WEBVTT - Goodbye, Farewell and Amen 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:22.396 --> 0:00:26.156 It's July nineteen sixty one, an official ceremony at the 0:00:26.156 --> 0:00:30.436 White House. President Kennedy stands at the microphone. Dark sued 0:00:30.676 --> 0:00:35.076 white shirt, thin black tie. Next to him is a 0:00:35.116 --> 0:00:39.996 second man, shorter, wide through the chest, large square head, 0:00:40.356 --> 0:00:44.116 hair parted triumphantly just off the middle, a thicket of 0:00:44.196 --> 0:00:47.316 decorations on the left breast of his uniform. 0:00:47.836 --> 0:00:53.956 I want to express our great pleasure at the assumption 0:00:54.076 --> 0:00:55.916 of this responsibility by General. 0:00:55.676 --> 0:00:58.636 Le May Curtis Emerson LeMay. 0:00:59.356 --> 0:01:03.036 He was one of the or distinguished combat commanders in 0:01:03.076 --> 0:01:07.476 World War Two. He played a most instrumental role in 0:01:07.556 --> 0:01:13.996 developing who its present death. I pete as the great 0:01:14.036 --> 0:01:17.036 shield of the United States in the free world. So, General, 0:01:17.116 --> 0:01:21.796 you want to say that, speaking personally and also as president, 0:01:21.836 --> 0:01:24.916 that it's a great pleasure to welcome you as the 0:01:25.036 --> 0:01:27.396 new Chief of Staff the United States Air Force and 0:01:27.436 --> 0:01:28.756 member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 0:01:33.676 --> 0:01:36.556 The old cliche says that history is written by the victors, 0:01:36.996 --> 0:01:39.596 and that line of Kennedy's he was one of the 0:01:39.636 --> 0:01:43.756 most distinguished combat commanders of World War II is exhibit A. 0:01:44.916 --> 0:01:48.116 Distinguished refers to the events of nineteen forty five when 0:01:48.156 --> 0:01:51.316 LeMay ordered a bombing campaign that resulted in the deaths 0:01:51.516 --> 0:01:55.236 of half a million Japanese civilians. In a candid moment, 0:01:55.476 --> 0:01:58.716 LeMay once told one of his subordinates, if we lose 0:01:58.756 --> 0:02:02.156 this war, we'll be tried as war criminals, which is 0:02:02.196 --> 0:02:04.636 almost certainly true. But they didn't lose. 0:02:05.316 --> 0:02:05.676 They won. 0:02:07.156 --> 0:02:10.636 After the war, LeMay joined the Strite Air Command Sack, 0:02:11.196 --> 0:02:14.756 where he was responsible for most of America's nuclear arsenal 0:02:14.916 --> 0:02:17.836 at a time when war with the Soviet Union seemed imminent. 0:02:18.636 --> 0:02:21.596 Then in nineteen sixty one, he became head of the 0:02:21.596 --> 0:02:25.836 whole Air Force. Standing next to Kennedy on the podium. 0:02:26.956 --> 0:02:30.516 I surprised. I appreciate very much they're taking a time 0:02:30.556 --> 0:02:33.876 out from your busy schedule to participate them and this ceremony. 0:02:35.156 --> 0:02:40.156 I'm sure you realize that a number beyond services, I've 0:02:40.196 --> 0:02:42.596 become a Chief assaff as his service as the highest 0:02:42.596 --> 0:02:45.636 honor that can come to him. 0:02:45.796 --> 0:02:49.316 LeMay didn't get tried as a war criminal. He got promoted. 0:02:55.396 --> 0:02:58.756 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:02:58.956 --> 0:03:09.876 my podcast about things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This is and 0:03:10.036 --> 0:03:14.116 final installment in my miniseries about Curtis le May and 0:03:14.196 --> 0:03:18.916 the super weapon known as Napalm. I never intended to 0:03:18.956 --> 0:03:22.516 devote four episodes to this story. I was originally going 0:03:22.516 --> 0:03:25.996 to do just one. Then one episode became two, and 0:03:26.076 --> 0:03:29.036 two became three, and then I was at four because 0:03:29.076 --> 0:03:31.436 I kept expecting the story to come to some kind 0:03:31.476 --> 0:03:36.596 of appropriate resolution and it didn't. I mean, if you 0:03:36.716 --> 0:03:41.196 kill half a million civilians, something should