Friday, January 2, 2009
Eisenhower returned to Union Station in Washington, in which he then went to the War Department. He was debriefed about the whole situation involving the Pacific, including the Phillipines and Pearl Harbor, where Eisenhower admitted that it wouldn't be possible to get reinforcements to the Phillipines before the Japanese would take over (Ambrose 133). This shows that Eisenhower would accept defeat, and wasn't some kind of egomaniac that wouldn't take "no" for an answer. However, Eisenhower's mindset of taking losses didn't appeal to MacArthur, which caused Eisenhower to be irritated. Eisenhower also got mad at the Navy for just planning on fighting by itself, not listening for orders to build aircraft carriers, but just having a large fleet of warships (Ambrose 141). This shows that Eisenhower is a rational person who believes in teamwork but doesn't like ignorance and not what is best.
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2 comments:
I think that being the commander and chief is definitely not an easy job and no matter what decision you choose you will have strong opposition. Therefore you have to be sure of your convictions and stand behind them at all times. I don't think that he was "taking losses" so much as looking at the big picture and taking a realistic approach about what could be done.
Although it is true that one needs to learn how to take loss, it is far more important to not accept defeat in order to assert oneself as the superior in the situation. Eisenhower should've been like MacCarthur, been an egomaniac. Sometimes you need to be an egomaniac to preform some of the toughest jobs out there. Both general and president fall under that category.
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