Harry Truman

by Margaret Truman

  On January 13, my father wrote General MacArthur a long letter, explaining in the most intimate detail the thinking behind his policy to confine the war to Korea. Seldom has a President taken a theater commander so deeply into his confidence. He pointed out how much we would gain from a successful resistance in Korea. We would deflate – as, indeed, we did - the political and military prestige of Communist China. We would make possible a far more satisfactory peace settlement for Japan. We would lend urgency to the rapid expansion of the defenses of the Western world. Above all, he explained our need for “great prudence” pending the buildup of our national strength. “Steps which might in themselves be fully justified and which might lend some assistance to the campaign in Korea would not be beneficial if they thereby involved Japan or Western Europe in large-scale hostilities.” Dad sent General Collins and General Vandenberg, commanders of the army and air force respectively, to Tokyo to elaborate on this explanation.

  On March 15, General MacArthur specifically disobeyed his President’s order to refrain from making unauthorized statements on policy to the press. He gave an extensive interview to Hugh Baillie, president of the United Press. He expressed to Baillie the utmost contempt for the decision to stop the Eighth Army’s advance at the 38th parallel. “Our mission,” he intoned, was “the unification of Korea.” Legally, this statement was correct. The UN army was still operating under the UN resolution of October 7, calling for a united Korea. But realistically and diplomatically, the entrance of the Chinese had totally altered the situation, and it was foolish of him to speak out in this way without an iota of concern for the new policy his President was struggling to form.

  During these same months, my father had many other things on his mind besides General MacArthur. He was engaged in a struggle to persuade Congress to take the final step in his program for the revitalization of Europe’s defense. He wanted authorization to add four more American divisions to General Eisenhower’s NATO army. This “great debate,” as the newspapers called it, soon evolved into a Republican attack on the powers of the presidency. Senator Wherry introduced a resolution requiring prior congressional approval before the President could send troops anywhere. Dad replied that as commander in chief he could send the troops without congressional assent, but he was willing and even eager to consult with Congress on the matter.

  From his sickbed, Arthur Vandenberg staunchly supported Dad’s stand. He pointed out that to transfer any portion of the President’s power as commander in chief of the Armed Forces would subordinate military decision to the political judgments of Congress. “We partially tried that system in the Civil War when the Committee on the Conduct of the War set a tragic precedent against any such bitter mistake.” On January 15 he wrote to Dad: “Nothing matters in this crisis except the welfare of our country. It calls for the greatest possible meeting of minds in behalf of invincible unity against an aggression which is clearly aimed at us. . . . You may be sure that you have all my prayers in the midst of the indescribably heavy burdens which you are carrying.”

  On March 6, Dad sent his last message to the senior senator from Michigan, whose health was failing rapidly: “All of your friends are disturbed by reports that you have not been getting on so well lately. This is just a line to let you know that I am thinking of you and hope you will be back in your old place soon. The country needs you.”

  For the first time, Senator Vandenberg replied by addressing Dad on a first-name basis: “My dear Harry: I am deeply touched by your telegram of March 6th. I know it is inspired by longtime personal friendship which you and I enjoyed. It moves me to greet you in this personal way. . . . I have abiding faith in the future of our good old U.S.A. . . .”

  A month later he was dead of cancer.

  Dad won the great debate by skillfully maneuvering his spokesmen within and outside of Congress. Senator Taft and Senator Wherry, the chief exponents of a tie-the-President’s-hands point of view, found themselves cut off and enveloped by arguments from Generals Marshall and Bradley, Secretary of State Acheson, and NATO Commander Eisenhower. The final Senate resolution left the President in full possession of all his powers, gave him the four divisions he wanted, but threw the Republicans a bone by agreeing that “no more could be sent, without further Congressional approval.”

  In Korea, meanwhile, the military situation continued to improve. But General MacArthur continued to deteriorate. He was obsessed, as he makes clear in his memoirs, with the idea of winning the global battle against communism then and there. “It was my belief,” he wrote, “that if allowed to use my full military might, without artificial restrictions, I could not only save Korea, but also inflict such a destructive blow upon Red China’s capacity to wage aggressive war that it would remove her as a further threat to peace in Asia for generations to come.” How he hoped to accomplish this, short of massive atomic attack, he never explained. But this was the background for the thinking which led him step by step to insubordination and finally to outright sabotage of his President’s policy.

  With the United Nations army firmly entrenched on the 38th parallel and the Chinese Communist army battered to the brink of collapse - in the final stages of the UN offensive they surrendered by the thousands - my father decided it was time to move toward an armistice. He was anxious to end the fighting as swiftly as possible, and he thought the Chinese might feel the same way. So, he ordered the State Department to draft a carefully worded proposal. On March 20, General MacArthur was informed of this plan, as he was informed of all other major policy moves, well in advance of their implementation. The message to General MacArthur said in part: “State Department planning a Presidential announcement shortly that, with clearing of bulk of South Korea of aggressors, United Nations now preparing to discuss conditions of settlement in Korea. United Nations feeling exists that further diplomatic efforts toward settlement should be made without any advance with major forces north of 38th parallel. Time will be required to determine diplomatic reactions and permit new negotiations that may develop. . . .”