happen, shouldn't it. 0:03:46.956 --> 0:03:49.716 And then in the middle of everything, I went to 0:03:49.756 --> 0:03:53.356 Tokyo for another reason entirely and decided to visit a 0:03:53.396 --> 0:03:58.036 little private museum off a side street, the only museum 0:03:58.036 --> 0:04:01.356 in the world dedicated entirely to the bombing campaign that 0:04:01.396 --> 0:04:05.996 burned Tokyo in nineteen forty five. And upstairs, in a 0:04:06.036 --> 0:04:09.356 plain room with linoleum floors that looks like a public 0:04:09.396 --> 0:04:14.316 school classroom, there's a long scroll on the wall, beautiful 0:04:14.436 --> 0:04:23.396 Japanese calligraphy that broke my heart. 0:04:22.756 --> 0:04:23.156 Sank. 0:04:35.796 --> 0:04:39.116 The clear eyed military rationale for the fire bombing of 0:04:39.116 --> 0:04:43.676 Tokyo goes something like this. The United States had no 0:04:43.796 --> 0:04:48.156 better option, nor did Japan. There was only one alternative 0:04:48.156 --> 0:04:50.316 to le Maay's long summer of burning down the cities 0:04:50.356 --> 0:04:53.076 of Japan. With napalm. That would have been a ground 0:04:53.076 --> 0:04:56.756 invasion of Japan by American troops that fall, and that 0:04:56.796 --> 0:04:58.716 would have been worse, far worse. 0:04:59.676 --> 0:05:03.396 I actually gave a presentation in Tokyo about the incendiary 0:05:03.436 --> 0:05:07.316 bombing of Tokyo to a Japanese audience, and at the 0:05:07.396 --> 0:05:09.956 end of the presentation at one of the your Japanese 0:05:09.996 --> 0:05:12.276 historians there stood up and said he said, in the end, 0:05:12.356 --> 0:05:15.836 he said, we must thank you Americans for the firebombing 0:05:15.876 --> 0:05:16.996 and the atomic bombs. 0:05:17.636 --> 0:05:20.116 This is the military historian Conrad Crane. 0:05:20.636 --> 0:05:23.396 That kind of took me aback, and then he explained, 0:05:23.436 --> 0:05:27.756 he said, we would have surrendered eventually anyway, but he 0:05:27.796 --> 0:05:31.236 said the impact of the massive firebombing campaign atomic bombs 0:05:31.316 --> 0:05:33.236 was that we surrendered in August. 0:05:33.716 --> 0:05:37.196 No fire bombs and no atomic bombs, and the Japanese 0:05:37.196 --> 0:05:40.756 don't surrender, and if they don't surrender, the Soviets invade, 0:05:41.076 --> 0:05:44.236 and then the Americans invade and Japan gets carved up 0:05:44.516 --> 0:05:47.116 just like Germany and the Korean Peninsula eventually were. 0:05:47.556 --> 0:05:49.036 And the other thing that would have happened is there 0:05:49.076 --> 0:05:51.276 would have been millions of Japanese that would have starved 0:05:51.316 --> 0:05:54.036 to death in the winter because what happens is when 0:05:55.036 --> 0:05:57.596 by surrendering on August, that gives MacArthur time to come 0:05:57.596 --> 0:06:02.516 in with his occupation forces and actually feed. 0:06:02.356 --> 0:06:07.196 Japan General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme Allied commander in the Pacific. 0:06:07.676 --> 0:06:10.396 He was the one who accepted the Jetjapanese Emperor's surrender. 0:06:10.996 --> 0:06:13.636 I mean, that's one of MacArthur's great successes, bringing in 0:06:13.756 --> 0:06:16.316 massive amount of foods to avoid starvation in the winter 0:06:16.396 --> 0:06:17.396 of nineteen forty five. 0:06:18.436 --> 0:06:22.156 Much later, in nineteen sixty four, the Japanese government accorded 0:06:22.236 --> 0:06:25.316 le May one of its highest honors, the Grand Cordon 0:06:25.316 --> 0:06:27.516 of the Order of the Rising Sun, for his help 0:06:27.556 --> 0:06:30.676 rebuilding their air force after the war. There was a 0:06:30.716 --> 0:06:33.636 debate in the Japanese parliament about whether the award was 0:06:33.636 --> 0:06:35.956 a good idea, but none of it centered on his 0:06:36.076 --> 0:06:40.396 campaign to burn Japanese cities with napalm. The Japanese government 0:06:40.596 --> 0:06:47.716 had moved on. Everyone moved on. Remember Hoyt Hoddel from 0:06:47.756 --> 0:06:51.396 the second episode in this series. He's the MIT scientist 0:06:51.516 --> 0:06:54.396 Washington brought in to manage the bomb bakeoff. To find 0:06:54.436 --> 0:06:57.556 the very best possible fire bomb to use against the Japanese. 