What do You think about The Coldest Winter: America And The Korean War (2007)?
For some time, “The Coldest Winter” sat cold on my shelf... winter after winter after winter. Sometimes a title will kill a good book. Finally by default, I was goaded into reading it. Like most middle-aged American’s, I knew next to nothing about the Korean War. Of course, Halberstam fixed all that. Thanks to his well told and well edited story, I now have a very good sense of this little, lost war. The Korean War is well worth our attention on several levels. It was the very first in a long, sad line of “Communist” wars following World War II. It was also a non-winnable, unpopular war that was fought far from US soil. Living in 2010 and looking back, this old war of my father’s seems way to familiar. Apparently we have learned nothing and therefore, we are once again destined to repeat our selves. Halberstam’s gift is telling a crisp, big, broad, international war story while arranging intimate cameos of the main characters both big and small. He adds a certain pluck to his writing and he has some very critical opinions aimed at the arrogant world leaders of the time; MacArthur, Truman, Mao and Kim high among them. Halberstam paints a surprisingly vivid portrait of each of them. Last year I read and loved MacArthur’s flag waving hero’s manifesto, “American Caesar.” I knew it was unbalanced in it’s depiction of MacArthur but I loved it anyway. Within “The Coldest Winter,” it was devilishly fun to hear a liberal author bring Mac down more then a few pegs. Halberstam details the general’s last, late, futile and bumbling exit from the theater of war. After enjoying Halbertam’s Coldest Winter, I’ll need to go back into his achieves, I know I’ll strike gold again.
—Dave Gaston
Although Halberstam’s insights are repetitive, the book is interesting and quite readable. He makes a lot of judgment calls that you may or may not agree with, but I found him pretty persuasive. And many of his insights into the motivations and objectives of all sides are penetrating and illuminating.Halberstam provides an illuminating and insightful portrait of Douglas MacArthur, who doesn’t come off too well as the narrative progresses. MacArthur had an amazing capacity for deception and a huge ego. He didn’t even ask his superiors or subordinates questions simply because it would imply that there was something he didn’t know, and he frequently took credit for the successes of others. He had a split personality: a man of great talent whose agenda was almost always in conflict with that of his superiors, a jealous guarder of information. He was contemptuous of the Joint Chiefs and couldn’t care less about their views. He comes across as a vain, manipulative dinosaur, and he even manipulated the intelligence he reported to Washington just to get what he wanted.Halberstam’s focus is on the main players of the war: MacArthur, Ridgway, Truman, Aceson, etc. However, he also addresses many topics from all levels of the hierarchy, and moves back and forth very smoothly. He also addresses the actions of the misguided China Lobby (who accused the Democrats of “losing” China, as if America could impose its will on a nation three times its size on the other side of the planet), and the self-appointed Commie-hunter Joe McCarthy, who ruined reputations and imagined his facts.I also enjoyed Halberstam’s addition of the perspective of the Russians, the Chinese, and the North Koreans. As Americans we tend to view all our wars as exclusively American experiences; in our popular imagination, the other side always gets demonized, and in the scholarly and academic field, they are typically ignored. I think this is why our military failures are always so politically charged: we always look for scapegoats and traitors on our side and wonder why we lost; rarely do we consider why or how the other side won. China did not welcome the outbreak of war in Korea, and intervened only with the greatest reluctance. They had originally intended North Korea to be a buffer state only. The Chinese could easily deploy an army four times that of the US forces in Korea, and their troops were well-disciplined. But when they did intervene, China made several poor decisions that got thousands of their men needlessly killed: they ignored the inadequacy of their volunteer forces, who had almost no artillery, haphazard, ill-suited logistics system, and a rigid, inflexible command structure, and they were extremely vulnerable to US airpower. China suffered horrific casualties during the war. While the Chinese commander Peng Dehaui was a competent professional officer, he eventually met his demise during the “Great Leap Forward”, where his country repaid him for his service by arresting him and beating him to death. Peng had tried to expose the falsified statistics that made up the optimistic reporting on the “Leap” (which, of course, was actually a disaster), and that was how the