General Matthew Ridgway: The Soldier Who Said No to Escalation

Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania was home to one of the most distinguished American military officers of the twentieth century. Matthew B. Ridgway was born in eighteen ninety-five and rose to the rank of full general through two wars and three commands.

In World War Two he led the Eighty-Second Airborne Division in the invasion of Sicily and into combat in Northwestern Europe. When the Korean War faltered after China entered in late nineteen fifty, Ridgway took command of the Eighth Army, stabilized the front, and led United Nations forces, later becoming Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. But it is a peacetime stand that may define him longest: as Army Chief of Staff in the nineteen fifties, Ridgway opposed the doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation, arguing that flexible ground forces mattered more than atomic bluster. His principled dissent was years ahead of its time. He lived in Fox Chapel until his death in nineteen ninety-three.