Customer Reviews

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (Thorndike Press Large Print Nonfiction Series)

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

"The Coldest Winter," David Halberstam's final journalistic tribute to heroes, is a fitting tribute to the men of the oft forgotten war.
Halberstam's lengthy career in journalism and as an author shows in his brilliant writing style that keeps you engrossed in every word. It is not surprising that someone who has written so much about Vietnam, would have a huge resource to draw upon in a work about the Korean War.
The Coldest Winter is a story that needed telling, much the way Herodotus told of the men of Thermopylae or, more recently how Stephen Ambrose told of the men of Easy Company in "Band of Brothers."

Halberstam understood well how most Americans ignore the events and outcome of the Korean Conflict; often, that part of history seems better left untold. The Coldest Winter tells this story and it's back stories and even it's substantial post-script. We mustn't forget that South Korea's success today owes a debt to the American and U.N. forces who fought there over half a century ago.
What Halberstam also does in this book is point out the miserable failings of Generals like MacArthur, long-time sacred cows of the World Wars, whose hubris in later life jeopardized the legacy of any truly heroic deeds of their early careers. General Ned Almond is also lambasted for his stubbornness and poor leadership style, which Halberstam shows led to unnecessary losses of American and U.N. forces.
While "Coldest Winter" is by no means concise as far as a historiography goes, Halberstam has revealed the machinations that led to the war and the egos that sustained it. This is not a blow-by-blow, battlefield-to-battlefield account of the Korean War, much of the latter part of the war is overlooked. But, it covers the broader picture and the political implications and ramifications of American civilian policy versus military instinct in the early 1950s, however poor it may have served us.
The Coldest Winter is a hefty book, at over 650 pages, broken into eleven sections with over 50 chapters, but it reads as fast as it reads brilliant.
This is the first Halberstam book I have read, I regret that it comes only after his passing. There were certainly more great works to come had he not met his untimely death.
REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ, OTHER READERS, PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS DESERVE YOUR OPINIONS TOO.

Having served two tours in the infantry in Korea during the War, and being a Korean War buff, I have a different view of the book than most of the reviewers. Unfortunately, the reviewers think that this book is about the Korean War. In part that is true but the real theme of the book is about how General Douglas MacArthur screwed it up.

The book is not a complete history of the Korean War as some reviewers have touted. It is anything but that. The book centers on the time period during which Gen. MacArthur was in command, both pre-war and until Pres. Truman relieved him of command. What little remains is more of an epilog very briefly describing the aftermath. That is why the book title is "The Coldest Winter" because it focuses on the disastrous defeat of the UN troops during the winter of 1950 as the result of MacArthur's bungling.

Because the book was billed as the most comprehensive history of the Korean War, I was lulled into reading it, only to be sorely disappointed. The first eight months of the War have been extensively covered in books and documentaries with the remaining 2 1/2 years given only cursory exposure, even though several major battles were fought during that period, so Halberstam doesn't expose any new ground. He just regurgitates material already written although he does it in an interesting fashion.

What I had hoped to read about was a thorough rendition of the history following MacArthur and the political decisions that colored the War and that was not there in the book for me. Not that I am not aware of them but a lot happened that is not generally known about and I hoped that Halberstam, with his reputation, would expose that material so that it become common knowledge to those studying or even interested in the War.

Some tout the book as telling the story of the historic escape of the First Marine Division from the Chosen Reservoir. It doesn't at all. The book tells how the Division Commander ignored MacArthur's orders in not racing to the Yalu and consequently the Marines were able make an orderly retreat, which the Army units were unable to do, but Halberstam provides almost no facts concerning the actual retreat, but when he does, the facts are not always correct. For example, the Chinese blew up the bridge between Koto-ri and Hungnam which crossed a narrow mountain gorge. Marine engineers then replaced it with a Bailey Bridge that was parachuted in. Halberstam says that it was the Air Force that dropped the bridge but I was on guard on the mountain above the gorge and I saw the bridge dropped from Marine Corps Flying Boxcars.