0:06:58.756 --> 0:07:01.516 Hoddle put together a committee of the biggest names in 0:07:01.596 --> 0:07:06.076 chemistry to create the world's greatest incendiary And after the 0:07:06.116 --> 0:07:07.636 war they scattered. 0:07:09.116 --> 0:07:14.036 Amazing how fast people wanted to get out. They were 0:07:14.076 --> 0:07:16.076 fed up on war. 0:07:17.636 --> 0:07:21.516 Fire was still Hoddle's passion, but not burning things down, 0:07:21.716 --> 0:07:26.356 not anymore. Now his passion became stopping things from burning down. 0:07:27.076 --> 0:07:34.236 I was so saturated with fire as a weapon of destruction. 0:07:35.756 --> 0:07:40.196 When I was asked to be on a peacetime fire 0:07:40.316 --> 0:07:46.036 research committee by the Army, I was happy to say yes. 0:07:47.516 --> 0:07:50.596 The mandate of the fire Research Committee was to prevent 0:07:50.676 --> 0:07:56.156 an unquoting large urban fires and forest fires. Hoddle ran 0:07:56.196 --> 0:08:00.756 that committee for eleven years until his retirement. And what 0:08:00.796 --> 0:08:03.676 about Louis Feezer. He was the winner of the bakeoff, 0:08:03.836 --> 0:08:07.236 the co inventor of napalm. He went back to Harvard 0:08:07.476 --> 0:08:11.716 and resumed his duties, trained the next generation of American chemists, 0:08:12.196 --> 0:08:17.316 wrote the definitive College Chemistry textbook with his wife. As 0:08:17.356 --> 0:08:21.396 for his fellow inventor, Eb Hirschberg, the wizard of the laboratory, 0:08:21.996 --> 0:08:25.556 Hirshburg went to work for the Shearing Corporation, a pharmaceutical 0:08:25.596 --> 0:08:26.636 company in New Jersey. 0:08:27.556 --> 0:08:30.116 My father was not a violent person, he's a pacifist. 0:08:30.556 --> 0:08:31.596 He didn't believe in war. 0:08:31.956 --> 0:08:32.076 Uh. 0:08:32.356 --> 0:08:34.756 I'm quite sure it is to be avoided. 0:08:35.396 --> 0:08:40.036 Robert Hirschberg, Eb's sun also a scientist. He would call 0:08:40.076 --> 0:08:42.516 his father every evening and they would talk about their 0:08:42.556 --> 0:08:46.596 day in the laboratory. What would your father have when 0:08:46.596 --> 0:08:49.596 he looked across his entire career, what would he have 0:08:49.716 --> 0:08:52.116 considered his finest accomplishment. 0:08:52.276 --> 0:08:55.316 Without doubt, I think it would be prednisone and prinis 0:08:55.316 --> 0:08:57.556 alone pregmozone. 0:08:57.876 --> 0:09:01.996 It's an anti inflammatory agent and amino suppressant, one of 0:09:02.076 --> 0:09:05.036 the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. I don't 0:09:05.076 --> 0:09:07.276 know how to quantify how many lives have been saved 0:09:07.276 --> 0:09:10.796 by that drug, hundreds of thousands. It was a crucial 0:09:10.876 --> 0:09:13.636 part of the very first breakthrough in drug therapy for cancer, 0:09:14.396 --> 0:09:17.876 Amo Freireich's defeat of childhood leukemia in the nineteen sixties, 0:09:18.316 --> 0:09:23.836 a combination therapy using methachrekx eight six mp vin Christine 0:09:24.076 --> 0:09:33.516 and prednozone. Eb Hirschberg led the team that developed it 0:09:33.556 --> 0:09:38.036 was prednazone, Hirschberg's atonement for napalm. Like Hoyt Hoddle's work 0:09:38.076 --> 0:09:42.436 on the Fire Research Committee. Maybe, but no one seems 0:09:42.476 --> 0:09:47.236 to have discussed it or considered it. A few years ago, 0:09:47.556 --> 0:09:51.476 the historian Robert nir went searching for a definitive account 0:09:51.716 --> 0:09:54.836 of the birth of the world's most powerful incendiary. 