  My father and State Department officials met for long hours, drafting a statement which would enable the Chinese to negotiate an armistice with a minimum loss of face. They were well aware of the importance of face in the Orient. In the draft of Dad’s statement, he called on all those involved in Korea to give the Korean people the peace they deserved. He held out the possibility of negotiating on Formosa in another paragraph, which stated that “a prompt settlement of the Korean problem would greatly reduce international tension in the Far East and would open the way for the consideration of other problems in that area by the processes of peaceful settlement envisioned in the Charter of the United Nations.”

  General MacArthur, as a self-advertised expert on the Oriental mind, certainly knew the importance of face. He also knew the situation of the battered Chinese Communist army. I strongly suspect he thought Dad’s offer would be accepted by the Chinese, after some inevitable huffing and puffing. This prospect did not tie in with the MacArthur presidential program. If there was any negotiating to be done, he wanted to be the man who obtained the concessions from the enemy. At any rate, on March 24, the General issued a statement which made a cease-fire impossible. It opened with a paragraph that scoffed at Red China’s vaunted military power and boastfully declared South Korea cleared of organized Communist forces. Communist weakness, he said, was being “brilliantly exploited by our ground forces” and the enemy was “showing less stamina than our own troops under the rigors of climate, terrain and battle.”

  Then came the crusher, the sentence that destroyed my father’s peace negotiations before they even began: “The enemy, therefore, must by now be painfully aware that a decision of the United Nations to depart from its tolerant effort to contain the war to the area of Korea, through an expansion of our military operations to its coastal areas and interior bases, would doom Red China to the risk of imminent military collapse.”

  Even a nation that cared nothing about face wo
uld find it hard to swallow these overbearing remarks. Moreover, they implied our ability to impose humiliation on Red China - something we simply lacked the military strength to do at that time. The hollowness of the General’s rhetoric immediately convinced the Chinese we were insincere about wanting peace. They scornfully rejected MacArthur’s ultimatum.

  When this statement arrived in Washington, no one could quite believe it. White-lipped, my father summoned Secretary of State Acheson and several other advisers to the White House. First, he dictated a blunt statement to MacArthur, referring to his directive forbidding policy statements. But he was no longer trying to straighten out the General’s apocalyptic thinking. As far as Dad was concerned, General MacArthur was dismissed. The only question left for discussion was the matter of timing.

  Recalling the situation in later years, Dad said: “Dean Acheson and General Marshall and I decided we should send an ultimatum to the head of the Chinese government for a cease-fire in Korea. We sent the meat paragraphs to MacArthur for approval. Then he sent his own ultimatum to the Chinese. That is what he got fired for. I couldn’t send a message to the Chinese after that. He prevented a cease-fire proposition right there. I was ready to kick him into the North China Sea at that time. I was never so put out in my life. It’s the lousiest trick a commander in chief can have done to him by an underling. MacArthur thought he was the proconsul for the government of the United States and could do as he damned pleased.”

  As a politician, my father had to consider his programs in Congress. To fire MacArthur immediately would have endangered appropriations for the Marshall Plan and NATO. While Dad bided his time, the General and his political admirers in Congress collaborated on a new and more flagrant act of insubordination. On March 20, the General responded to a letter from Joseph Martin, the Republican minority leader of the House, sending him a speech which was a savage attack on Dad’s foreign policy. Congressman Martin had asked for MacArthur’s comments, and he got them. After a few sentences which implied his views on Korea had been ignored by Washington, MacArthur wrote:

  Your view with respect to the utilization of the Chinese forces on Formosa is in conflict with neither logic nor . . . tradition.

  It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe’s war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to Communism in Asia, the fall of Europe is inevitable; win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you point out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.

  Congressman Martin read this letter to the House of Representatives on April 5. Headlines blossomed, and my father decided it was time to act. On his calendar, he made the following memorandum:

  MacArthur shoots another political bomb through Joe Martin, leader of the Republican minority in the House.

  This looks like the last straw.

  Rank insubordination. Last summer he sent a long statement to the Vets of Foreign Wars - not through the high command back home, but directly!

  I was furnished a copy from the press room in the White House which had been accidentally sent there.

  I ordered the release suppressed and then sent him a very carefully prepared Directive dated Dec. 5, 1950, setting out Far Eastern policy after I’d flown 4,404 miles to Wake Island to see him and reach an understanding face to face.

  I call in Gen. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman and General Bradley and they come to the conclusion that our Big General in the Far East must be recalled. I don’t express any opinion or make known my decision.

  Direct the four to meet again Friday afternoon and go over all phases of the situation.

  The following day Dad continued his terse narration:

  We met again this morning - Gen. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Mr. Harriman and Gen. Bradley.

  It is the unanimous opinion of all that MacArthur be relieved. All four so advise.

  I direct that orders be issued, press statement prepared and suggest meeting Monday before the Cabinet meets.

