Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

LeMay vs. MacArthur: A smackdown of the right-wing nut four-star generals

I’d kind of assumed that Gen. Curtis LeMay would be a fan of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, because both were right-wing nuts. So I was surprised to read this comment in an interview with LeMay: “I’ll pick out some people who were supposed to have been good leaders. Let’s take MacArthur. I wouldn’t follow that man ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
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I'd kind of assumed that Gen. Curtis LeMay would be a fan of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, because both were right-wing nuts. So I was surprised to read this comment in an interview with LeMay:

I’d kind of assumed that Gen. Curtis LeMay would be a fan of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, because both were right-wing nuts. So I was surprised to read this comment in an interview with LeMay:

“I’ll pick out some people who were supposed to have been good leaders. Let’s take MacArthur. I wouldn’t follow that man out to the outhouse because I don’t like him. I don’t like his methods …”

(P. 88, Charles Jones and R. Manning Ancell, editors, Four-Star Leadership for Leaders.)

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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