0:09:54.916 --> 0:09:58.356 So I started looking, and it was with a kind 0:09:58.356 --> 0:10:01.916 of growing sense of disbelief that I discovered that actually 0:10:02.196 --> 0:10:04.676 there was no history of napalm. And the more research 0:10:04.756 --> 0:10:06.876 that I did on it, the more I discovered that actually, 0:10:06.916 --> 0:10:09.996 really it was true. There was no not even an 0:10:10.116 --> 0:10:12.876 article that was There was no like even a sort 0:10:12.916 --> 0:10:16.316 of academic journal article that was this is a comprehensive 0:10:16.356 --> 0:10:17.236 history of napalm. 0:10:17.676 --> 0:10:20.916 Robert Near would go to the Widner Research Library at Harvard, 0:10:21.076 --> 0:10:23.916 one of the great libraries in the world. He would 0:10:23.956 --> 0:10:27.676 see shelves of books on atomic weapons, the glamorous bomb, 0:10:27.916 --> 0:10:31.396 built a great expense by the smartest people in the world. 0:10:31.876 --> 0:10:36.756 But this particular weapon, there was no history background about 0:10:36.756 --> 0:10:37.396 it at all. 0:10:37.916 --> 0:10:41.396 He would end up writing that history himself. It's called Napalm, 0:10:41.476 --> 0:10:46.076 an American Biography. What's even stranger, of course, was that 0:10:46.076 --> 0:10:48.236 he was looking for a history of napalm in the 0:10:48.276 --> 0:10:52.356 Harvard library and didn't find anything. Because Harvard was where 0:10:52.476 --> 0:10:57.276 napalm was invented. Robert Neir took me to the place 0:10:57.356 --> 0:10:58.956 on campus where napalm was born. 0:10:59.636 --> 0:11:03.556 We think this is the converse laboratory right here, which 0:11:03.596 --> 0:11:06.076 is where they did the initial experiments in the basement 0:11:06.196 --> 0:11:09.076 window wells with Jeldenson. 0:11:09.636 --> 0:11:10.436 We're looking at them. 0:11:10.756 --> 0:11:13.396 I assumed there would be some indication of which of 0:11:13.436 --> 0:11:16.676 the labs along the basement hallway have belonged to Louis Feeser, 0:11:17.396 --> 0:11:20.796 But no. We peered in one window after another and 0:11:20.876 --> 0:11:26.076 had to guess. It's all very chemical lab here, like 0:11:26.796 --> 0:11:30.316 a zillion pipes and the ceiling. There don't really window 0:11:30.316 --> 0:11:33.236 wells on this side. No, so it is this side. 0:11:33.636 --> 0:11:36.196 Were close, assuming that it hasn't ever been, you know, 0:11:36.316 --> 0:11:38.676 dramatically changed. But I think we're quite close in the 0:11:38.716 --> 0:11:40.676 spiritual sense at least absolutely. 0:11:40.876 --> 0:11:41.076 Yeah. 0:11:44.996 --> 0:11:47.516 There are long lists of things. Harvard is eager to 0:11:47.556 --> 0:11:52.556 take credit for the transgenic mouse, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, 0:11:53.036 --> 0:11:58.236 the pacemaker defibrillators, all important, But on the weapon that 0:11:58.236 --> 0:12:00.516 played a decisive role in the biggest war of the 0:12:00.516 --> 0:12:03.996 twentieth century that burned close to half a million Japanese 0:12:03.996 --> 0:12:07.236 alive in the summer of nineteen forty five, it's not 0:12:07.356 --> 0:12:11.916 on the list. It's not even a plaque. And at Harvard, 0:12:12.076 --> 0:12:15.276 I'll point out, they'll put a name on anything. There 0:12:15.276 --> 0:12:17.636 are multiple buildings at Harvard named in honor of the 0:12:17.676 --> 0:12:21.636 Sackler family, whose drug company gave the world OxyContin. So 0:12:21.716 --> 0:12:27.516 it's not like Harvard is squeamish just about napalm. Napalm 0:12:27.596 --> 0:12:31.636 has simply disappeared. And that is the final of napalm's 0:12:31.676 --> 0:12:45.396 many crimes, because it didn't actually disappear. Quite the opposite. 0:12:45.436 --> 0:12:48.036 Five years after the end of the Second World War, 0:12:48.556 --> 0:12:52.236 after the surrender of Japan, the communist back government of 0:12:52.236 --> 0:12:57.276 North Korea invaded South Korea June twenty fifth, nineteen fifty. 0:12:58.116 --> 0:13:01.876 The United Nations condemned the invasion and responded with a 0:13:01.916 --> 0:13:05.956 show of force led by the United States. And what 0:13:06.116 --> 0:13:08.996 was the strategy adopted by the US Air Force in Korea. 