Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1949

Modern War Studies

by Andrew J. Bacevich

Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the best soldiers this country has produced," Frank Ross McCoy was, throughout his distinguished career, much more than just a good soldier. As friend and confidant to such leaders as Theodore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood, and Henry Stimson, he disproves the standard view of the military before 1940 as having no role in American foreign policy. Instead, as A. J. Bacevich ably demonstrates, McCoy was intimately involved in the development of U.S, foreign relations from McKinley's administration to Truman's. McCoy began his military career with Leonard Wood in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After the war, he and Wood (who became military governor) worked together to establish democratic reforms in Cuba. There followed for McCoy a succession of difficult and sometimes dangerous the Philippines (during the Moro uprising), Mexico, France (as commander during World War I), Turkey and Armenia, the Philippines again, Nicaragua (during Sandino's guerrilla campaign), Bolivia and Paraguay, and China (with the Lytton Commission investigating Japan's invasion of Manchuria). Following a series of stateside appointments, McCoy served finally as chairman of the Far Eastern Commission, an international body created to determine the fate of postwar Japan. Based on exhaustive research in McCoy's personal papers and official records, Bacevich shows that McCoy's career provides a unique perspective both on American foreign policy and on civil-military relations. This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He is the recipient of a Lannan Award and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...