If Eisenhower had not removed part of Patton’s command it is possible that the German High Command would have had to transfer reserves to slow Patton’s rapid advance into Germany. Had that happened it is doubtful there would have been sufficient forces to mount the attack later known as the Battle of the Bulge which was the single costliest battle of WWII for the U.S. There were 75,000 allied casualties in the battle. Did Eisenhower make a mistake depriving his best general and arguably the best Allied general of the troops he needed to drive to Berlin? For Eisenhower it was a political decision. He had, he thought, to favor British General Bernard Montgomery by allowing him to cross the Rhine first. Thus Eisenhower playing to the vanity of one general ended up costing thousands of lives.
If Truman had followed MacArthur’s battle plan and laid down a radioactive border between Korea and China the world today would be a very different place. There are lots of political in’s and out’s to the plan but that MacArthur, like Patton, was a tactical genius cannot be denied. In both cases these were men who played to win. MacArthur was more political than Patton but he saw no substitute for winning. Did both have tremendous egos? Absolutely. Most often large egos and unlikeable personalities go hand in hand with genius.
Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos; all have (had in Jobs case) larger than life persona and egos to go with that persona. But they are successful at what they do and what they do is make practical what others only dream about. They are polarizing people and they allow for no middle ground. Either you support them or you’re against them. No fence sitting is allowed.
Like MacArthur’s suggestion of a cobalt barrier, if Trump’s wall had been built things would be very different in the U.S. If Trump’s policy of the U.S. being the largest producer of oil and natural gas had been carried through Russia and Iran would be hurting for money to fund their aggressive actions. It should also be noted that while Tump was in office the Houthis were not harassing ships in the Red Sea, nor did Russia invade Ukraine.
Another trait really smart people share is failure. Musk has failed with his children and wives, Gates and Bezos couldn’t keep their marriages together, neither could Trump. Edison failed many times and wasn’t a likable person. Tesla didn’t have much in the way of person skills. Chuck Yeager played like the old likable country boy but he could be a real prima donna and a**h**e. You see these traits in really talented musicians, doctors, computer designers and all the other professions where talent separates the gifted from the proficient.
We could work our way back in history but the really talented seldom have patience, time or people skills. They fail but learn from their failures and press on to even greater heights. Compare Musk’s space efforts with NASA’s. He tried and failed numerous times to recover his first stage booster rockets. Then he succeeded and at last count one first-stage booster has been used twenty-one times. NASA never even tried. They just continued to spend exorbitant amounts of taxpayers money for each launch.
When great minds get together you might think great things would happen but that generally isn’t the case. When great minds get together they clash. Each will have his/her own style of thinking and seldom do we find two minds that mesh. Instead of greater things we find collaboration slows things down and causes rifts that require time to be papered over. No, great minds seldom work in concert.
What troubles me is how the public so wants to tear down those who are talented. You don’t need me to explain this but the more successful some people are the more others want them to experience failure. Do some names come to mind?
A very well done and timely piece.