A useful article today from the History News Network by T. M. Holmes: “The Ambiguities of Cut and Run.” He discusses Eisenhower’s quick wrap-up in Korea in 1953, Truman’s disastrous decision to confront China in 1950, Nixon’s 1975 Saigon Embassy helicopters, Johnson’s also-disastrous decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, Reagan’s 1983 Beirut pullout, George II’s abrubt end to Gulf War I and finally, and I think most potently, George III’s pull back in Afghanistan before the Taliban had been eliminated.
The piece begins, “Did Dwight D. Eisenhower “cut and run” in Korea in 1953? It was Ike who told the nation that if he were elected he would go to Korea and, by implication, end the war. It is generally conceded that Eisenhower did the responsible thing when he quickly completed the truce negotiations that ended the fighting.
“Would Harry Truman have been accused of “cut and run” in September 1950, three months after the initial invasion of South Korea, had he accepted the status quo ante bellum following the rout of the overextended North Korean forces at the 38th parallel? Instead, Truman followed the advice of General Douglas MacArthur and elected to “liberate” North Korea. As the United Nations forces approached the border of the People’s Republic of China at the Yalu River, communist China entered the war and almost drove the UN forces off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula.”
I hope the PhD in history ain’t in modern American history, because that “Nixon’s 1975 Saigon Embassy helicopters” thing maybe hard to defend in an oral examine. (Ironically, it’s right up there with a “free Poland” someone mentioned in a ’76 debate.)
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As for BMG readers, be thankful most of them are of an age where they think “Happy Days” was actually made in the 50s.