The book is not even a complete history of the first eight months of the Korean War. Most of it is devoted to certain battles which illustrated the incompetence either of MacArthur or the officers under him. It is only a partial picture of that period of the War but what there is, is done in remarkable detail.

Halberstam doesn't not highlight some of MacArthur's bad decisions as much as they should have been. While he brings out that it would have been a better strategy if the Marines had by-passed Seoul after landing at Inchon and cut off the retreat of the North Koreans, he doesn't give that mistake the emphasis that it warrants because it was a decision that really prolonged the War. Those familiar with the War are very conscious of that but lay readers may not.

Nor does he allude to the fact that MacArthur violated a basic tenant of fighting a War and that is after winning a battle, it is a cardinal principle that you stop and consolidate before resuming the attack. His failure to adhere to that principle was one reason the UN troops were so vulnerable when the Chinese struck.

One lament I have about the book is that it falls well short of providing its readers of what happened after Gen. Ridgeway took command. The book describes how the Chinese were suffering horrendous losses but Halberstam fails to follow through. The UN counter offensive resulted in more heavy losses to the Chinese as they were pushed back into North Korea, particularly on the eastern flank. The entire Chinese front was in such danger or collapsing that the Chinese sought a truce and Pres. Truman's biggest mistake was to agree to the truce. Had the UN rejected the truce offer, the Chinese would have been forced to retreat deep into N. Korea and that would have been a propitious time for the UN to agree to an armistice. Instead, the war went on for over two more years ending on July 28, 1953. It ended then only because a major Chinese offensive designed to push the Marines back across the Imjin River failed and the Chinese again had run out of steam.

Despite its shortcomings , as a book about the blundering of Gen. MacArthur, it is superb. Unfortunately, it was written 50 years too late. MacArthur was a desk general from the start of WWII and remained so during the Korean War. He really botched up the defense of the Philippines but because the Americans needed a hero, he was made a hero instead of a goat. He should have been relieved of his command. He actually played a subordinate role in the Pacific War which was mainly run by the Navy, but we all can be thankful for the atomic bomb, because if the Japanese had not surrendered, MacArthur would have been in charge of the invasion of Japan.

David Halberstam's "The Coldest War" is a brilliantly written, compelling, and well balanced history of the United States and China in the Korean War.

The book is a scathing condemnation of U.S. and U.N. Commander General Douglas MacArthur and key members of his staff, including Generals Edward (Ned) Almond and Charles Willoughby. Almond, MacArthur's Chief of Staff and Commander of the U.S. X Corps, was a racist who continuously underestimated the military capabilities of the Chinese. Willoughby, MacArthur's chief of intelligence, skewed or ignored key intelligence reports indicating the Chinese would enter the war on a large scale. That intervention thus achieved strategic and tactical surprise and resulted in the deaths of thousands of young Americans.

Like many historians before him, Halberstam has high praise for General Matthew Ridgway, who replaced Walton Walker (killed in a motor vehicle accident) as Eighth Army Commander. Ridgway later replaced, Douglas MacArthur as the Far Eastern Commander when the latter was (finally) fired by President Harry Truman. One of the Army's most brilliant officers, Ridgway was hyper-aggressive and had much greater respect for his Chinese opponents than MacArthur. He also paid much greater attention than his predecessor to collecting good inteligence and focused on identifying the Chinese Army's key weaknesses, which he exploited. As a result, the Americans managed to inflict tremendous losses on the Chinese Communist Forces at the battles of Chipyongni and Wonju, thus turning the tide of the war.

Much to his credit, Halberstam pays a great deal of attention to the strength and weaknesses of both the North Korean and the Chinese leaderships and military.

The result is an endlessly interesting and insightful history of what is commonly known as "The Forgotten War".

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam will stand the test to time just as all of his other works have. It is sad that Mr. Halberstam died last April in an automobile accident while working on his next book. This fact makes reading his last book doubly important, and a little difficult. This is the last trip to the water fountain.

