The Fifties

by David Halberstam

There was one additional critical change in the American military establishment that had occurred the previous summer, and it reflected no small accommodation to the Republican right: Admiral Arthur Radford had replaced Omar Bradley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Bradley was, ostensibly, a mild-mannered man who seemed more a schoolteacher than a warrior (but who sacked more battalion commanders than any general in modern American history). One of the great generals of World War Two, he was closely associated in the public mind with Eisenhower, but he was also, as far as the Republican right was concerned, a man of Europe and containment. Worse for them, he had dissented from MacArthur more than anyone else. The final straw, though, turned out to be his refusal to support Eisenhower as he cut back traditional military forces and bet everything on a nuclear response.