New York Magazine’s profile of Katie Couric is already famous for her admission that she repeatedly slapped a staffer on the arm after he put the word "sputum" in her script a few weeks back, sputum being a word she struggled with and didn’t like. The piece is otherwise pretty admiring of Couric. On Drudge’s radio show the other night, New York Mag’s Joe Hagan said that he found Couric to be something few TV celebrities are: unassuming, down-to-earth. I like her more after his piece, I think I’m going to switch from Brian Williams…
It’s interesting to compare the Couric slapping episode with the other great slapper of American history: General George Patton. In the summer of 1943, the General visited a hospital in Sicily and slapped two shell-shocked soldiers whom he regarded as cowardly. One of the kids was 21 and had been on the front for four years, till his buddy was wounded and he asked for a rest. He was blubbering. The other kid was also trembling. Patton hit both men in the face with his gloves. He reportedly knocked the blubbering kid’s helmet liner off.
There are some similarities in the Couric and Patton episodes. Both cases distressed subordinates (the hospital staff were in turmoil over Patton’s behavior). In both cases, a few media insiders knew about the incidents. Eisenhower managed to suppress the Patton story till the popular columnist Drew Pearson blew the case open three months later. In the Couric case, a lot of people at CBS knew about the incident, but it took Joe Hagan to expose it, about a month after. And in both cases, the slappers freely admitted their conduct, and defended it.
It would seem that people were far more outraged over "Georgie" Patton’s behavior than they are over Couric’s, even in this hyper-sensitive age. Patton lost his command. Of course it’s possible that Couric will lose hers, too. But if that happens, the Patton analogy bodes well for her. The greatest "ground gainer" of the European war, Patton was too valuable to Eisenhower to stay demoted. Command was restored, and Patton returned to glory in Germany. Though he died freakishly, in a Cadillac, on a hunting trip in Germany in 1945, Patton passed into American legend, outstripping all his classmates at West Point ’09. I get the feeling Katie Couric’s slapping chapter will help her in the end.
It was 1943, and the (American) kid had been on the front 4 years? Since 1939? What front would that have been?
Phil,
I find your admiration for Patton interesting. He was a great but flawed man. And I am not sure the slap serves his legacy well.
One other disturbing thing on the negative side was that he was a nasty anti-Semite. Patton had visited the death camps soon after their liberation and he was military governer of southern Germany, where many of the survivors of the Holocaust congregated. One wold think that this would cause him to have some compassion. Yet Patton defied Eisenhower's expressed orders not to force so-called Displaced Persons from Germany back to their country of origin. This meant that he forced Eastern European Jews who had managed to survive back to the countries where their families had been slaughtered. Patton famously observed in his diary that others might “believe that the displaced person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals.”
Robert Murphy, a famous American career diplomat who was political advisor to Eisenhower at the time, believed that Patton's attitude toward Holocaust survivors is what ultimately got him cashiered.
good points. oarwell, the factchecker was asleep this morning. Im guessing the 4 years was the amount of time he was in the army…
larry, good point. thanks. didnt know that about patton. (though as a devotee of the Pacific theater, it is interesting how much a teutonic background served ww2 generals. MacArthur was almost certainly an antisemite. His general Eichelberger called New Yorker writer EJ Kahn a kike. Kreuger, another macArthur general, was German born, and a great soldier. MacArthur's intelligence head, Willoughby, was widely seen as incompetent. But he was raised in Germany and had MacArthur's respect for coming out of the PRussian tradition of military honor.)
i should have said that patton's slapping disgusts me too. though generalship is an ugly job. it has meant treating young men like cannon fodder. another reason to treat war as an undesirable option. and to demand that frontline service should not be confined to the lower ranks of society.
Pattons anti-semitism was of a time and place. Additionally, his chief intelligence officer in the 3rd army was Jewish. And he killed Germans and shortened the war. Which is good enough for me. I never read anything about Macarthur that indicated anti-semitism and while I have no doubt that Eichelberger called EJ Kahn a kike only somebody who lived a a very comfortable sheltered life, ie you Phil, would get worked up about that. Did you not ever have a fight has a kid or did that not happen with "the our crowd" crew.
Phil- Your sloppiness continues to dissapoint me and it undermines your credibility. How many times can you be factually incorrect and also have such glaring double standards, and still expect us to take you seriously. Get it together brother.
The accusation that MacArthur was an anti-Semite is new to me as well.
He doesn't appear to have been a racist in general being rather fond of Filipinos, including his Filipino mistress "Dimples" (whom he ultimately sent packing as company not befitting an American general).
After having read William Manchester's biography of Churchill, which is an engrossing read, I laid out money on his "American Caesar". I found it rather dull and concluded that that was due to his subject rather than diminished literary skills.
Strom Thurmond was rather fond of black women. That doesn't prove that he wasn't a racist. The fact that MacArthur's mistress was Filipino doesn't say much about his attitude toward Blacks or Jews.
The United States of the 1940s was an extremely racist society. Douglas MacArthur's racism vis-a-vis African-American soldiers was well known.(so was Patton) One example: in October 1945, MacArthur suggested that African-American military personnel in the Pacific Basin be demobilised and replaced with Filipinos.
