h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'The struggle ended in a Presidential election between Truman and McArthur, which Truman won.'

I've never heard this before - is it correct?

Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur (note spelling) from command in Korea after the general attempted to undermine peace negotiations, seeking a more aggressive approach including war with China if necessary.

OK, a quick bit of research turned up the following:

MacArthur did run for president in 1952, but as a third-party candidate of the Constitution Party. He received 17,205 and came in seventh place behind Darlington Hoopes of the Socialist party (which I personally find amusing).

The man who won the presidency was Dwight 'Ike' Eisenhower a Republican who received 33.9 million votes.

The Democratic Party candidate was *not* Truman, but Adlai E. Stevenson who had 27.3 million votes.

Truman and MacArthur did not face each other in a presidential election - rather Truman used his Constitutionally mandated power as Commander in Chief to remove a general who was acting without civil authority.

======

I'll go read the rest of this entry now...

Another misconception in the entry with regards to the Viet Cong:

"The VC, who were North Vietnamese soldiers and sympathisers, were mostly made up of peasants who knew the land and could move effectively at night."

Actually the VC refers to the roughly 10,000 South Vietnam communists who remained in South Vietnam after the communists were given control of North Vietnam following the French withdrawl in the 1950s. They were geurilla fighters who had the support of the North Vietnam Army (NVA). The VC eventually took to the streets, fighting alongside the NVA in the light of day, but only late in the war.

'The US and the ARVN, two conventional armies, could never win a war against the dedicated guerilla troops of the VC.'

Really, that's simply opinion. I reckon it *is* possible for a large conventional army to defeat a guerilla force, but the political cost would be very large.

I don't like absolutes with regards to war - never say never!

'These misunderstandings, underestimations, and mistakes combined with disastrous results for America, and there was ultimately no hope for the US to win the war in Vietnam.'

I know that this is the whole premise for the entry, but I think the conclusion overshoots the mark a bit.

Serious scholarly studies of the Vietnam conflict, both military and civillian, do not support your conclusion.

Yes, 'misunderstandings, underestimations, and mistakes' did play a role in the US withdrawl from Vietnam, but they cannot be considered the only cause.

If the political situataion in the US would have allowed it, a full-scale military campaign probably would have been effective in 'winning' the war, but the cost wasn't worth what we were fighting for.

Of course, one could argue the same thing about the Gulf War and even our current conflict in Afghanastan.
Unfortunately, the US can't seem to keep its nose out of other nations' problems - like that unfortunate business in Europe during the 1940s. It wasn't really any concern of ours what happened there - but I reckon the world would be a much different place if the US *had* minded its own business and not interfered.

Given the types of mistakes and the general feel of this entry, it seems a lot like a school assignment to me. Political science, probably, or maybe history. Whichever it is, it's written in much the same way I write for class assignments. This in itself is *not* a bad thing, but more of a telltale sign of what's actually wrong here.

I think the biggest problem with this article is the age gap (or possible memory loss) between the author and the subject matter. The mistakes made are of the kind that would be made by someone that wasn't there to watch it all happen. The editor, too, is either too young to know or too old to remember (or too British to have ever known).

On the other hand, Jimi X, you just let us all know how old you are.

Wow, you're ancient

I *have* been called a dinosaur on-site, but really I'm not.



I reckon I'm just a medium-sized furry mammal who's read his history books.

How many Vietnam entries are we going to have?
I thought A664058 about covered it.

I don't think the communists were as benign as you try to make out. They were seeking to impose their will on the south.

I agree that we made a lot of mistakes in the war. I attribute our loss to two basic factors. Our politicians didn't have a clue about how to win a war. President Johnson micro-managed the entire affair, he didn't muster the political will to win the war, and he tied the hands of the military to fight it. On the other hand, the ARVN was largley made up by corrupt lazy b******s who were content to let the Americans fight for their country.

We could have won this war if we wanted to.

I'm reminded of a Bill Cosby comedy routine, based on the coin toss before an (American) football game. The winner of the toss gets to pick an end of the field, or to kick or receive to start the game. So Cosby proposes this procedure for other competitions, like the American Revolutionary War. "OK, Cap'n Washington, you won the toss, what'll it be? OK, got it ... Cap'n King George, the Americans can hide behind trees and wear whatever they want. Your guys gotta wear bright red coats and march in straight lines. OK, let's play." I think we lost the toss in Vietnam.

And that Machiavelli would be mortified at the American strategy/tactics - if you're gonna hit somebody, hit him so hard that he doesn't get up.

That is a cute bit. I agree, we lost. We were saddled with Johnson's ineptitude.

Wow, I didn't know that MacArthur actually ran in that election in '52. Constitutional Party, eh?

Ahem. Sorry, where was I? Oh right - apologizing. Once again, I should have read all the replies before just posting my own (now slightly incorrect) correction in another thread. Yeesh, when will I learn?


- JD (not a scientist)

This is what I get for not signing on in forever.

Ummm . . . let's summarize.

Whoever it was the guessed at the school assignment and age gap problems was correct on both counts. It was a final term paper (to be used as the final exam) from a high school history elective on the Vietnam war. It was taught by a gifted teacher who ran the class like a college seminar and most of the base information in the piece comes from my class notes.

About the Truman vs. MacArthur presidential election mistake . . . ummmm . . . oops? Now I'm confused. I may have gotten mixed up, but I seem to remember that from class. I'll check my notes and talk to the teacher.

Dum di dum . . . things to keep me busy . . .

Id

I'm the editor, and whilst you would probably deem me too yound and too British to know, I'm ashamed to say I did - well, some of it, anyway (my dad's obsessed with trivia, etc). I'm sorry about the furore - there were mistakes here that I really should have spotted, but at 3am after putting it into GuideML I clearly did not. Sorry everyone...

Sorry...

Sorry...

Em

I suspect that the election issue came out of the movie MacArthur. It implies that he ran against Truman.

When in doubt, blame the media!

hey, isn't H2G2 media?

...

Don't worry about tweaking something you've written for somewhere else to make it a good entry. I'm doing that right now, as a matter of fact.
If it's a good entry it really doesn't matter where it originates (assuming we write our own articles and not, so, copying an encyclopedia), now does it?

I only geussed that because the mistakes seem like they come froman interested, well-informed person that was either misinformed or human, thus capable of error. So you're a human. Big surprise there