Abstract
Lauris Norstad’s career spanned some of the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century. With the development and use of the atomic bomb followed by the creation of an ever-larger and diversified arsenal of nuclear weapons, these years were witness to the achievement of the pinnacle of industrial warfare — the possibility of the ultimate destruction of human civilization. If ever-more complex nuclear-armed manned and unmanned “delivery systems” proved not to be the panacea for peace, then long-suffering mankind seemed ripe for yet more suffering on a scale heretofore unimagined. The dilemma that confronted Norstad and his generation of Cold War military leaders was that, if nuclear weapons failed to deter the Soviet Union, the world might have to endure incredibly brutal national and personal immolation.
God knows, I have been accused of everything … I figured I was doing the most I could do … by being a good and effective officer. I have been very pleased, the way that has worked out, to be in a key spot at a very difficult, sensitive time and to be involved in so damned many controversies ….1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
General James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle with Carroll V. Glines, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books, 1991), p. 272.
Franklin D’Olier et al., The United States Strategic Bombing Surveys, September 30, 1945 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, October 1987), pp. 82ff.
Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 15.
Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force, 1947–1997 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 11.
See, for example, John L. Frisbee, Makers of the United States Air Force (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1987). Norstad did not affect a “hail fellow well met” persona nor did he cultivate an image of being a “high flyer,” or “throttle jockey.” He did not drink to excess, was never known as a “lady’s man,” was fastidous almost to a fault, and generally exuded an aura of extreme self-discipline. He was reserved by nature, and curiously, in a professional environment populated by exuberant extroverts, this trait proved, on balance, to be more of an asset than a liability.
Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons (New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), p. 318. In fact, Norstad had a select group of the SHAPE Staff engaged in an analysis of the situation that might exist at the completion of an initial atomic exchange. He saw this as an important factor in the consideration of the strategy for continued operations in the event of a general war. Eventually he gave up on the effort because of the dearth of classified information which could be shared multinationally from U.S. sources. There might also have been undesirable morale and political repercussions if it were known to the Allies that the U.S. was indeed contemplating — and even planning — what life would be like if Europe were laid waste, and presumably the U.S. were not.
Solly Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles: An Autobiography 1946–88 (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1988), pp. 271–272.
Dirk U. Stikker, Men of Responsibility (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965), pp. 333–334. He wrote this just after the December 1960 meeting of the North Atlantic Council.
For a comparison of the various attempts at balancing these two roles, see Robert S. Jordan, ed., Generals in International Politics: NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1987).
Norstad’s path crossed MacArthur’s in September 1950, when he was sent out to Tokyo to evaluate MacArthur’s requests for more troops. He was then a Lt. General and Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff; with him was Lt. General Ridgway, the Army Deputy Chief of Staff. Averell Harriman joined the group after Norstad had “casually” invited him and Truman had agreed. (See Rudy Abramson, Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891–1986 (New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1992), pp. 450–451.
Mark Perry, Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Forty-Year Battle Between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America’s Civilian Leaders (Boston: Houghton Miffilin Co., 1989), p. 120.
Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 167.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2000 Robert S. Jordan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jordan, R.S. (2000). Conclusions. In: Norstad: Cold War NATO Supreme Commander. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62477-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62477-5_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-62479-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-62477-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)