, then they would go when they ran on machine guns, they would make dummies. It slowed them down enough where finally after about three hours of this, the japanese commander, so reorganized, that was the original plan, so when he finally got all the ships together, he discovered that about 13 of them had been sunked. She went back to San Bernardino and General Macarthur proceeded on the mission. They would have sunk all of the supplies and equipment and murdered everything on the beach head. They can shoot 2530 miles, and they had bullets the size of a fullgroan hog. Anyway, in the meantime, back to the story, general patton like General Macarthur was begin to go win his battles in island campaign, patton took command on the invasion of north africa where he landed in morocco and the enemy there was not the germans or italians at that point it was the french, the french army that was being commanded by the puppet government in france in the city of beachy. And the question was were they going to fight, well, they did fight. Well, stay started shooting and so forth, macarthurs troops on shore, he sent a message to the french commander in casa blanca. If you dont surrender this city at 5 00 oclock this afternoon, we are going to have it destroyed. They saw crew ships, battleships. They could have leveled that city in about half an hour and so they surrendered. And patton was successful. He then conquered sicily before going onto england. There he commanded an army and this was because of the infamiliarous infamous slapping and general patton did not believe in combat fatigue. He jerked a soldier up. This was reported by the hospital doctors and eisenhower found out about it. He didnt do anything, put a letter in the file. And then the press got a hold of it that general patton had been slapping the soldiers, thats violation of military law among other things and a rude thing to do, if youre a general to slap a private. Here is general marshall comes in, general patton, macarthur has enormous egos. He wanted appoint himself the most dreamedup job to be commander. He wanted very much to do but president roosevelt asked him to stay in washington because he felt like he was a calming influence, so to speak, on the usual tensions between the army and navy and what later became the air force, and so general marshall, yes, sir, ill stay here. He appointed general eisenhower. But at the same time general marshall realized that he had two very temperamental people. General mcarthur was making unkind statements about washington and the general staff in the pacific because he felt that he wasnt getting the right kind of support and supplies. In fact, he wasnt. President roosevelt and churchill came to an agreement, we will send most of the stuff to allies, british, russians and so on. General macarthur was getting the short end of the stick and he didnt like it. He began to talk to the press about it. He looked at all this and he kept eisenhower from firing pat patton. The war had been won anyway, i suspect, but they shortened the war which saved a heck of a lot of lives. Every day that they put into the meat grinder 2,000 men. In any case, they everybody knows. Yall probably have seen the movies and you know what happens in the story, but in france they finally unleashed general patton away from his dumby army. They gave him a real army. They were stuck in normandy and get into the open to run, which he said, and he first came where he eliminated. We were given supplies such as gasoline. And so general patton characterized as rocksoup strategy. Let me explain the rocksoup strategy first. The depression, the poor people would go back through the back stores and they would knock on the door and they would have a cup of water with rock in it, the guy will say to the lady, im trying to make a rock soup, i wonder if you have onion or celery and she would feel sorry for having him eat rocks. He would go back and say, maam, i hate to ask you this but you have a potatoes, peelings of potatoes and she would say, yes, i have that. Maam, it sure would be nice to have a fat piece of meat. General eisenhower had ordered they were not employed nazis in any kind of important positions. General patton disobeyed his order. Order. He did it he said because he was worried about the welfare of the bulgarian people because theyre the big winter coming on, a big shortage of everything, especially firewood, food, things like that and the nazis knew how to get things done. He didnt think some of the nazis were bad because some of them had to be nazis. If you had to own the store and do i not see you couldnt own the store. That was his rationale right or wrong. Some unfriendly press Corps Members ferreted this out. They had an unpleasant press conference, virtually they got patton to admit this. Eisenhower finally gave them the excuse he wanted. In he didnt fire pat like the newspaper said. He would leave one arm indicating command of another army, which is essentially a playground but he was going home anyway, patton was. Unfortunately, a few days before he was return home he was going pheasant hunting. There was another general, a big Army Cadillac staff cars, and the driver left, with over the rover tracks and there was a line of trucks coming the other way. One of them. Over to the lane and hit the left hand side of that car and nobody was hurt, but general patton who was pushed forward and struck his head on a steel object between the driver and the people in the back. It paralyzed in and paralyzed him to such an extent that he was doomed. But the army immediately sent a top neurosurgeon, that he was getting rid of his christmas dinner at the United States. The next day he was with general patton. General patton was perfectly clear in his head, he suspected what was going, his state, but they gave him a ration of scotch every day, like johnny walker. His wife was flown over at the same time. The surgeon looked at the xrays and then he went to examine general patton