IRRESPONSIBILITY, NARCISSISM, RACISM…CAN AMERICA DO BETTER?
by Dr. Thomas E. Davis, Col., USA (Ret.), ©2016
(May 4, 2016) — Yesterday’s Part II ended when FDR’s overreaching and illegal Lend-lease policies resulted in the torpedoing of the USS Reuben James with the loss of 115 sailors KIA was the most notorious of the incidents before the U.S. entered World War II. Numerous others occurred that could well have been noted as the First Casualties.
FDR’s boastful arrogance saw him run for and get elected to a third term as president when he defeated Wendell Willkie, who was unfairly accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. To go from the ridiculous to the absurd, FDR was nominated again in 1944 and elected to a fourth term. A virtual unknown, Harry S. Truman, a veteran of World War I as a Captain of Artillery, was FDR’s Vice President but not FDR’s choice. Roosevelt kept Truman out of the loop relative to our military progress, the Manhattan (Atomic Bomb) project and his meetings with Churchill and Stalin.
In any event, Roosevelt’s poor health caught up with him in his Warm Springs, GA, “The Little White House,” residence. His lifelong paramour, Lucy Mercer, a female portrait artist, and a couple of female relatives were also present. He suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died moments later. Many observers of the American political scene rate Roosevelt as the one of the all-time effective Presidents; usually third following #1, Washington and #2, Lincoln. Though he was intelligent, impressive and in most areas, capable, he was woefully bereft of character.
Roosevelt’s death left the Presidency in the more-than-capable hands of “The Buck Stops Here” Harry S. Truman. Harry Truman was all business as he knew business to be. FDR died on April 12, 1945 and 12 days later, Truman learned of the Manhattan Project and the deadly potential of the atomic bomb.
Less than four months later, Harry Truman ordered the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima; this in lieu of an invasion of mainland Japan and the tremendous loss of Allied lives that would entail. Japan failed to respond in a timely fashion, and after a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, World War II was finally over. General Douglas MacArthur was given total control over all of Japan. The Japanese treated him as a veritable Emperor.
Though the world had just been through the most devastating war in history in which over 60 million people died, on June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, beginning the “Forgotten War.” General MacArthur was ordered by President Truman to take command of all UN forces mustered to slow or halt the attacking North Korean forces. MacArthur’s tactical brilliance came to the fore when he conceived and oversaw the invasion of Inchon, a tactic most military tacticians thought was foolhardy and even incapable of success. It turned the tide quickly, and Allied forces began the long march to drive the North Koreans and later, Chinese regulars, back North, across the Yalu River.
The Korean War saw the introduction of jet-driven fighter aircraft, but it also saw the arrogance of Douglas MacArthur. He disobeyed direct orders and asked the Congress to authorize his leading UN forces across the Yalu to destroy the Sino-Russian air bases to which the Chinese and Russian pilots quickly retreated when the UN air power began winning the air battles over North Korea. After a meeting with MacArthur on Midway Island on October 15, 1950 at which MacArthur was late in arriving, Truman told MacArthur to stop his grandstanding, obey orders and start withdrawing back to the 38th Parallel.
On November 1, 1950, at twilight, massive amounts of Chinese Nationalist forces attacked UN forces, primarily American, beginning the forced withdrawal of UN forces from the area of the Chosen Reservoir. It was bitterly cold, and the withdrawal to Hungnam on the east coast of North Korea would be hazardous, difficult but mandatory. One hundred twenty thousand Chinese People’s Army forces launched the attack upon some 30,000 UN forces, who were forced to use hit-and-run tactics to get to the safety of a friendly port. Frostbite, hunger and low ammunition supplies made the withdrawal extremely difficult.
The withdrawal successfully accomplished with heavy casualties, the situation stabilized around the 38th Parallel. MacArthur persisted in his remarks contrary to orders, Truman was more than a little annoyed and in one of the most notorious episodes in the military-civilian control of the American military, President Harry Truman did precisely what our Founders set forth in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1. He summarily fired a General of the Army, Douglas A. MacArthur, by stating,” I’ll fire the Son of a B****.” He ordered MacArthur home and turned command of the Eighth United States Army in Korea over to Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway.
Following Truman was the leader of Allied forces which conquered the Nazis and the fascists in Europe 1944-45, Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower was not a particularly active Chief Executive. He preferred a few rounds of golf. He, too, was a philanderer who apparently didn’t care who knew it. His big contribution was the Interstate Highway System and racial integration of the schools in the South.
Eisenhower was followed by the Charismatic King of Camelot, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the perennial skirt-chaser. JFK’s irresponsibility nearly got us into a hot war with Soviet Russia. Fortunately, Nikita Khrushchev blinked first and they pulled their missiles out of Cuba. Kennedy’s irresponsibility led directly to his assassination. He insisted on riding in an open limousine and would not allow the Secret Service to ride on the back steps provided; when the first shot was fired, the Agents would have been able to jump on top of JFK and Jackie, which more than likely would have saved Kennedy.
The Warren Commission failed miserably in its investigation. The Zapruder film and the directions from which the shots came, plus the fact that the weapon found in the could NOT have been the murder weapon, points directly to a conspiracy involving the CIA, Cuban mercenaries and Lyndon Baines Johnson. My last book, “Federalism vs Factionalism: How the Democratic Party Raped the Republic” explains this in further detail. The book is available at Amazon.
Johnson, who JUST happened to be in Dallas on the November day virtually ran to Air Force One to be sworn in as the nation’s 36th President. Prominent on his left lapel was a miniature Silver Star this “Stolen Valor Hero” received from General Douglas MacArthur for an act of heroism which NEVER occurred. This is also well-documented in my aforementioned book. Johnson was the worst kind of phony. Though he was never tried in a court of law, evidence abounds that he was involved in numerous murders. Johnson was an egomaniacal, crude, rude, narcissistic, and racist. Following his signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the brainchild of JFK, Johnson and several Democratic Governors, boarded Air Force One for a flight to God knows where. During the flight, Johnson was being congratulated for having assured the black vote; in this Johnson concurred by stating, “Them Niggers will be voting Democrat for the next two hundred years.”
Johnson’s narcissism was so crude that when males were in the White House for some type of business, Johnson invited them for a nude swim in the White House pool in order to show off his purportedly large male organ. Johnson, like JFK, kept females available for sexual activities as they desired. Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, seldom lived in Washington, preferring to stay home in Texas. In JFK’s case, the Secret Service was instructed to let him know if Jackie was about to make an appearance.
NOTE: Due to length, again, I must continue in a later issue. My sincere apologies.
Tom Davis