regime repaid him. Kim Il Sung, on the other hand, comes off as an incompetent, vainglorious, erratic and insecure oaf. The Chinese had little respect for him; he was easy to flatter, and quite arrogant and brash. He was an ardent nationalist and an ardent communist at the same time, seeing no contradiction in those twin beliefs.US policymakers viewed the communist bloc as a monolithic entity brought together by shared ideology, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The Soviets and Chinese jockeyed for power in the peninsula and tried to undermine each others’ influence. Also, they viewed Kim Il-Sung as a junior partner. Before the war broke out, Stalin had never viewed Mao and the Chinese communists as allies, only as threats. And the Soviets were actually quite satisfied with the course of the war: MacArthur’s drive to the Yalu threatened their Chinese rivals, and the Soviets could sit on the sidelines as their two rivals got sucked into a seemingly endless land war on the Asian landmass.Many US officers also underestimated the fighting ability of the Chinese. In the early phase of the war, US troops were in horrible condition, and in no shape to fight a major war. North Korean troops, on the other hand, were battle-hardened, well-motivated, and extremely well-disciplined. North Korean soldiers had very little need for extra gear, while US troops carried a considerable load of it.However, while Halberstam provides good coverage of the other side, he provides little on the allied troops of the US during the war, such the British or French. There are also a few errors: he writes about B-17's being on ground and destroyed during the initial attack on Wake Island --It should have been Clark Field. There were no B-17's on Wake, and Wake did not have serious attack until several days after Pearl Harbor. Plus Halberstam transposes the December 8 Japanese strike on MacArthur's air force at Clark Field in the Philippines to Wake Island! That's a pretty fantastic error. But in, all, a superb book.
—Jerome
This volume typifies the care with which the author develops his books. The start is the surprise appearance of Chinese troop at Unsam in October of 1950. Their vast numbers and surprise attack shredded American forces, which had advanced by then deep into North Korea. The discussion of the fighting is classic Halberstam, with a lot of veterans reporting their experiences here, with great detail to provide a sense of the confusion and chaos as the Chinese attacked. And, amazingly, General Douglas MacArthur proceeded as if all was well as the Chinese melted back into North Korea after the attack, no longer to be seen. The continuing march to the Yalu River, of course, was to have dire consequences for the American and Allied forces. The book then examines the context for the outbreak of the Korean War, with a look at key actors--from MacArthur (no longer, apparently, at the top of his game), Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung (the leader of North Korea), Syngman Rhee (the South Korean leader), Harry Truman, to Joseph Stalin. Many other characters are portrayed as well, such as Dean Acheson and George Kennan and Chiang Kai-shek. The depiction of these characters in the unfolding drama provides context, as does placement of Korea in the historical context of repression under the Japanese for much of the first half of the 20th century. One example: the detailed discussion of Douglas MacArthur is not very flattering. But the description of his relationship with his father (a Civil War hero) and mother (a "stage mother" to her son's military career) and his need to always be right and to have control helps understand some of the decisions made early in the war. Many will doubtless be upset about this portrayal of the General, but it is one of those detailed descriptions for which Halberstanm is well known. Then, the actual invasion of the South by the North in June, 1950 is laid out. The discussion includes the dawning realization in Japan (MacArthur's HQ) and Washington D. C. of what is happening "on the ground" and their military and political response. In great detail, the book considers the battlefield picture, including the surprise and effective counterattack by MacArthur's forces at Inchon, the rolling up of the North Koreans, and--then--the emergence of Chinese troops to turn the picture around once more--and finally, to the deadly stalemate near the line from which the war had begun. Some of the more valuable aspects of the volume are the interviews by the author with surviving veterans. These data provide invaluable richness to the text and make the nature of the fighting come alive for the reader. In short, another epic work from David Halberstam. He died shortly after completing the book in a car crash, so this represents his last major work. It represents the author still at the peak of his powers. A book well worth attending to.
—Steven Peterson