and general patton said welcome what you think is going to happen to me . He said, dont know. You have survived a long time with this kind of injury. He said why be able to ride a horse again . The surgeon said no, sir. Patented thank you for that. Within a week i think he ultimately passed away. The are some recently, all these rumors about it was as fascinated. Nonsense. He died in an accident is buried in the Army Cemetery in luxembourg. Will general marshall, i think his career after the war indicates that being an army officer, very poor army officer doesnt prepare you for civilian work. It all started out well enough. There was the marshall plan. Marshall saw that europe was, the country was simply unable to function, no trade, a very big danger the army was going to move in and take over. He talked to the administration. At that point it was the truman administration. And congress because he is such a towering figure that he made it on political. He went to congress and asked for unlimited amounts of money to pull these countries through their tribulations, their financial worries. This was granted and it was done and it was one of the finest things this country has ever done. We didnt have to do it because this was done on the backs of the u. S. Taxpayers. But after that general marshals career, it seemed to me, was not as a sterling as a might of he became secretary of state. He was too trusting of the russians and Chinese Communist because working with the russians, soviet union all during the second world war. We were all allies of course and we cooperate with each other. I didnt realize that once the war was over and the soviet union was safe that they were not going to cooperate with us anymore. Just like putting a covert and a mongoose in the same cage and expecting different results. They simply begin he began a year in, general marshall did come and china trying to sort out the differences between mao zedong was the communist leader and shanghai check who was the generalissimo and he felt completely because he again tried to get them together to work together, and he wasnt going to do it. And so he came up and he said i failed. So the secretary of state, they made secretary of defense. He was quite a gentleman. One of the nicest people. I didnt meet him but i read enough about it. He was a fine man. For the five years after the war revitalized Japan Occupation command and turned it into an industrial, friendly, civilized nation. And for the first time they became a democracy and held their first elections. Earning his first election there was discovered a prostitute had been selected as the represented to diet or are there, what if you call it. They were chagrined by this and admit macarthur explained it to them, what should he do. Macarthur reacted, how many votes did she get the . They told him, i think it was 250,000. Well, she must be doing something right. But all good things come to an end and the korean war develop in 1950. The North Koreans, the North Koreans attacked the South Koreans and we pledge to defend the South Koreans. Macarthur publicly he had up there, which was a very much. We disbanded our army pretty much, army and navy, but he managed to blowback the time it is and then get himself in an argument with president truman over how far back he should throw the commies. Whether he should stop summer. President truman working negotiate. General macarthur was not a really good negotiator. He was going to win the war, and so president truman issued an edict at some point that military officer would not make statements publicly until they cleared it with the white house. Macarthur almost suicidal. He said and he went to the press and he very publicly said, not going to go with anybody to the Chinese People that if they dont surrender to him within one week hes going to destroy them. And this may president truman very angry because he was trying to get people down to the table. In any case he fired General Macarthur. The sentiment at home was all from macarthur. He was brought back to enormous receptions your halfmillion, quarter Million People met him and ticker tape parade in new york city and he addressed both houses of congress with such a stirring, emotional speech because the old soldiers never die speech, they just fade away. There was not a dry eye on the democrat side, or dry seat on the republican side. [laughter] General Macarthur lived long into his 80s. He lived at the waldorf astoria. He went to play some of going to movies. He was always a big movie fan. Year before his death, two years before his death, he was asked to make a speech at the United States military academy at west point. He agreed to do it. And it is worth repeating verbatim here, he told them that war was an abomination. It goe was up to him he would abolish war. But then he quoted plato who would written, he had seen the end of war. And then he said, the shadows are lengthening for me, a that twilight is near. I listened vainly but the witching melody bugles blowing up faraway drums beating. In my dreams i hear again the clash of guns, the rattle of musketry, strange sounds of the battlefield. But an evening of my memories always i come back to west point, always the echoes, in my ears, duty, honor, country. Today, marks my final roll call to you but i want you to know that when i crossed the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the core and the core and the core. Two years later he was gone. He was the last one. And thats my speech. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. [inaudible] eisenhower or bradley. Did you find that in to be more of speech issue thats a good question, great question. The book i read, the last book i will withhold the aviators aviators and it was about three guys in the tower of aviation in the 20th century. 