0:13:09.756 --> 0:13:13.116 Basically the strategy pioneered by Curtis le May over Japan. 0:13:13.876 --> 0:13:17.796 Firebomb the North Koreans with napalm until they surrender. 0:13:19.076 --> 0:13:22.476 Napalm again, how does the living engines. 0:13:24.876 --> 0:13:26.636 This is a newsreel the Navy put out in the 0:13:26.636 --> 0:13:29.796 middle of the war called this is Korea, directed by 0:13:29.796 --> 0:13:31.076 the legendary John Ford. 0:13:32.516 --> 0:13:37.756 Fry them out, burn them out, cook them, fry them, 0:13:38.156 --> 0:13:42.396 burn them, cook them Korea in three sentences. 0:13:43.716 --> 0:13:47.436 If you go through oral history archives, you'll find countless 0:13:47.476 --> 0:13:51.276 interviews with pilots who remember what that bombing campaign was like. 0:13:51.796 --> 0:13:55.596 Oh, a lot of napalm dropped, which it was supposed 0:13:55.596 --> 0:13:56.356 to be top secret. 0:13:57.076 --> 0:13:59.476 The flight crews came up with the idea of strapping 0:13:59.596 --> 0:14:03.076 canisters of napalm to wooden pallets, then pushing them out 0:14:03.076 --> 0:14:05.796 the back of the airplane on rollers. 0:14:05.716 --> 0:14:09.276 And then the parachutes would open up the stone of 0:14:09.316 --> 0:14:11.796 descent to where you were trying to drop it. 0:14:12.676 --> 0:14:15.876 This is a pilot named Robert Billion, interviewed in nineteen 0:14:15.956 --> 0:14:18.716 ninety five for the Rutgers Oral History Archive. 0:14:19.276 --> 0:14:22.476 What they did. They went after personnel centers where they 0:14:22.996 --> 0:14:27.436 congregated the troops in North Korea when they come over, 0:14:27.476 --> 0:14:31.156 and they would let go with thirty six times fifty 0:14:31.396 --> 0:14:35.996 fifty gallon drops, and they figured they killed thousands North 0:14:36.076 --> 0:14:39.796 Korean not burning them, they suffocated them because it burned 0:14:39.836 --> 0:14:41.516 all the oxygen up in the mediate area. 0:14:43.036 --> 0:14:46.556 Napalm was engineered to burn down Japanese houses, which had 0:14:46.596 --> 0:14:49.876 allowed for the pretense that it was intended to destroy buildings, 0:14:50.276 --> 0:14:54.956 not people. In Korea. That pretense was dropped. It turned 0:14:54.956 --> 0:14:57.316 out napalm was very good at destroying people. 0:14:58.236 --> 0:15:04.996 The North Koreans were such vicious enemies and so brutal, 0:15:05.996 --> 0:15:11.116 but we took care of them, and power in that 0:15:11.236 --> 0:15:12.516 war was predominant. 0:15:13.116 --> 0:15:16.636 This is Bill Sinclair, Korean War pilot, interviewed in two 0:15:16.716 --> 0:15:20.516 thousand and four by the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project. 0:15:21.356 --> 0:15:24.556 I will warn you the story he tells is not pleasant. 0:15:25.396 --> 0:15:33.796 I remember a particular mission when we caught a mixed 0:15:34.036 --> 0:15:41.036 Chinese and North Korean division in the open, and we 0:15:41.276 --> 0:15:45.396 just attacked them with napalm, and we killed hundreds and 0:15:45.476 --> 0:15:49.396 hundreds of Chinese and North Korean soldiers. I couldn't see 0:15:49.436 --> 0:15:52.556 how they could possibly stand in the midst of all 0:15:52.596 --> 0:16:00.356 this conflagration. I remember distinctly one soldier standing under a 0:16:00.396 --> 0:16:04.956 little tree, and around him was just devastation. Bodies everywhere. 0:16:06.956 --> 0:16:09.076 And here's an interview with a pilot named Leonard Lee 0:16:09.236 --> 0:16:12.036 Conia from the Korean War Legacy Foundation. 0:16:12.756 --> 0:16:14.116 But it worked, it worked well. 0:16:14.196 --> 0:16:19.076 The burning, yeah, yeah, it'll just hit and then it 0:16:19.196 --> 0:16:23.476 just spreads. Well, we were close enough that when we 0:16:23.516 --> 0:16:25.476 call it, you could feel the heat from the from 0:16:25.476 --> 0:16:29.796 the nap bomb and if you get too close. You 0:16:29.836 --> 0:16:31.356 don't have to be right in it, but if you 0:16:31.396 --> 0:16:33.516 get too close it burns the oxygen out of the air. 0:16:34.076 --> 0:16:34.796 You can't breathe. 