  General Marshall’s opinion was expressed in pungent terms. He had spent the night reading the Defense Department’s MacArthur file. “The S.O.B. should have been fired two years ago,” he said. On Sunday, Dad discussed the situation with Chief Justice Vinson, Sam Rayburn, and Vice President Barkley. He did not, however, tell them that he was thinking of firing General MacArthur.

  On April 9 my father resumed his narration:

  Meet the Big Four, Barkley, Rayburn, McFarland, McCormack and explain far eastern situation. Receive comments suggesting certain actions.

  Meet with Acheson, Marshall, Bradley and Harriman. Go over recall orders to MacArthur and suggested public statement. Approve both and decide to send the orders to Frank Pace, Sec. of the Army, for delivery to MacArthur and Ridgway. Send message to Korean Ambassador. Message to be sent tomorrow at 8 p.m. our time. It will arrive at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Korea.

  Gen. Bradley called about 9 p.m. Said there had been a leak. He, Dean Rusk, Mr. Harriman came to see me. Mr. Murphy was also present.

  Discussed the situation and I ordered messages sent at once and directly to MacArthur.

  On April 10, he summed up the results in amazingly matter-of-fact terms:

  Quite an explosion. Was expected but I had to act.

  Telegrams and letters of abuse by the dozens.

  As a courtesy to General MacArthur, Dad had ordered Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, who was on an inspection tour of Korea, to go to Tokyo and personally hand MacArthur the orders relieving him of his command. But this message failed to reach Secretary Pace because he was at the front with General Ridgway. The unfortunate leak created quite an emergency in the White House. It was, ironically, not a leak at all. Joe Short, who had taken Charlie Ross’s job as press secretary, panicked when a Chicago Tribune reporter began asking him bluntly if MacArthur was fired. The panic spread to the rest of the staff and to Dad’s top advisers. General Bradley told my father MacArthur would almost certainly try to outmaneuver him politically by resigning if he heard the news before he was officially notified.

  “He’s going to be fired,” Dad grimly replied, and he ordered everyone to go to work on a crash program to notify MacArthur immediately. Joe Short, meanwhile, was frantically mimeographing Dad’s statement and the background documents. He made a second mistake and refused to call a press conference until these documents were ready, so it was not until 1:00 a.m. that the groggy White House reporters gathered to hear Dad’s official statement which began: “With deep regret, I have concluded that the General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States government and of the United Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties. In view of the specific responsibilities imposed upon me by the Constitution of the United States and the added responsibility which has been entrusted to me by the United Nations, I have decided that I must make a change of command in the Far East. I have, therefore, relieved General MacArthur of his commands and have designated Lt. General Matthew B. Ridgway as his successor.”

  Many of my father’s decisions had made headlines before. But nothing compared to the uproar which now ensued. Joe McCarthy sneered that Truman “decided to remove MacArthur when drunk.” Richard Nixon demanded the General’s immediate reinstatement. Senator William E. Jenner of Indiana roared, “I charge that this country today is in the hands of a secret inner coterie which is directed by agents of the Soviet Union. Our only choice is to impeach President Truman.” Dad and Dean Acheson were burned in effigy in numerous towns and even on a few college campuses. Something very close to mass hysteria gripped the nation. A Gallup poll reported public opinion in favor of the General over the President, sixty-nine to twenty-nine. Joe Martin called General MacArthur, long distance, and invited him to return immed
iately to Washington to address a joint session of Congress.

  General MacArthur, of course, accepted. He enjoyed a triumphant welcome, first in San Francisco, and then in Washington, D.C., where he addressed the Congress. After condemning the Truman Administration’s supposed appeasement of communism in Korea, he assured them he was now going to close his military career and “just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.” A distinguished senator told newspaperman William S. White, not long after the General spoke to Congress, “I honestly felt back there that if the General’s speech had gone on, there might have been a march on the White House.”

  My father foresaw this public reaction. But he also knew from his study of American history that nothing dissipates faster than popular emotion, especially when it is based on lies or lack of information. General MacArthur began to fade away as a political issue soon after a special Senate committee, under the chairmanship of Richard Russell of Georgia, launched a careful investigation of his dismissal.

  The General had claimed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with his policy and implied only the President’s threat of dismissal and disgrace kept them muzzled. But what the senators heard in their committee room was the Joint Chiefs condemning, without the slightest sign of a muzzle, almost every aspect of MacArthur’s strategy. General Bradley said MacArthur’s ideas on widening the conflict “would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy.” General Vandenberg, chief of the air force, said bombing Manchuria would be no more than “pecking at the periphery” and the losses we would take in planes and men would cripple the air force for years to come. General Collins said he thought General MacArthur had violated almost every basic rule of military strategy in deploying his troops for the final drive to the Yalu, knowing that the threat of Chinese intervention was very real. Admiral Sherman heaped scorn on MacArthur’s proposal of a naval blockade of China, unless the fleets of our allies joined us. Which was not very likely, when one of the ports that would have to be closed was the British crown colony of Hong Kong.