Swords and Plowshares

by General Maxwell D Taylor

General Maxwell D. Taylor was one of the great military heroes of recent American history. During World War II, Taylor fought in Sicily and Italy before parachuting into France as head of the 101st Airborne Division on Dday, 1944. Later he commanded the Division in the Arnhem drop in Holland and in the defense of Basting in the Bulge. After the war, Taylor served as superintendent of West Point, U.S. Commander in Berlin, Commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, and Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower. John F. Kennedy named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sent him to Vietnam in 1961; he returned to that country as Ambassador in 1965, and served as a key advisor to President Johnson until 1969. In Swords and Plowshares, Taylor tells the firsthand story of a life of action, courage, strategy, and dedication. Offering candid and controversial views of such central figures as Dwight Eisenhower, John Dulles, the Kennedyâ s, and General Westmoreland, Taylor contrasts their varying views of the role of air power in modern warfare, and presents his own approach to the problems of winning wars and making peace. These memoirs ably illustrate why General Maxwell Taylor deserves to rank among Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton as one of the great American military geniuses of our time.

434 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my bosses saw me carrying this book and suggested I read Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H. R. McMaster. I have read it and suggest that anyone interested in that period of American history read this book. It is a biography, but the insights into the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as they relate to the Vietnam War are very interesting. Granted the book is from the eyes of General Taylor but it paints a different picture from Dereliction of Duty. This should have been on the JCS reading list before Iraq.

[Gerald Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir of military during WW2 to Vietnam. He was a gifted person who made a difference.

[License · Rating 5 out of 5]

I once saw a clip from John F. Kennedy's funeral. At the end, under the gaze of the crowd, Jacqueline walked toward Taylor, kissed his cheek, and Taylor, in response, removed his hat, embraced her, and tried to comfort her.
Then all the Kennedy family members left, and Taylor remained standing there, wiping away tears with his gloves.
Including the two times his son mentioned, Taylor cried at least three times for the Kennedy family.
But Taylor didn't seem like the emotional type. He was always so elegant, reserved, and refined. When you see him on film, he never loses his composure and never reveals too much personal emotion.
Even this memoir is like that—humorous and warm in the first half, but after mentioning Vietnam, it’s just cold, bureaucratic calculation.
Douglas Kinnard said of Taylor: “I don’t know if he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
That’s a clever line, accurately capturing Taylor’s contradictions.
Taylor was a smart, sensitive, and talented man who knew who was useful to him and who wasn't. So I was surprised to find that, in most cases, those who were beneficial to Taylor's career liked him, while those who disliked him had no real impact on him. It seemed like he had a magical ability to make everyone like him if he wanted to.
Conversely, Taylor understands the potential consequences of his actions and is not one to take excessive risks. He is cautious and afraid of being hurt, so he rarely engages in intense resistance and prefers to appoint people he trusts rather than those with talent.
In the infamous State cable 243 incident involving Hilsman, Taylor opposed the coup. He realized that the president might have been deceived, but he spent a Sunday at home contemplating the consequences of the matter instead of discussing it with the president.
On one hand, Taylor believed that once a cable was sent, it couldn't be modified within 24 hours, or the US would lose credibility. On the other hand, he was anxious about the outcome of the gamble,worried he might misjudge others' attitudes. When he discovered on Monday that many shared his concerns, he regained his courage and spoke frankly with the president.
But this does not mean he is a coward or a fence-sitter. Gilpatrick said: "Max Taylor wes a person who either prevails in whet he strongly believes in or he, in effect, quits and lays off. He's not one who will be dragged along unwillingly in something thet he doesn't believe in, and if he does, he's at the forefront as a protagonist."
This is correct. Taylor does not compromise on things he does not believe in. In this matter, he opposed the coup from start to finish, even secretly hinting to Harkins that "the military does not approve of the coup."
During the Eisenhower administration, he also fought in a moderate yet unwavering manner. At that time, he suppressed his instincts (to please his superiors) and clashed with the CJCS, the Secretary of Defense, and the President.
Taylor was not an upright soldier; some say he sometimes acted more like a politician. This is because Taylor understood the relationship between politics and the military; he was a realist.
He seemed to be chasing power, but at times he voluntarily rejected power because of the principles he believed in (when he chose to retire early in despair, Eisenhower asked him if he would be willing to serve as NATO Supreme Commander, and he refused).
Gavin and Taylor have similar resumes, both having served in the Airborne Division, both opposing the Eisenhower administration, and both having written books. They are both highly talented professional soldiers. In fact, Gavin has fewer blemishes on his record than Taylor. However, I still find Taylor more charismatic.
When I speak of Taylor, I am deeply moved by his paradox.
Courage and unwavering resolve in adversity—derived from his physical and mental fragility and his tendency to calculate costs and benefits; sensitivity and emotional depth—derived from his loneliness, coldness, and rationality. He oscillated between these contradictory traits, withdrawing from social life due to his physical disability (he was partially deaf in his right ear), his pride too strong to wear a hearing aid, preferring to read lips instead, reserved and aloof, yet moved to tears by the Kennedys on multiple occasions (they had formed such a warm connection).
This book, amidst its politically cold prose, inadvertently reveals the soft yet courageous heart beneath his hard exterior.
This is why I have admired this general for years and give this book five stars.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far, it's nothing special, which is about what I expected as a memoir. He covers his WW2 service surprisingly quickly, to me, and spends a good half of the book covering his efforts in and around Vietnam.

What did stand out, to me, was the silence about the Pentomic Division. {Enter esoteric military mode}. Taylor mentions that he had the idea for the five-battlegroup division while he was commanding general of the Eighth Army at the end of, and after the Korean War's armistice. Later, when he is the Army's Chief of Staff, he only refers to the name "Pentomic" as an effort to make it seem more gee-whiz for the New look defense policy. Not a word about it again, except to mention a reorganization of divisions after 1961. Gee, do you think it flopped? {Exit trivial mode}

[Devon Capshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vietnam "on-the-ground" anaylsis by Special military advisor to Kennedy.

[Elijah Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off good and then less revealing after JFK and Vietnam.