GENERAL MATTHEW B. RIDGWAY - TYPESCRIPT SIGNED - HFSID 169064
Sale Price $425.00
Reg. $500.00
MATTHEW RIDGWAY
Signed statement, in retirement, regarding necessary means of deterring the
Soviet Union militarily. It can be read as a thinly veiled criticism of the
Eisenhower administration's policies.
Typescript signed: ""M. B. Ridgway", 1 page, 8½x11. Statement as a
retired U.S. Army General. In full: "It is the world's longest battle
line. No one nation can defend it. Planes alone cannot defend it. Atomic weapons
alone cannot defend it, nor can it be defended by men alone. All must be
employed, and in strength sufficient to meet the threat. If, in the present
state of the world, we should forget this, if we should let our guard down, the
Iron Curtain would clang down upon all Europe and that great rampart of the free
world would be lost. One example of letting our guard down, to my mind, was the
withdrawal of our troops from Austria, a move that hurt the Russians not at all,
but greatly weakened us." Matthew Bunker Ridgway (1895-1993) planned and
executed the Army's first major airborne assault in Sicily during WWII. In
April 1951, he succeeded General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as Commander
of United Nations forces in Korea and of allied occupying forces in Japan.
In June 1952, Ridgway replaced General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower as
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. He served as Army Chief of
Staff from 1953-1955. Although this statement is undated, it probably dates
from shortly after General Ridgway's retirement on June 30, 1955. The reference
to Austria was no doubt inspired by the Austrian State Treaty of May 15, 1955,
which ended US, Soviet, French and British zones of occupation in that country
and re-established its full independence on the condition of neutrality,
assuring the Soviet Union that Austria would not join NATO. Ridgway's words
may also be read as criticism of President Eisenhower, who had declined to
reappoint Ridgway to another term as US Army Chief of Staff in 1955. Ridgway had
disagreed with Eisenhower's view that US conventional force strength could be
reduced, replaced by greater reliance on air power and nuclear weaponry as
deterrents to Soviet aggression. Fold creases through signature. Fine
condition.
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