This book covers the period 1945-53, the years of the Truman Administration and the formation of our modern military/national security sturcture. Thomas D. Boettcher weaves an interesting story going from Truman's White House office to the trenches in Korea where outnumbered GI's fire their last HEAT round at approaching North Korean T-34/85's. Included in this fine history are heroes, such as George C. Marshall, Arleigh Burke, Hoyt Vandenberg, along with my favorite, Matthew Ridgeway, 'bad guys' like Louis Johnson, Frank "Rowboat" Matthews and of course Joe McCarthy, as well as epic figures like Douglas MacArthur. The author's handling of Harry Truman is balanced. On page 172 he writes, "Truman's . . . personal attitudes and policies had created a highly charged, polarized enviroment - these attitudes and policies being, in particular, the President's distrust of the career military, his dislike for the Navy . . . and his disposition to keep decreasing already austere military budgets while dramatically increasing the roles of the US military services in world affairs." Needless to say that such policies enjoyed broad bipartisan support prior to the fall of China, after which the Republicans attempted to smear Truman. Republican Anti-Communism, which held the party together for so long, started at that time.

At the end of the book however, Boettcher gives Truman his due. Towards the end of 1952 during peace talks in Korea, the President rejected Communist demands that all UN-held prisoners be mandatorilly repatriated, remembering the fate of the Cossacks at the end of World War II. Allowing the exchange would have been a politically expediant decision, but it wouldn't have been Truman. As the author concludes on page 404, "Still the world is a safer place for Truman having been Commander in Chief. Another leader might have been more likely to use atomic bombs to save the Eighth Army back during that terrible winter of 1950. Truman did not and thereby established the most important precedent of the cold-war era."

What came out most of all from reading this book was the desire among all those described to do right by the country. Sure there was intense interservice rivalry, but there was little hint of the self-serving "cashing in" so evident among both US civilian and military officials today. Truman and Marshall left government service with little capital worth enjoying (by today's standards) modest pensions. Nor did they worry about landing a cushy job in the private sector upon retirement. Gone too is any indication of political vision or stature. Comparing Truman to the current Reaganist candidate (a scarecrow in comparison) is only one more indication of how far America has degerated as a functioning political system answerable to the real needs of her people.

Oh, the answer to my title question? Harry S. Truman of course.

Those who intend to read only one book about Vietnam should read this one. The author covers this disaster with a unique insight into the flawed decision-making processes of otherwise intelligent bureaucrats who failed to understand the complexity of the situation. War games prior to our massive air campaign had predicted the eventual tragic outcome, yet the results were completely ignored. A combat commander (which I was) usually sees a war from an entirely different perspective than that of government-employed theorists. The theorists may dismiss their mistakes as an investment in the learning process about a problem. The commander is left to count his dead, and write the letters to their families.