80 rickenbacker who is a top air base, Jimmy Doolittle who conducted the famous air raid on tokyo in japan and who else, i forget. Anyway, oh, charles lindbergh. But i found three people come if you write about more than three people its hard on the reader and the writer. And for some reason there were a lot of books thats been out in the last few years of with two people, roosevelt and churchill, Something Like that. But up the ante. Site to select the three. Obviously, i wanted somebody in the Pacific Theater and, obviously, that was General Macarthur. I look at your. I want a fighting general. That would be general patton. Eisenhower is all over the book because they were great friends before the war. They live next door to each other on several army posts, played poker and drank whiskey together. I just thought you i sound was too far away from the action. General patton also was by far the most colorful character. I wanted somebody in between. That would be general marshall, because he was trying very hard to keep both of those guys from imploding before the war was over. And i wanted somebody who was back at the level of high staff because that gives the reader a better idea of what was going on in the big picture. Thats it. My question was, i know in recent years that has been reevaluated i know that many people who think that perhaps what is very popular general he may not have been as good a general as previously has been suggested. In your view, how did he rate amongst his peers in the American Army . Was he the best tank general we have or is that perhaps not quite yeah, i mean, i think he was. He had some very fine tank generals under him, but in Army Hierarchy they dont just grab a guy and put him in command, giving four stars. Thats not the way the army function. It probably ought to function that way but it doesnt. And patton of all those guys, he was completely charismatic to his troops. Even when its slapping incident became known, they love general general eisenhower had ordered him, when the slapping incident came out, to apologize to the people who slapped him to the doctors and hospital personally. And also personally to every division in his army, you know, one brigade at a time. And he did that. It was humiliating for him but he did it. He went to a couple of brigades and these guys come he start to apologize and they said no, general, no. So they really, his troops, to be in a third army under general patton was quite an honor to most of these people, at least from what i agree. Could read. Im sure theres somebody who didnt like it. I think the people all liked him and his peers like and. They all seemed to get along. Did not answer it . Good. In like father like son you had macarthurs father being can you explain the impact it wouldve had on the general . Second with regard to marshall in the 50s, joe mccarthy started going after him and president eisenhower was accused of not defending him. Could you talk about that . Well, let me see, weve got General Macarthur and his father. Yeah, i think macarthur to like you to live up to his father. He loved his father. His father at one point was a command in the philippines and he took his young lieutenants im fresh out of west point to the philippines and from the philippines it took them on an entire tour of the far east, including japan within that the emperor. So he worshiped his father. As well as his father he wanted he won the medal of honor. It was given to him really because roosevelt was afraid when he ordered them off of the philippines that he would be accused by some people of deserting his troops. And so giving the man and medal of honor was meant to rebut the. What was the other question . Oh, yeah. Senator mccarthy, well, that wasnt just senator mccarthy. The people of this country were very disturbed at what was going on in china especially. And the question they became who lost china . Well, marshall was over there. He was supposed to save china but he didnt. He wasnt able to. I dont know if anybody was able to. We might have instead of trying to get the comments and the other people to negotiate, give arms to Chang Kaishek and supporting militarily, but we were in no position after world war ii, me, this country wasnt prostate but we were more we. So that the station was made at the highest levels. And marshall concurred with it. Been mccarthy was a witch hunter as most people know. I did know them personally. Ive read a lot about him. He decided to go after general marshall with a lengthy, almost a book like speech. It was about 70 pages i think, that he made on the senate floor. Accusing general marshall everything under the sun, including probably baby stealing. Just the most wild accusation kind of thing that would be unprovable. But i do think that in the end he had something to the point that general marshall fail to appreciate the nature o of the enemy he was dealing with. I dont think that he really believed, although he was told, that the russians, the soviet communism are very much a supporting mao zedong. And general marshall didnt leave it. He was told that by two or three generals under him. But it was we fail all the time. But i dont know if that cant go anywhere . Thank you. [inaudible] user patton drove his troops too hard, many suffered from exhaustion and casualties were higher than they should object bands they shouldve been. I wonder if you comment on thats because i dont know. I have not seen any information on that. Ive read a great deal about him in both primary and secondary sources. General patton, of course he drove his troops. They had an emergency of the. You had a whole division surrounded by several german divisions were threatening to annihilate them and general patton was prepared to move there with his tanks. It was freezing cold. Thats always hard, but he trained the troops and expected them to be able to do it. They did it. Spinning you promised to do in 48 hours, he shouldve taken over more time. Thats probably true but who knows how long it would take the germans to finish them off. What they were facing was right there, the weather was so bad that we couldnt get her airpower in. Had