Ridgway, Matthew Bunker

(1895-1993)

   Born to a military family in Fort Monroe, Virginia, Matthew Ridgway graduated from West Point in 1917. During World War I, he served in the United States. After the war, he held a number of peacetime positions, including postings in China, Nicaragua, Panama, Brazil, and the Philippines. In 1942, Ridgway took command of the 82nd Division, the first airborne division in the U.S. Army. He led them in action in North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. In 1950, he successfully took command of the demoralized U.S. Eighth Army, which had been pushed back by the Chinese in the Korean War, and in April 1951 he replaced the disgraced General Douglas MacArthur as commander of the United Nations (UN) forces. Under his leadership, UN forces maintained the stalemate with their Chinese and North Korean opponents rather than seek territorial gains. In May 1952, Ridgway replaced General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the supreme allied commander in Europe for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The following year he became the U.S. Army chief of staff. However, Ridgway was opposed to the “New Look” policy of reliance on air power and nuclear weaponry and the principle of “massive retaliation,” and he retired in 1955. He became an executive at the Mellon Foundation, but as an advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, he spoke out against escalation of U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.