This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  On 24 March 1951, with no word first to Washington, he issued his own pronouncement from Tokyo:

  "Operations continue according to schedule and plan. We have now substantially cleared South Korea of organized Communist forces. It is becoming increasingly evident that the heavy destruction along the enemy's lines of supply, caused by our round-the-clock massive air and naval bombardment, has left his troops in the forward battle area deficient in requirements to sustain his operations.…

  "Of even greater significance than our tactical successes has been the clear revelation that this new enemy, Red China, of such exaggerated and vaunted military power, lacks the industrial capacity to provide.… crucial items necessary to the conduct of modern war. He lacks the manufacturing base … he cannot provide … tanks, heavy artillery, and other refinements science has introduced into the conduct of military campaigns. Formerly his great numerical potential might well have filled this gap, but with the development of existing methods of mass destruction, numbers alone do not off-set … such deficiencies…

  "These military weaknesses have been clearly and definitely revealed since Red China entered upon its undeclared war in Korea. Even under the inhibitions which now restrict the activity of the United Nations forces and the corresponding military advantages which accrue to Red China, it has shown its complete inability to accomplish by force of arms the conquest of Korea. 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. These basic facts being established, there should be no insuperable difficulty in arriving at decisions on the Korean problem if the issues are resolved on their own merits, without being burdened by extraneous matters not directly related to Korea.…

  "The Korean nation and people, which have been so cruelly ravaged, must not be sacrificed. This is a paramount concern.… Within the area of my authority as the military commander, however, it would be needless to say that I stand ready at any time to confer in the field with the commander in chief of the enemy forces … to find … means whereby realization of the political objectives of the United Nations in Korea, to which no nation may justly take exceptions, might be accomplished without further bloodshed."

  Right or wrong, this was a remarkable statement to have been issued by an American proconsul in the field. It was more than a statement of military policy; it was a political act. It disregarded Washington's instructions for FECOM to abstain from declarations on foreign policy. It flouted the announced policy of the U.N.

  MacArthur had delivered Red China an ultimatum. He had hinted that the full power of the United States and its allies might be brought to bear against the Chinese homeland; threat was redolent throughout the discussion of Chinese weakness, and it was a threat that MacArthur obviously relished.

  When Truman read it, he went white. MacArthur's announcement was a challenge to the authority of the President, under the Constitution, to make foreign policy.

  Considering MacArthur's high office, his pronouncement crashed into allied chancelleries like eight-inch howitzer shells. The wires began to burn to Washington. Was a shift in American policy imminent?

  Had the United States decided to punish Red China?

  The Norwegian ambassador called at State, demanding to know what lay behind this "pronunciamento."

  At noon, Saturday, 24 March, Truman conferred with Acheson, Robert Lovett, and Dean Rusk. It was undoubtedly a bitter and passionate conference, even among men not given to stampede.

  On 6 December, when the U.N. had begun to grow restive, Truman had sent a directive to FECOM, instructing that all public statements be cleared through Washington. Truman now read this order, and asked Rusk and Acheson if there could be any doubt as to its meaning.

  They agreed there was none in their minds.

  Truman then told Lovett to get a priority message to FECOM, telling MacArthur to shut up. Truman had long understood that MacArthur disagreed with him, but he had not understood the extent.

  Nor could Truman really understand MacArthur. Truman could not be sure but that the general was playing for the gallery, trying to embarrass the President, and as political leader of the nation Truman found this intolerable. MacArthur was challenging traditional civilian supremacy in government, and Truman was not at all certain but that Caesar was speaking from beyond the Rubicon.

  MacArthur was no Caesar, with immense political ambitions. He was a servant of the Republic who felt so strongly that the course of the Administration, eschewing triumph over the transgressor, was immoral that he had put himself into public opposition. He was trying to influence policy.

  Under the Constitution of the Untied States, no soldier has that privilege.

  Soldiers are brought up to tell the truth, and to take positive action. Since politicians, in the main, regard neither of these with great affection—they must forever please the people, regardless of what is true or what needs to be done—soldiers and political men are often in conflict.

  A political leader who takes strong action, who does not equivocate, dally, or try the impossible task of pleasing everyone, has usually nothing to fear from soldiers, even in authoritarian lands. It is the leaders of the Fourth Republic, the Frondizis, the Roman Senate, the men who try to walk a tightrope, who have been intolerable to the soldiery.

  Military men, who are willing to risk their lives, have small sympathy with anyone unwilling to risk his office. While politics may be the art of the possible, war is often the art of the impossible.

  Douglas MacArthur, as American as Woodrow Wilson or Cordell Hull, had not purposely decided to challenge civilian control of the military—but the result of his act could be that this institutional safeguard was in danger.

  Harry Truman, however history will regard him, was one of the most unpopular and unrespected of Presidents. If the people and the Congress rose behind MacArthur, supported his views, Harry Truman and his Administration were in trouble.