we been able to do that, get airpower in there, that would not have been such an emergency. But the germans had chosen a time period in which they are whether people are forecast would be overcast for like a week and a half. It turned out now i think that day, either on or the day after general patton arrived on the scene within army, the skies cleared. Airplanes can bring a lot of help with tanks. We do that. Everybody is entitled to his opinion and i think he was a terrific writer, but again its kind of secondguessing. Although he may have supported things come intelligence said we didnt do much but i dont know about that part of it. But i just know that we didnt lose an american infantry division. Thank you. Thank you. In your research, id like to ask about what you thought about the relationship between macarthur and marshall im sorry to . The relationship between General Macarthur and general marshall. My research, you know, when macarthur left his air force on the ground and nine hours advance notice of pearl harbor, marshall had a telephone conversation with him about that. We dont know what was said but he left the him in charge commum is evidence of that marshall of anything against macarthur. Strangely deferential in the korean war with macarthur and i just wonder what you thought about the relationships . I think the relationship considered macarthurs temperament was pretty doggone good. I know that after the Philippine Air force was destroyed, hap arnold, had a conversation with macarthurs era man, it was very unpleasant but marshall, he was such even temperament which is why he rose to the chief of staff to accept chairman of the joint chiefs of staff but he went to visit macarthur maybe twice, once in new guinea and once in one of the islands, and they got along fine. Macarthur though within nasas electricity go get his press corps which actually worked for him and all his unkind things about those guys in washington, meaning general marshall. Of course, that would get back to them pretty quickly. Marshall let it bounce off. He was trying to win the war. Did you run into anything where marshall really made some statement where he felt, expressed anger our contempt with no. Did use it for patton . With the mccarthy. Whether marshall ever expressed anger or contempt against mccarthy speak was ill tell you what he told his chief biographer, and ive got the transcript of all the tapes that general marshall made, gosh, i dont know how many before, within years before he died. And i distinctly remember a line in there where he said to the transcriber, who was i think is, a sergeant who was his aid, it never made a Public Comment against General Macarthur. I expect he knew what he had said so what he thought privately, he went to the grave with. As far as i know but i do remember any reading, it seemed anything where you said anything. Because he didnt want to rile macarthur. He was time to keep the peace. That was his job. Thank you. How are we doing . Thank you all for coming. A great audience. [applause] the book is for sale from. Aligned sale from. The line well be right up there if you want to get your book signed. You can leave your chair where it is. A. Q. For coming. [inaudible conversations] you know, why did i write this book . And america is such a great place and i am so glad that i was born here. You know, i have traveled to 67 Different Countries and gotten to know lots of people in a lot of other ways, but this remains the place that is the land of dreams it and then a lot of people like to criticize our nation and demonize it as it is responsible for a lot of horrible things. And yet i see a lot of people trying to get in your, not a lot of people dont get coverage so im not sure that that really is all that legitimate to be honest with you. But growing up in poverty with a lot of disadvantages, the thing is really great is i was to able to focus on my dream of becoming a doctor it was only the never wanted to you. I skipped right by policemen and firemen and what straight to doctor. You know, i love anything that has to do with medicine. I even liked going to the doctors office. And i would gladly sacrifice the shot just be able to smell the alcohol swabs, you know . It was so cool. You know, on through the whole process where are were a lot of hurdles along the way . Absolutely. Tremendous hurdles along the way. But nevertheless, it was impossible to realize that dream. And i want to make sure that that continues to be the case. One of the reasons that it was possible is because we have a system that did Everything Possible to create fairness, even when there were people in the system who did not want to be there. And thats why it is so important that we must preserve our constitution. Virtually all americans know that we have a constitution, but how many people actually know whats in it . How many people actually know whats behind it . And, of course, it is the mechanism that guarantees our liberties, and that provides the guidelines for the restraint of government here because our founders recognized that it was the natural tendency of government to grow and to invade every aspect of your life and try to control your life. Thats what people do. And thats what they wanted to avoid by doing this. And thats what is so important that we understand it. You know, in 1831, when alexis de tocqueville came to america to study our great country, because the europeans were so flabbergasted that this fledgling nation, barely 50 years old, was already competing with them on virtually every level. He was going to really dissect it and see what was going on. But one of the things that really impressed him was how educated the people were. You know, anybody finishing second grade was completely literate. He could find a mountain man on the outskirts of society, and that i could read the newspaper and could tell him how our government worked. And now a day we dont seem to emphasize civics and things like that in school are