The Dead Can Still Talk_ by William Manchester. "It's like seeing the Loch Ness monster again for the first time."— _USA Today_ "Riveting, disturbing . . . [and] a reminder of just what men have been capable of doing when they feel their honor challenged . . . Manchester has given us a remarkable new book, a portrait of the war the American public did not want to hear, a book that is at once unsettling and ultimately liberating, a tale so compelling that it makes _Hiroshima_ , _No!,_ and the stories that came before it seem like no more than prelude." —John Dolan, _The Boston Globe_ "In Manchester's superb new history, . . . George Marshall has been rehabilitated, and the Marshall Plan has been reexamined as a decisive response to Soviet aggression. . . . Manchester tells the story of Marshall and World War II in an engagingly brisk, journalistic style." — _Newsday_ "An insightful and highly readable portrait of American decision making during the crucial years between 1941 and 1945. . . . [Manchester] makes the Marshall Plan's key contribution to postwar American security and economic well-being abundantly clear." — _The Economist_ "This is a book that does not pretend to be a scholarly analysis. It is, instead, a deeply felt personal memoir by one of the book's subjects. . . . Manchester paints an intimate and unvarnished picture of his subject and does so in such a way that the reader is likely to feel a personal bond with Marshall as he tells his story." — _Milwaukee Journal Sentinel_ "This is a fascinating story told by one who is clearly a man with whom we can empathize." — _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ "In this remarkable book, Manchester tells the whole fascinating story of World War II in ways that are both enlightening and disturbing. . . . We see, as if through a window, the real George C. Marshall." — _The Dallas Morning News_ "Manchester has produced a stunningly insightful and timely memoir of our times. He deftly exposes flaws in our leaders' judgment. . . . For anyone interested in military history and strategy this is a must read." — _BookPage_ "This book—part memoir, part history, and part polemic—is a must read for anyone interested in the great world leaders who guided our nation through one of the most dangerous periods in modern history." — _The Tampa Tribune_ " _American Caesar_ is a rich and provocative addition to World War II history, and Manchester's narrative provides fresh insight into a central character." — _American Way_ "He has the ability to create characters that the reader can relate to—whether it's the general who won the war or the soldier who went to his death; the reader is pulled into each tale." — _San Francisco Examiner_ "A fast-paced and highly entertaining book that is also a study in the kind of character you can only find in America." — _The Cincinnati Enquirer_ "Manchester is a master of the anecdote and a master of the anecdote, he also proves to be a master historian . . . _American Caesar_ is a riveting, dramatic and thoroughly accessible history." — _The Dallas Morning News_ "A master historian [Manchester] draws on his life experiences and his mastery of American history as he crafts a fascinating story that puts the reader in the room when it mattered most and in the thick of action. A thoroughly entertaining book." — _Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette_ "Manchester gives us the story of American leadership and politics—the triumph and tragedy—in the pivotal decade of the Second World War. This is a book for which, indeed, history will say thank you." —James A. Baker, III "This well-written, straightforward and compelling memoir by an American historian takes you through all the main stages of our nation's experience in the Second World War. . . . From the perspective of a man at the center of things, we witness the creation and application of the plan for the rebirth of Europe. . . . Manchester has made an outstanding contribution to historical literature. He makes reading this book a pleasure. More than that, he makes it a must." —William E. Leuchtenburg "Manchester's account makes for fascinating reading." — _San Diego Union-Tribune_ "I cannot remember ever having heard the story of the Second World War told with more clarity and in more detail. George C. Marshall was a man who made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort and to our postwar world. George C. Marshall was one of the central figures of his age. As William Manchester has written so brilliantly and clearly, Marshall was a man of many faces. He was a general in the field, a tactician, and a statesman. Above all, he was an American, the child of poor immigrants from rural Pennsylvania. It was a story that should be told. And it is told here in a wonderfully readable way by Manchester." —John Kenneth Galbraith "This highly readable book also gives the average reader a better sense of what the war was like than most any book could." —The Washington Post ALSO BY WILLIAM MANCHESTER _The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874–1932_ _His Final Battle: Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965_ _American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964_ _Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War_ _The Last Lion: The Life of Winston Churchill, Volume II_ _The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932–1972_ _Brazil: Land of the Future_ _A World Lit Only by Fire_ _A World Lit Only by Water_ _The Arms of Krupp: 1557–1968: A History of the Making of Germany's Great War Machine_ _George C. Marshall: Soldier, Statesman, Scholar, 1875–1959_ _The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932_ _American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964_ This book is dedicated to my great friend Dr. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. —WILLIAM MANCHESTER —1993 # ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I should like to thank all those who made this book possible, and who were kind enough to help me. Chief among these is George and Ruth Marshall, not only for their own great generosity but for allowing me to see their father's private papers and papers at the Marshall archives. Without their help this book would never have been written. I am also very grateful to the officers and staff of the Hoover Institution Library and Archive in Palo Alto, California, especially for permission to quote from the papers of General George C. Marshall. My thanks go also to several of my former colleagues at the _Washington Post,_ including Ben Bradlee, Elisabeth Bumiller, Richard Harwood, John Howell, Mike Manson, Don Oberdorfer, and Harry Rosenfeld, who were very kind to me when this book first appeared and allowed me to quote from their work. My editor at Doubleday, Paul Bresnick, was a splendid guardian of the original manuscript; it is better for having worked with him. But my deepest thanks, as always, go to my agent, Georges Borchardt, the legendary translator of Tolstoy, who first showed me the power of simplicity. It was a privilege to work with my editor at Viking Penguin, Bill Thomas, who understood and accepted what I was trying to do with this book. Other than him, I have had my way with no one; I wish to thank my colleagues at Viking, particularly my editor, Laura Stickney, and Susan Ralston, who is responsible for the superb cover design; and also my American editor, Peter Richardson, for his unflagging enthusiasm and support. I should like to thank General John M. Deutch for introducing me to George Marshall and for his friendship, insight, and advice over many years. # FOREWORD The idea for this book came to me at a dinner party in Washington. Some eight years ago, on a cold January evening, I sat down with one of my oldest friends, George H. W. Bush, the former Vice President of the United States. George W. Bush, who was Governor of Texas, had just finished a four-year term as President of the United States. I had first met George W. in 1992, when I was teaching journalism at Yale University and he was a Harvard business-school graduate with a desire to turn around the government of his native Texas. He was only twenty-eight years old then and had been reelected as the governor of the second largest state in the nation, with two-thirds of the people voting against him. When we met, George W. was not at all happy that he had been voted out of office by nearly half the state's citizens; nevertheless, as a true Tex