  Sometime between 24 March and 5 April 1951, Harry Truman resolved to relieve MacArthur of his command. When the next evidence of MacArthur's insubordination arose, Truman's mind was already made up—but what occurred on 5 April 1951 in effect allowed Truman no other course.

  On that date Joe Martin, the leader of the opposition in the House, rose and read a personal letter from MacArthur. Martin, of Massachusetts, had long been an isolationist, clinging beyond 1941 to the old school of American thought, much like Taft and Wherry in the Senate.

  The old school of thought was honest and sincere, but contradictory. Its major premises were that America should avoid trouble overseas—but that if it arose, should smash it, without counting any cost. No entangling alliances should be made; there should be no involvement in foreign politics; but if the United States were confronted with evil opposition, if it were attacked, then it should rise in righteous wrath.

  The old school was highly suspicious of the military, and preferred to cut arms spending to the bone.

  There was nothing wrong with this school of thought—Americans had cleaved to it for generations, and as late as 1941 more than 70 percent of them had been against entry in world affairs—except that there was now no one to hold the far frontier. There was no Army of France, no British Navy, to strive, morally or immorally, for order in the world.

  Representative Joseph W. Martin, a sincere man, stood before the House on 5 April 1951. He had written MacArthur in early March, saying, among other things, that he considered it sheer folly not to use Nationalist Chinese troops in Korea. He had asked for MacArthur's comments, and now he read them aloud:

  "'I am most grateful for your note of the eighth forwarding me a copy of your address of February 12.…

  "'My views and recommendations with respect to the situation created by Red China's entry into war against us in Korea have b
een submitted to Washington in most complete detail. Generally these views are well known and understood, as they follow the conventional pattern of meeting force with maximum counterforce as we have never failed to do in the past. Your view with respect to the utilization of the Chinese forces on Formosa is in conflict with neither logic nor this 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 this 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.’"

  Thus, two views of war, the traditional American, the view of Wilson, Roosevelt, Marshall, and MacArthur, clashed head on with that of the new, the Great Power American, the view of Acheson, Rusk, Harriman, and Bradley.

  George Catlett Marshall, one of the most splendid of men, had once said, discussing the possible entry of American troops into the Balkans rather than Western Europe in 1944, that such a move would be political rather than military in nature, might cost 100,000 more casualties, and would delay the destruction of the Reich. He would not allow political considerations to change the course of military operations.

  And America met force with counterforce, devoting all her energies to the destruction of evil as embodied in the Reich, and her troops did not meet those of her Russian ally on the Vistula or the Danube. A generation of American statesmen have had to wrestle with the result.

  Field Marshall Erwin Rommel once said he had no real interest in logistics. He would do the fighting; how the gasoline, tanks, and ammunition reached him was somebody else's concern.

  Both Marshall and Rommel, splendid men, did not really understand the world they lived in. A war can no more be successfully fought without political concerns for the future than a panzer can roll without gas.

  In 1951, defeat of Red China, whether it would have brought on general war with Russia or not, would have alienated the world. In such a world, America could then have led as Hitler led, or not at all.

  History, unfortunately, is never concerned too much with where morality lies.

  Wherever it lay, whoever was right, and who was wrong, MacArthur's letter to Joe Martin was insubordination.

  Truman hit the ceiling. He called a meeting with Acheson, Bradley, Marshall, and Harriman. On 6 April he asked these men bluntly what they felt should be done. All were agreed that the Administration faced a serious threat.

  It took an hour to hammer out the decision.

  Averell Harriman, head of the Mutual Security Agency, stated that MacArthur should have been relieved two years ago. Harriman was unhappy with MacArthur's handling of some occupation matters in Japan, where he had also opposed Washington policy.

  Acheson, moustached and deliberative, said he believed that MacArthur had to be relieved but that he thought it should be done very carefully. "If you relieve MacArthur, you will have the biggest fight of your Administration," he said.

  Omar Bradley, head of the JCS, looked upon the question as a matter of military discipline. A true centurion, Bradley saw a clear case of insubordination; he felt MacArthur deserved relief.

  Secretary of Defense George Cattlett Marshall counseled caution. He was reluctant to discipline MacArthur; it might make trouble with Congress.

  President Truman let these men talk, then and later. He did not advise them that he had already made up his mind and that the "ayes had it." MacArthur would be relieved. Truman advised Marshall to reread the file of communications between Tokyo and Washington.

  On 7 April Marshall reported back to Blair House that he now felt MacArthur should have been fired long ago.

  On Sunday, 8 April, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred.

  On Monday, with everyone in agreement, Truman then told them that he had made his decision after MacArthur's "pronunciamento" of 24 March. At 3:15 that afternoon, the President signed an order relieving MacArthur of all his several commands, and replacing him with Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway.