0:16:38.076 --> 0:16:41.916 These stories go on and on. There's one so graphic 0:16:41.956 --> 0:16:44.516 I'm not going to play it for you. It's about 0:16:44.516 --> 0:16:47.876 a US pilot carrying a load of napalm who crashes 0:16:47.916 --> 0:16:50.396 before he can drop it on someone else, and his 0:16:50.556 --> 0:16:53.516 fellow airman run up to the crash site and can 0:16:53.516 --> 0:16:58.236 only watch as he burns to death. In the end, 0:16:58.756 --> 0:17:02.596 the Air Force in Korea ran out of targets. Literally, 0:17:03.596 --> 0:17:06.436 they had nothing left to bomb because they'd burned down 0:17:06.596 --> 0:17:09.756 and bombed out virtually everything that could be burned down 0:17:09.996 --> 0:17:10.796 a bombed out. 0:17:15.476 --> 0:17:19.996 The destruction on a North Korean the urban structure is massive. 0:17:21.036 --> 0:17:25.076 Historian Conrad Crane says the consequences of that bombing campaign 0:17:25.596 --> 0:17:26.956 were enormous. 0:17:26.996 --> 0:17:29.156 And in some extent that's I think a legacy we're 0:17:29.156 --> 0:17:31.396 dealing with today because part of the motivation for the 0:17:31.396 --> 0:17:35.796 North Korean pursuit of nuclear weapons is to have some 0:17:35.916 --> 0:17:38.036 kind of deterrent to make sure that never happens again. 0:17:38.876 --> 0:17:40.756 We've heard a lot in the West about how the 0:17:40.756 --> 0:17:46.436 North Koreans are duplicitous, distrustful, irrational, secretive. Not so much 0:17:46.476 --> 0:17:49.996 about how in three short years the United States reduced 0:17:49.996 --> 0:17:53.956 their country to an ash heap. But then again, we've 0:17:53.996 --> 0:17:56.956 never talked much about napalm and the Korean War. We've 0:17:56.956 --> 0:18:00.156 never talked much about the Korean War period. It was 0:18:00.196 --> 0:18:04.556 all pushed aside. In fact, the most significant monument of 0:18:04.596 --> 0:18:13.996 that war was probably a television show, the sitcom Mash. 0:18:14.396 --> 0:18:18.276 Mash ran for eleven seasons on CBS nineteen seventy two 0:18:18.516 --> 0:18:22.756 to nineteen eighty three. It was about a mobile medical 0:18:22.876 --> 0:18:25.796 unit on the front lines of the Korean War. If 0:18:25.836 --> 0:18:28.756 you're old enough, you'll remember the names of the characters, 0:18:28.996 --> 0:18:33.596 Hawkeye Pierce, Colonel Potter, Trapper, John Rader, O'Reilly hot Lips, 0:18:33.636 --> 0:18:37.876 Hulihan Clinger. It was one of the most remarkable television 0:18:37.916 --> 0:18:44.116 shows in history. Funny, dark, moving. So what does Mash 0:18:44.196 --> 0:18:47.996 have to say about napalm? I wondered very little, it 0:18:48.036 --> 0:18:51.996 turns out, with one exception. The most famous Smash episode 0:18:52.036 --> 0:18:58.516 of all, the series finale, February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty three, Goodbye, Farewell, 0:18:58.556 --> 0:19:02.756 and Amen, was watched by one hundred and six million Americans, 0:19:03.356 --> 0:19:06.476 the highest rated non sports television event in history. 0:19:07.396 --> 0:19:11.116 The night the last episode was shown, we watched it 0:19:11.156 --> 0:19:13.916 on a big screen at the studio, and then we 0:19:13.956 --> 0:19:15.836 went out to dinner to celebrate. 0:19:17.676 --> 0:19:20.716 I talked to Alan Alda about it. He played Hawkeye, 0:19:21.036 --> 0:19:22.716 the show's central character. 0:19:22.996 --> 0:19:28.276 And on the way to the restaurant, Loretta Stwood was 0:19:28.316 --> 0:19:30.356 in the car with me, and I said, Loretta, look, 0:19:30.396 --> 0:19:35.036 the streets are empty, and it suddenly dawned on us 0:19:35.076 --> 0:19:38.436 that a lot of people were probably home watching the 0:19:38.516 --> 0:19:41.996 show at that time. And what I read in the 0:19:41.996 --> 0:19:44.756 paper the next day was that in New York the 0:19:44.836 --> 0:19:48.396 waterworks were threatened because everybody went to the bathroom at 0:19:48.396 --> 0:19:50.476 the same time during the commercial break. 