The Coldest Winter is well written. While lengthy, there is no fat. Cut a few facts here or there and you've changed the value of the work and not for the better. With books like this I sometimes jump around from chapter to chapter taking the topics in an order that is important to me. I wasn't able to do that with the Coldest Winter.

There are a few surprises in the book. I thought that MacArthur was treated pretty fairly by Halberstam. MacArthur is not the perfect leader that he has been portrayed as in much of the media. In fact, at this stage of his career he is beginning to exhibit signs of feebleness brought on by the shaking hands and loss of hearing. That MacArthur underestimated the Communist Koreans is a fact of history but not often discussed.

I was also taken by the amount of confusion in the Truman administration during the first few days after the North crossed the border. Very eye opening.

I also highly valued the discussions of both Korean leaders, Syngman Rhee in the south and Kim Il Sung in the north. Halberstams treatment of these two leaders along with his wonderfully concise but accurate history of both the Koreas not only adds to the value of this book, but puts into perspective much of the recent difficulty with North Korea and their obsession with nuclear weapons.

Halberstam has always written masterfully constructed books. The reader can tell that Halberstam loved research because he did it so well and it shows in his books.

The Coldest Winter, in my opinion, is a must read for those that love current events but love history as well.

The Coldest Winter will be a terrific addition to your personal library.

It was a tragedy that David Halberstam died while this massive book was still in production, because I am sure he could have given it that final tight editing that it so badly needs. From the title, one would think that the focus of the book would have been the battles against the surprisingly well trained and well equipped North Korean army and then the even stronger Chinese "volunteer" army during the terrible winter of 1950-1951. It is not. Rather, this book places much of its emphasis on the political aspects of the conflict, and on how the war in Korea shaped subsequent relations between the West and the USSR and China. Indeed, the book's editors seem to have sensed the mismatch between the title and the substance by inserting at the very beginning a detailed description, complete with inset maps, of the series of battles in the area of Unsan near the Yalu River, at the point when the Chinese entered the struggle for the future of Korea. Those battles occurred several months after the initial invasion by the forces of North Korea, and the placement of their description provides a somewhat anachronous start followed by a lurching return to an explanation of the roots of the conflict.
The book deserves a respectful analysis at great length and in better detail than is feasible here. But I must point out my astonishment that nowhere in these 719 pages do the editors provide an accounting of the cost of the war in terms of the casualties suffered by the United Nations forces during the three years of combat. The facts are as follows: US deaths, 33,741; US killed in action 23,615; US wounded in action, 92,134; US prisoners of war and missing in action, 12,065; Republic of Korea (ROK) killed in action, 137,899; ROK wounded in action, 450,742; ROK POW and MIA, 32,838. Other UN casualties exceeded 1,200 dead, 4,800 wounded in action,and 1,500 taken prisoner or missing in action. The number can be found engraved in marble at the Korean War Monument in Washington, DC and should also be engraved in the consciousness of anyone who thinks seriously about the War in Korea. William J. Potts, Jr., Bethesda, MD.

"The Coldest Winter," David Halberstam's final journalistic tribute to heroes, is a fitting tribute to the men of the oft forgotten war.
Halberstam's lengthy career in journalism and as an author shows in his brilliant writing style that keeps you engrossed in every word. It is not surprising that someone who has written so much about Vietnam, would have a huge resource to draw upon in a work about the Korean War.
The Coldest Winter is a story that needed telling, much the way Herodotus told of the men of Thermopylae or, more recently how Stephen Ambrose told of the men of Easy Company in "Band of Brothers."