  Truman's intention was that this notice of relief be given MacArthur through Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, then in the Far East. Dean Acheson sent the orders through Korean Ambassador Muccio, with instructions that Pace was to proceed immediately to Tokyo, to deliver them in person.

  But Pace could not be reached; he was up near the Eighth Army front, firing a howitzer in the company of General Ridgway. One of the traditions of modern war that had grown up was that distinguished visitors be taken to a firing battery of heavy artillery, suitably behind the front, and there be allowed to fire "one at the enemy," which made for a good picture and gave a feeling of active participation, all without untidy risk.

  Pace could not be reached, and the message was too hot to be bandied about in lesser hands.

  Later, Matt Ridgway, who had spent all afternoon in Frank Pace's company without ever learning that he was already Supreme Commander, Far East, remarked that Mr. Pace had an odd sense of humor. It did not occur to General Ridgway that Mr. Pace was as ignorant of the fact as he.

  Truman then sent word to John Foster Dulles to go to Japan and inform the Japanese Yoshida Government that the change would affect them in no way. While Dulles prepared to emplane, Omar Bradley dashed into Blair House, visibly excited.

  There had been a leak, Bradley said, and a Chicago paper was going to print the story of MacArthur's relief the next morning, the 11th.

  A President—any President—hates to be scooped almost more than anything else. More than once such a fear has changed the course of history, and now Harry Truman decided that courtesy be damned, he could not wait until Frank Pace finished getting his kicks gallivanting around the front.

  MacArthur would get his notice over the wire, at the same time everyone else in the world got it. And so he did.

  At 0100, 11 April, Truman's press secretary gave a group of grousing, sleepy-eyed reporters a presidential release:

  "With deep regret, I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his whole-hearted support to the policies of the United States Government and of the United Nations.… I have, therefore, relieved General MacArthur of his commands and have designated Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway as his successor.

  "Full and vigorous debate on matters of national policy is a vital element in the constitutional system.… It is fundamental, however, that military commanders must be governed by the policies and directives issued to them.… in time of crisis, the consideration is particularly compelling.

  "General MacArthur's place in history as one of our greatest commanders is fully established. The Nation owes him a debt of gratitude for the distinguished and exceptional service he has rendered.… For that reason I repeat my regret at the necessity for the action I feel compelled to take in his case."

  In the free chancelleries of Europe there was joy. As an indication of how deeply and consistently almost all of America's allies felt on the subject of MacArthur, at the front in Korea British battalions staged an impromptu celebration, and other U.N. units fired their guns in the air.

  In the United States, most of whose people were not sure what was going on, there was shock.

  That night Truman went on the air, explaining his course to the American public: "The free nations have united their strength in an effort to prevent a third world war. That war can come if the Communist leaders want it to come. But this nation and its allies will not be responsible for its coming."

  There is no question but that there was an element of wishful thinking even in Truman's stand. Collective security had a fine sound, but it was still little more than a word; it would still be the United States, and the United States alone, that held the far frontier. No one else had the will or th
e power.

  China would not be punished for its transgression. Evil would continue to exist; it would even be allowed to prosper, if it could. Peace, if and when it came, would not be moral but pragmatic.

  The door would be held, and men would continue to die, not for victory, but for time.

  There are men who said that the task was merely postponed and that it would be far harder in the future. There are men who said the United States should have won, or got out. History may prove them right.

  But while a civilization lives, it may hope—as long as the far frontier, whether it be Korea or Berlin, is held.

  General of the Army MacArthur took the news, which came to him as a slap in the face, calmly, and with good cheer. When Matt Ridgway reported to him at the Dai Ichi on 12 April, he was quiet, composed, and entirely helpful and friendly. Ridgway could ascertain no trace of bitterness.

  Matt Ridgway personally did not feel a drive to the Yalu, or an enlargement of the war, was worth the cost. As a soldier, he did not question the President's right to do what he had done. But out of the loyalty he held in his heart for MacArthur, he was angry that the dismissal had been done so summarily.

  No general, even those who disagreed with, stood in awe of, or disliked MacArthur, could feel happy at the outcome of the Case of the Haberdasher and the General.

  But even these, who were with MacArthur, and even Truman, only the nation's servants, had to agree that the Republic never stood stronger.

  On 11 April a violent storm broke over much of the front in Korea. It snowed, hailed in some sections, and a howling wind blew, leveling tents and stinging the eyes of the soldiers who now heard the news of the historic dismissal.

  As the sky darkened and the earth seemed to shudder, one soldier remarked, "Say, do you suppose MacArthur was God, after all?"

  Everybody smiled, and then the storm was gone. The war went on.

  But MacArthur was not God. He was not even Caesar, as Truman had half feared. Caesar, recalled, brought his army back to Rome; MacArthur, an erect, brilliant, but an old, old man, returned across the lonely Pacific almost alone.