0:19:52.036 --> 0:19:56.356 The final episode runs two hours. It is beautiful and moving. 0:19:57.116 --> 0:19:59.996 I remember where I was when I watched it, packed 0:20:00.036 --> 0:20:02.596 into the basement TV room at my college in Toronto 0:20:03.076 --> 0:20:07.956 with what must have been one hundred other people. So 0:20:08.036 --> 0:20:10.956 after all those years, I went back and watched it 0:20:10.996 --> 0:20:14.436 again because I remembered that this was the episode that 0:20:14.556 --> 0:20:18.196 finally dealt with Napon. It comes just after the halfway 0:20:18.196 --> 0:20:20.516 point in the show, at the one hour and seven 0:20:20.556 --> 0:20:21.156 minute mark. 0:20:23.516 --> 0:20:26.836 Colonel look at that sunset. 0:20:27.796 --> 0:20:30.796 What a beautiful ending for a beautiful day. 0:20:31.396 --> 0:20:34.756 Corporal Clinger is looking up at the sky when Colonel Potter, 0:20:35.036 --> 0:20:37.676 the Mash unit's commanding officer, walks by. 0:20:38.196 --> 0:20:40.276 Yeah, it'd be a nice sunset of it were setting 0:20:40.316 --> 0:20:44.396 over there. What do you mean? Ever since I've been around, 0:20:44.436 --> 0:20:47.836 the sun's always set in the west. And what's that? 0:20:48.556 --> 0:20:50.596 What saw that same kind of glow in the yard 0:20:50.676 --> 0:20:54.156 end forest? Next day? There wasn't any forest left. You 0:20:54.236 --> 0:20:56.476 better get on the phone, die car. That fire is 0:20:56.516 --> 0:20:57.996 headed this way. We're headed out. 0:20:58.716 --> 0:21:02.116 Klinger runs back to the barracks. Potter stands and watches 0:21:02.196 --> 0:21:05.996 the sky. We see the fire start to rage, rabbits 0:21:06.116 --> 0:21:07.036 running for safety. 0:21:07.596 --> 0:21:10.756 It was started by incendiary bombs. It's coming straight at us. 0:21:10.836 --> 0:21:11.476 Butt out. 0:21:14.476 --> 0:21:16.036 All personnel but out. 0:21:18.476 --> 0:21:21.276 The mass Unit has to evacuate because of a nearby 0:21:21.356 --> 0:21:25.156 napalm attack. I asked Alan Alda about that plot point 0:21:25.196 --> 0:21:28.476 in the show. He directed the episode and was one 0:21:28.516 --> 0:21:29.476 of its writers. 0:21:29.756 --> 0:21:30.196 I had a. 0:21:31.796 --> 0:21:35.276 Very specific question with that episode, and that is when 0:21:35.276 --> 0:21:40.316 you have to evacuate the camp because of the fire. Yeah, 0:21:40.396 --> 0:21:45.236 from vincendier bombs. It's left unstated whose bombs they are. 0:21:46.556 --> 0:21:49.356 I got a call on a Saturday morning that a 0:21:49.396 --> 0:21:53.036 fire had raged through the canyon where we were shooting 0:21:53.076 --> 0:21:56.036 and the whole shed had burned down. So I put 0:21:56.076 --> 0:22:01.756 the phone down and calmly went about writing what we 0:22:01.876 --> 0:22:04.036 called the bugout. I think they called it a bug 0:22:04.036 --> 0:22:06.116 out in those days. When the mass unit had to 0:22:06.156 --> 0:22:13.356 move and we moved to another location, so I had 0:22:13.396 --> 0:22:18.916 to put a fire into the script to justify the move, 0:22:20.116 --> 0:22:24.556 but I forgot what the justification was was that a 0:22:24.636 --> 0:22:26.076 bomb had caused the fire. 0:22:25.876 --> 0:22:29.836 Scendiary bombs. Radar says, there's a fire on the way 0:22:30.396 --> 0:22:31.796 from incendiary bombs. 0:22:32.556 --> 0:22:35.476 Yeah, so you wonder which side they're from. Well, it 0:22:35.596 --> 0:22:36.476 kind of doesn't matter. 0:22:36.676 --> 0:22:44.956 Yeah, he's right, absolutely right. The great moral innovation of 0:22:45.036 --> 0:22:48.956 MASH was that it spoke out against war without taking sides. 