Altogether, the army of Red China may be appraised as a formidable instrument on terrain suited to its tactics. Several of America’s foremost military thinkers were convinced, nevertheless, that Eighth Army reverses of the first few months in Korea were the penalty paid for a national preoccupation with airborne atomic weapons at the expense of preparations for limited wars. It was only natural that the American public and its political and military leaders in Washington should have been much concerned about a weapon with the capability of wiping out a medium-size city in a minute.[47] Their anxiety was heightened by President Truman’s announcement on 23 September 1949 that Soviet Russia had exploded an atomic bomb. A great many Americans, probably a majority, sincerely believed that it was hardly worthwhile to prepare for an old-fashioned limited war when the Armageddon of the future would be fought to an awesome finish with thermonuclear weapons. National policy was shaped by this line of reasoning; and though we had every opportunity to study Chinese tactics prior to 1950, few if any preparations were made to cope with them. The outbreak of Korean hostilities found the four U.S. skeleton divisions in Japan woefully unready, both morally and materially. [47] The day had not yet dawned when the hydrogen bomb would have a much greater potentiality for frightfulness. At a later date three high-placed U.S. Army generals, Matthew B. Ridgway, James M. Gavin, and Maxwell D. Taylor, would retire because they could not reconcile their views with a national policy which they interpreted as placing all our strategic eggs in the basket of intercontinental bombers and guided missiles. Afterwards, as advocates of preparedness for limited as well as atomic warfare, they published books presenting their side of the case.[48] [48] Gen M. B. Ridgway, _Memoirs_ (New York, 1956); Gen J. M. Gavin, _War and Peace in the Space Age_ (New York, 1958); Gen M. D. Taylor, _The Uncertain Trumpet_ (New York, 1959). On 15 January 1951 these developments were still in the future, of course. But even at the time it had already been made evident that the armed forces of Red China were not an exception to the age-old rule that there is no such thing as an invincible army. When they came up against well trained and led U.S. Army outfits in both of their offensives, they always had a fight on their hands and frequently a repulse.