Halberstam understood well how most Americans ignore the events and outcome of the Korean Conflict; often, that part of history seems better left untold. The Coldest Winter tells this story and it's back stories and even it's substantial post-script. We mustn't forget that South Korea's success today owes a debt to the American and U.N. forces who fought there over half a century ago.
What Halberstam also does in this book is point out the miserable failings of Generals like MacArthur, long-time sacred cows of the World Wars, whose hubris in later life jeopardized the legacy of any truly heroic deeds of their early careers. General Ned Almond is also lambasted for his stubbornness and poor leadership style, which Halberstam shows led to unnecessary losses of American and U.N. forces.
While "Coldest Winter" is by no means concise as far as a historiography goes, Halberstam has revealed the machinations that led to the war and the egos that sustained it. This is not a blow-by-blow, battlefield-to-battlefield account of the Korean War, much of the latter part of the war is overlooked. But, it covers the broader picture and the political implications and ramifications of American civilian policy versus military instinct in the early 1950s, however poor it may have served us.
The Coldest Winter is a hefty book, at over 650 pages, broken into eleven sections with over 50 chapters, but it reads as fast as it reads brilliant.
This is the first Halberstam book I have read, I regret that it comes only after his passing. There were certainly more great works to come had he not met his untimely death.
REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ, OTHER READERS, PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS DESERVE YOUR OPINIONS TOO.

Having served two tours in the infantry in Korea during the War, and being a Korean War buff, I have a different view of the book than most of the reviewers. Unfortunately, the reviewers think that this book is about the Korean War. In part that is true but the real theme of the book is about how General Douglas MacArthur screwed it up.

The book is not a complete history of the Korean War as some reviewers have touted. It is anything but that. The book centers on the time period during which Gen. MacArthur was in command, both pre-war and until Pres. Truman relieved him of command. What little remains is more of an epilog very briefly describing the aftermath. That is why the book title is "The Coldest Winter" because it focuses on the disastrous defeat of the UN troops during the winter of 1950 as the result of MacArthur's bungling.

Because the book was billed as the most comprehensive history of the Korean War, I was lulled into reading it, only to be sorely disappointed. The first eight months of the War have been extensively covered in books and documentaries with the remaining 2 1/2 years given only cursory exposure, even though several major battles were fought during that period, so Halberstam doesn't expose any new ground. He just regurgitates material already written although he does it in an interesting fashion.

What I had hoped to read about was a thorough rendition of the history following MacArthur and the political decisions that colored the War and that was not there in the book for me. Not that I am not aware of them but a lot happened that is not generally known about and I hoped that Halberstam, with his reputation, would expose that material so that it become common knowledge to those studying or even interested in the War.

Some tout the book as telling the story of the historic escape of the First Marine Division from the Chosen Reservoir. It doesn't at all. The book tells how the Division Commander ignored MacArthur's orders in not racing to the Yalu and consequently the Marines were able make an orderly retreat, which the Army units were unable to do, but Halberstam provides almost no facts concerning the actual retreat, but when he does, the facts are not always correct. For example, the Chinese blew up the bridge between Koto-ri and Hungnam which crossed a narrow mountain gorge. Marine engineers then replaced it with a Bailey Bridge that was parachuted in. Halberstam says that it was the Air Force that dropped the bridge but I was on guard on the mountain above the gorge and I saw the bridge dropped from Marine Corps Flying Boxcars.

The book is not even a complete history of the first eight months of the Korean War. Most of it is devoted to certain battles which illustrated the incompetence either of MacArthur or the officers under him. It is only a partial picture of that period of the War but what there is, is done in remarkable detail.

Halberstam doesn't not highlight some of MacArthur's bad decisions as much as they should have been. While he brings out that it would have been a better strategy if the Marines had by-passed Seoul after landing at Inchon and cut off the retreat of the North Koreans, he doesn't give that mistake the emphasis that it warrants because it was a decision that really prolonged the War. Those familiar with the War are very conscious of that but lay readers may not.

Nor does he allude to the fact that MacArthur violated a basic tenant of fighting a War and that is after winning a battle, it is a cardinal principle that you stop and consolidate before resuming the attack. His failure to adhere to that principle was one reason the UN troops were so vulnerable when the Chinese struck.