0:22:50.156 --> 0:22:52.236 But all I could think about is that this show 0:22:52.476 --> 0:22:55.396 is what's left of America's memory of the Korean War. 0:22:56.156 --> 0:22:59.876 And when MASH finally comes around to mentioning napalm, the 0:22:59.916 --> 0:23:03.756 weapon that reduced North Korea to ashes, it gets history 0:23:03.796 --> 0:23:09.916 exactly backwards. It has Americans as Napalm's victims, not the Koreans, 0:23:10.556 --> 0:23:13.596 and the show doesn't mention where the napalm came from 0:23:13.756 --> 0:23:16.276 as if it could as easily have come from anywhere, 0:23:16.916 --> 0:23:19.396 when in truth it could only have come from the 0:23:19.476 --> 0:23:23.876 US Air Force dropping their Harvard engineered payloads from high 0:23:23.876 --> 0:23:30.156 in the sky. Later in the episode, Colonel Potter returns 0:23:30.156 --> 0:23:33.396 to the mash camp after it's been destroyed by napalm. 0:23:34.516 --> 0:23:37.996 The MASH unit is packing up, The doctors and nurses 0:23:38.036 --> 0:23:38.996 are all going home. 0:23:41.116 --> 0:23:44.156 It is now two PIM. In exactly eight hours, the 0:23:44.236 --> 0:23:47.676 Korean War will be officially over. It's a time for 0:23:47.756 --> 0:23:49.516 a summing up, and these are the most up to 0:23:49.596 --> 0:23:52.076 date figures we have. The cost of the war to 0:23:52.076 --> 0:23:55.356 the United States has been placed at twenty two billion dollars. 0:23:56.956 --> 0:23:58.836 Oh, look at me, I only get three hundred a month. 0:24:00.036 --> 0:24:02.276 Potter goes one last time to the place they had 0:24:02.356 --> 0:24:05.796 lived for so many years and wanders among the ashes. 0:24:09.116 --> 0:24:13.196 Wreckage is still smoking. Potter takes off his helmet and 0:24:13.236 --> 0:24:16.876 looks around in shock. He bends over, picks up a 0:24:16.876 --> 0:24:18.996 blackened bottle, stands up again. 0:24:21.076 --> 0:24:22.276 Okay, let's get to work. 0:24:26.516 --> 0:24:32.036 That's it, We're done, let's move on. I was one 0:24:32.076 --> 0:24:34.796 of millions of viewers who choked up at that moment, 0:24:37.036 --> 0:24:39.596 But if I were North Korean, I would have thrown 0:24:39.596 --> 0:24:57.116 a brick at the television. General Curtis LeMay disapproved of 0:24:57.116 --> 0:25:01.196 the way the Pentagon fought the war in Korea. He 0:25:01.316 --> 0:25:04.036 was in charge of the Strategic Air Command by that point, 0:25:04.516 --> 0:25:06.876 a step removed from day to day control of the war. 0:25:07.556 --> 0:25:10.876 But they were using his tactic and his warhorse to 0:25:10.916 --> 0:25:15.276 be twenty nine, along with his incendiary weapon of choice, napon. 0:25:16.476 --> 0:25:20.396 So he had opinions. He thought the whole business on 0:25:20.556 --> 0:25:23.676 the Korean Peninsula dragged on for far too long. 0:25:24.836 --> 0:25:29.676 Going in the war as a serious business, a serious decision. 0:25:31.076 --> 0:25:33.716 If you have a responsibility for doing it, you better 0:25:33.756 --> 0:25:39.276 buy God makes them careful evaluation before you come to 0:25:39.316 --> 0:25:42.476 the conclusion that war is the illness solution to your problems. 0:25:43.116 --> 0:25:46.316 This is le May in retirement, holding forth on how 0:25:46.316 --> 0:25:48.836 he thought the Korean War ought to have been handled. 0:25:49.476 --> 0:25:52.196 I once you come to bus solusion that you'd better 0:25:52.276 --> 0:25:55.796 be ready to go all the way. It's im moral 0:25:55.956 --> 0:25:58.836 not to use too much if you have the capability 0:25:58.836 --> 0:26:04.996 of winning, and winning rapidly because you saved life, property, destruction, suffering, 0:26:05.356 --> 0:26:06.716 and the quicker you're going to. 0:26:06.756 --> 0:26:11.556 End the war cold blooded, hyperrational very Curtis to May, 0:26:12.236 --> 0:26:15.476 and he thought the Pentagon botched it in Korea, dragged 0:26:15.516 --> 0:26:18.556 it out too long, didn't come in hard and fast enough. 0:26:19.836 --> 0:26:22.356