The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War

Publicized as a bookend to The Best and the Brightest, The Coldest Winter is a fitting, if premature, conclusion to David Halberstam's illustrious career. (He died in a car accident last spring, shortly after completing the book.) Magisterial in scope, eminently readable, well researched, and even gripping at times, Coldest Winter is hailed as a book destined to become the subject's most popular history. Much of this success rests with the immediacy of Halberstam's storytelling, his gemlike port

Publicized as a bookend to The Best and the Brightest, The Coldest Winter is a fitting, if premature, conclusion to David Halberstam's illustrious career. (He died in a car accident last spring, shortly after completing the book.) Magisterial in scope, eminently readable, well researched, and even gripping at times, Coldest Winter is hailed as a book destined to become the subject's most popular history. Much of this success rests with the immediacy of Halberstam's storytelling, his gemlike portraits of the major players (particularly General MacArthur), and his close-up descriptions of the trenches. The Miami Herald accuses Halberstam of inappropriately lifting his framework from Best and Brightest to fit Coldest Winter; other reviewers note factual errors and an overly epic (and sometimes numbingly detailed) story. But in the end, Coldest Winter is not only a compelling history but a story that resounds loudly today.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

David Halberstam's last book (he was killed in a traffic accident shortly after completing it) focuses on the origins and the first few months (up to about the winter of 1951) of the Korean War. Although it has bit more purple prose than I could wish, I liked it. Kim Il Sunn, the North Korean leader installed by the Soviets when they occupied Korea north of the 38 parallel after the Second World War, seems to have been the person who initiated the war. Stalin, the Soviet dictator, went along

David Halberstam's last book (he was killed in a traffic accident shortly after completing it) focuses on the origins and the first few months (up to about the winter of 1951) of the Korean War. Although it has bit more purple prose than I could wish, I liked it. Kim Il Sunn, the North Korean leader installed by the Soviets when they occupied Korea north of the 38 parallel after the Second World War, seems to have been the person who initiated the war. Stalin, the Soviet dictator, went along with the idea and provided material support when he was convinced that the United States would not intervene if the south was invaded. After this error became apparent, it was left to the Chinese to save the North Koreans, though it was not a foregone conclusion that they would need saving, as they were winning for some months after the June 1950 invasion. The south Korean forces were poorly armed and led, and the initial American ground forces were poorly trained, too few, and had some equipment deficiencies. The first American ground commander, Walker, managed to defend the area around the southern port of Pusan, and in November 1950 MacArthur, his commander, succeeded in the amphibious landing at Inchon, the port of the captured southern capital of Seoul. MacArthur's success, in an operation most in Washington had doubted, made this most insubordinate subordinate even harder to deal with and no one was willing to question his opinion that the Chinese would never enter the war and that he could conquer all of Korea. The Chinese, irritated that Kim Il Sung had cavalierly ignored their concerns about an American amphibious landing in general and the need to mine the port of Inchon in particular, did intervene and succeeded in pushing back the American forces. After Walker was killed in a traffic accident, Matthew Ridgeway took over and succeeded in stopping the Chinese and inflicting appalling casualties on them. MacArthur, frustrated by finally having a subordinate who got the credit for successes, and whom he couldn't dictate too, kept making more and more statements contrary to the Truman administration's foreign policy, until he finally made such an insubordinate statement in a public letter to a Republican congressman that he was fired.

MacArthur emerges as an unattractive figure, alternately too pessimistic, too optimistic, sometimes panicky (as his call for nuclear weapons after the Chinese intervened), a man who played games with his subordinates and crushed their initiative. He seems to have been unwilling to listen to the doubts of his subordinates and manipulate intelligence, such as evidence of the presence of Chinese forces in Korea, in order to maintain his self image. His difficulty with being a subordinate to the President was long standing, dating from well before the Korean war or the Truman administration.

"He was born Kim Song Ju in the village of Nam-ri on April 15, 1912, just two years after the Japanese began their colonial era in Korea. If one imagines some child of modern Europe growing up in Holland or France under a Nazi occupation that lasted for the first thirty-three years of his life, Kim's anger and his rigidity can be better understood."

"[T:]he Chinese struck in force. It was like suddenly hitting a brick wall, Paik later wrote. At first the ROK commanders had no idea what had happened. Paik's Fifteenth Regiment came to a complete halt under a withering barrage of mortar fire, after which the Twelfth Regiment on its left was hammered, and then his Eleventh Regiment, the division reserve, was hit on its flank and attacked from the rear. The enemy was clearly fighting with great skill. Paik thought it must be Chinese. He reacted by reflex, and thereby probably saved most of his men. He immediately pulled the division back to the village of Unsan. It was, he said, like a scene from an American Western, when the white folks, hit by Indians and badly outnumbered, circled the wagons. His division had walked into a giant ambush set by the Chinese."