One lament I have about the book is that it falls well short of providing its readers of what happened after Gen. Ridgeway took command. The book describes how the Chinese were suffering horrendous losses but Halberstam fails to follow through. The UN counter offensive resulted in more heavy losses to the Chinese as they were pushed back into North Korea, particularly on the eastern flank. The entire Chinese front was in such danger or collapsing that the Chinese sought a truce and Pres. Truman's biggest mistake was to agree to the truce. Had the UN rejected the truce offer, the Chinese would have been forced to retreat deep into N. Korea and that would have been a propitious time for the UN to agree to an armistice. Instead, the war went on for over two more years ending on July 28, 1953. It ended then only because a major Chinese offensive designed to push the Marines back across the Imjin River failed and the Chinese again had run out of steam.

Despite its shortcomings , as a book about the blundering of Gen. MacArthur, it is superb. Unfortunately, it was written 50 years too late. MacArthur was a desk general from the start of WWII and remained so during the Korean War. He really botched up the defense of the Philippines but because the Americans needed a hero, he was made a hero instead of a goat. He should have been relieved of his command. He actually played a subordinate role in the Pacific War which was mainly run by the Navy but we all can be thankful for the atomic bomb, because if the Japanese had not surrendered, MacArthur would have been in charge of the invasion of Japan.

The critiques of this book can be divided into two fairly narrow categories. If the reader is interested in the conflict from a deeply historical prospective and wants to focus on the political aspects of the Korean War, this is a fabulous book. I found myself unable to either put the book down or read at a very fast pace. I found the interaction of the world players, their goals and objectives, and their actions to be fascinating and very well documented. Alternatively, if the reader is interested in following all of the battles in detail, the reader will be very disappointed. The book only covers a handful of battles and if the battle has been described in other books dedicated to that single battle, there might be a single page thereon. (Bill Barber was a friend of mine and one of the heroes of the Chosin Damn battles and I was disappointed that the battle is covered in less than a page or two.)

A simple decision: political and historical interest: buy it today; battle by battle interest: many better books on the subject.

In terms of books written about it, the Korean War was the black hole of American historiography, compared to the large output on WW2 and Vietnam; a nasty 'little' forgotten war. With Halberstam's last book before he died in a car accident, the gap is a little smaller.
Most wars can be seen as a series of mistakes. The Korean War offers itself perfectly for that approach. We know who 'started' it, that was clearly North Korea's invasion of the South in June 50.
But who 'caused' it? If monocausal explanations are worth anything, then Dean Acheson surely is the prime candidate with his monumental gaffe of forgetting to include Korea in a speech defining America's interest zone in Asia. That was clearly the signal to the uneasy triad of Kim, Mao and Stalin, that an adventure might work. Which was mistake number two. They had not counted on incompetence in the US government.
Next: the breathtaking inefficiency of MacArthur's intelligence, his view of the world defined as truth, which ignored on a level of criminal negligence the reports that something was building up North of the demarcation line. (Comparable to intelligence failures before 9/11 and the lies before the Iraq invasion? This is what happens when intelligence is a tool for a pre-defined view!)
Kim's stupidity in ignoring the warnings about the Inchon landing. Lucky for the good guys.
The focus on conquering Seoul rather than blocking the retreat to the North for the invaders. Costly! Again PR value over strategy!
The silly amphibious landing in Wonsan, when the Marines could have gotten there easily and faster on land from Pusan. (And Bob Hope had to perform to a nearly empty audience, as the Marines were stuck in their ships when the harbour was mined.)
Not wanting to repeat the whole book here (which is 650 pages of bad weather and anti-MacArthurism, not to forget the brillant brief bio sketches of the main protagonists, that we are used to expect from Halberstam), let's jump into the phase when the war seemed to be won: next mistake, underestimating the enemy, caused by the same basic flaw: intelligence to prove what we know already.
The failure to anticipate the Chinese invasion was a massive misjudgement, equally hard to understand as the man's previous failure to expect the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Of course in between he had made the impossible become true and carried out the Incheon landing, which erased the memory of previous errors.
That in turn was the basis for the US government's next big error: not to remove MacArthur from his command in time. The man seemed untouchable. A very costly overestimation of his value. Of course how would a weak accidental president be expected to trust his own judgement more than that of a war hero?
The pity is that mistakes are never learnt from. That is of course mainly because we can usually not agree on the what and the who in first place.
Or sometimes, when they are learnt from, then in the sense of the generals who fight the previous wars: unaware of the law of life which says that once you know the answers, the questions get changed.
Skimming through the book later, it occurs to me that I ought to have mentioned the special story of the 'loss' of China, which was politically a very relevant background noise of the Korea War. Of course the tragedy of China's civil war was that there was no competent leadership on the nationalist side, and that furthermore the anti Truman forces in the US had decided to be so totally taken in by that fraud CKS and his Missimo. While Mao had his starry eyed Edgar Snow for propaganda, CKS commanded the loyalty of Henry Luce and his press empire. Luce turned out to be a mighty force for befuddlement of American brains. In comparison, Snow was not much more than a court jester.

