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It's best to confine your advice to your own field of training. Late in his life Albert Einstein fancied himself as a theologian. He engaged leading Biblical scholars and proceeded to lecture them. You didn't know that? Let's just say that the contents of those lectures are best forgotten! A great scientist should limit himself to talking about science. The Bible warns all of us that we only "know in part" even though pride tries to pretend otherwise. I think what happened in Manchuria, China in 1946 might be one of those "I wish I'd stayed out of it" events in the life of General George C. Marshall. Modern Chinese history pivoted at that point. Arthur Waldron, professor of international relations, University of Pennsylvania, in his essay: China Without Tears speculates that the General misread the situation and helped cost the lives of 100 000 American soldiers in 2 subsequent Asian wars.
I hate writing that about one of my teenage heroes. I first met Marshall in a high school history lecture on post war Germany. Later in economic studies I marveled at how Western Europe revived with the help of American largess. George C. Marshall will always be bound up with these events. In 1953 The Marshall Plan earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Winston Churchill said of him: "He is a great American. In war he was as wise in counsel as he was resolute in action. In peace he was the architect who planned the restoration of our battered European economy and, at the same time, labored tirelessly to establish a system of Western Defense." George was born in Uniontown PA and graduated from Virginia Military Institute. An army man all his days, he served in the Philippines, with the expeditionary force in Europe in WW1 and in China. He held many leadership posts in the U.S. and by the time WW2 came he was Army Chief of Staff. The general's relationship with President Roosevelt was one of "providing frank and independent advice" according to Col. Brower's paper "Marshall, a study in character." Later in the same work it appears that Marshall took pride in speaking his mind but then ultimately submitting to the orders of the president. In this he greatly fostered the West Point tradition of producing officers who understand their subservience to the head of state. In 1940 he walked the tightrope of supplying arms to a beleaguered England while trying to rebuild America's depleted might. Marshall's mind can be seen in the final speech that he gave at V.M.I. when he cautioned the cadets: "Don't be a deep feeler or a poor thinker." Despite all this, and yet because the US presidency was committed to the doctrine of containment of communism instead of victory over it, Marshall blundered in China in the summer of 1946. General Chaing Kai-shek's war-hardened army was routing the Communist forces. Southern Manchuria, the Chinese industrial area had fallen, victory was at hand and at the last minute the U.S. dispatched Marshall to plead with Chaing to halt so that he could broker a peace. George was an excellent soldier bungling his way in the morass of Chinese politics. The nationalist forces lost momentum, the communists rallied under Mao Zedong, and China was lost to the Reds. Chaing called listening to Marshall the worst mistake he ever made. It's no wonder the Bible says, "our best insights are like peering into a misted mirror." Next time you boast about all the awards you earned for mental prowess be cautioned: it's not good enough to be "jack of all trades" even if you are master of one. |