Have to agree with the comment above re: Phil Weiss, Sloppy Guy.
Patton saw the Jews of Eastern Europe with a perspective few have been afforded. It wasn't pretty. His criticisms were on the mark, and he also recognized the dangers of the displaced Jewish populations combined with their natural sympathy with the soon-to-be appeased Communists.
Patton was an American hero on the order of Charles Lindbergh, and his public lynching was no less a shameful blot on this nations history than that of the brilliant aviator. It is amazing that simple criticism and awareness of Jewish behavior can overshadow genius, and it goes very far to explain the growing resentment towards Jewish influence in the U.S. Empire's sphere of domination.
Interesting Arie, I actually found American Caesar to be extremely interesting and despite what a lot of posters on this blog seem to think, particularly Martillo, not everything is about the Jews or a Jewish conspiracy. Some things, like the military career of Macarthur, have nothing to do with it. Again, the prejudices of both Macarthur and Patton were of a time and place and WW2 would have been a much tougher slog without these two guys. Also, Patton had the 761st armor in his command. And extremely famous black military unit.
Last but not least. Cooper, your an asshole
Patton and Death Camps
The US did not liberate any of the camps nowadays called death or extermination camps. (The German Nazis used different terminology.)
US occupied German territory included several concentration camps, and several countries that the Western allies liberated hosted work camps.
Except for Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim serving with the US or UK armies Patton is not likely to have had much experience with Eastern European Jews at all.
Displaced Person (DP) camps, where many Eastern European Ashkenazim found temporary shelter, were not set up in the Western ally sectors of occupied Germany until after Patton's death.
Urgu, your example of MacArthur's alleged racism appears to be based on the following passage in an article by Hal M.Friedman in "The Journal of Pacific History" of June 1997.
I quote:
"The War Department Operations and Plans Division (OPD) Diary is one source for investigating this phenomenon, and it contains one example of Douglas MacArthur's racism vis-a-vis African-American soldiers. In October 1945 MacArthur suggested that former Philippine Scouts who had joined the Army of the United States during the Pacific War be retained as part of the proposed 400,000 man post-war strength of the United States Army in the Pacific in lieu of `colored', i.e. African-American, Army personnel. In other words, MacArthur was suggesting that African-American military personnel in the Pacific Basin be demobilised and replaced with Filipinos."
However, the same article also avers that before that high ranking officers under his command,among whom Major General Christiansen, had been pestering him with proposals to decrease the percentage of African-American troops and replace them with white Americans. In view of this MacArthur's proposal to replace them with Filipinos seems somewhat less racist.
As far as the Philippines was concerned the rationale given for this proposal was that African-American troops were mainly to blame for the bad relations with the indigenous population and their political consequence viz.Filipino reluctance to maintain the American bases. It was also claimed that the then President of the Philippines, Manuel Roxas, had been promised that the number of African-American troops would be reduced.
This might all have been a matter of sheer racist prejudice. On the other hand African-American troops might have been reacting to a less favorable Filipino attitude towards them as compared to the indigenous reception of white soldiers.
Friedman is somewhat glib in his assertions. A particular bone I have to pick with him concerns his comment on an American proposal to base possible colonisation of Micronesia on the Dutch model in Indonesia. Friedman says:
"Of Course, Clark's idea of modelling the American colony on Dutch Indonesia is horrifying to anyone who is aware that the Dutch had one of the worst reputations in the history of European imperialism for the exploitation of subject peoples."
He bases this statement on one book by a Robert MacMahon, who appears to be a specialist in US post war policy re Southeast Asia. MacMahon is not an Indonesianist, is most likely quite unable to consult Dutch sources and I don't know of any Indonesianist (including American ones who deserve that name) who would subscribe to this statement in its sweeping generality.
Friedman should, among many excellent American works on Indonesia, also have consulted a classic source by a pre-war foreign observer of the Netherlands East Indies, viz. J.S.Furnivall's "Netherlands India", instead of relying exclusively on one source that seems to have rather haphazardly come in his way.
Bill, the reason why I found "American Caesar" dull was because it depicted MacArthur as all "foreground", an American general doing the things generals do, though in a rather brilliant way (they say). The personality seemed to be completely merged with the social role.
The Spanish say that, comparisons are odious. I cannot see the connection between some little news reader and a great if terribly flawed general. I once read that great generals are like evil school boys… and that old soldiers never die, they just smell that way… when they are no longer needed they should be put out to pasture.
The slap?
As a little boy my dearest, long departed granny would give me her open hand when I was sassy (quite often). Should she be compared to Couric and Patton?
What really happened was Patton's brainless machismo endangered his forces. American soldiers were not in hospital for hurt feelings amid the beginning of their most important push; why did you let yourself believe that? There was a massive malaria outbreak threatening to seriously cripple the Sicily campaign and the soldiers in question had real symptoms (diarrhea, fevers), not just nonsense about feelings like the unapologetically dishonest Coppola film made it seem.
Patton and Macarthur were without question out two best ground commanders in WW2. Both of them gained the most ground for the least casualties compared to anybody else we had. I know that a lot of the posters here feel that the wrong side won that war but it's good enough for me