Though seventy-three at his passing last April, David Halberstam's departure came far too soon. Fortunately this American master left behind a legacy of non-fiction writing that ranks among the greatest ever achieved in this field. He took what in other hands would have been dry reporting and made of it an art form. So it is that as destiny would have it, The Coldest Winter is the last Halberstam book the world will have, and I'm glad to say the man went out with a masterpiece.

Coming in at just over seven-hundred pages, this book tells a history of an unpopular and too often forgotten modern war that moves along more gracefully than many books a quarter its size. While Halberstam's works are long, they are never boring. Well-researched, filled with invaluable first-hand accounts, copiously referenced and end-noted, The Coldest Winter is suitable as source material for serious historians and for the rest of us as well. However, for its negative critiques of American military commanders, for its often lack of criticism of Communist leadership (Halberstam all but asserts the war was thrust upon Mao and the Chinese), and for what it leaves out---namely, in my opinion the suffering of South Korean's civilians as their nation was destroyed so it might be saved---this book is also destined to generate controversy, as well it should.

In The Coldest Winter (and after reading this book you will have renewed appreciation of that choice of title) I was pleased to see a vindication of President Harry S. Truman regarding his removal of the renegade bully, General Douglas MacArthur. While there is no denying MacArthur's courage or the results of his audacious brilliance in the invasion of Inchon, the fact, boldly stated here by Halberstam, is that by the 1950's the architect of Allied victory in the Pacific in World War Two was man past his prime. In no uncertain terms Halberstam covers the god-like MacArthur's mistakes and egoism (and anti-Asian racism) as they repeatedly cost many American lives. There is a personal bitterness in Halberstam's writing when it comes to his covering the unassailably confident MacArthur's tragic push to the Yalu River, an error that still haunts the world today.

I also cannot think of the last time a description of the horrific tragedy (and ultimate futility) of war moved me as much as did Halberstam's telling of the brave efforts of American GI's of 1950, when outnumbered and ill-lead, they fought in extreme weather conditions against a determined foe both they and their commanders had arrogantly underestimated. The section covering the heroism of these bands of hastily assembled and deployed American fighters who did their best to hold their ground against division after division of Chinese and North Korean foes, so many it looked as if the mountains themselves were moving, is Pulitzer Prize worthy in itself, and yet this book is much more. The Coldest Winter is a re-visitation of Halberstam's magnum opus, The Fifties, as he again investigates the culture, mores and attitudes of 1950's Americans toward Communism, toward the war on the Korean peninsula, and toward the role the citizens of our nation saw was theirs by right of a sort of global noblesse oblige.

The Coldest Winter is sure to win many honors in the coming year, and to be a best seller. I am glad I pre-ordered a copy, and urge anyone with fondness for Halberstam's past books or with an interest in this "accidental" war to read it. It's not a pleasant subject, it frequently frustrated and saddened me, but it is the (final) work of a true master laboring in top form.