American Caesar

by William Manchester

  The date for his journey was fixed: July 31. Then the picture blurs. The Pentagon advised the Dai Ichi that “certain policy matters” relevant to Formosa were being discussed with the State Department; pending their outcome, the Chiefs intimated, MacArthur might “desire to send a senior officer to Formosa with the group on July 31 and go yourself later.” However, the message concluded: “Please feel free to go, since the responsibility is yours.” Evidently no copy of this telecon reached the State Department. Acheson was later under the impression that the MacArthur-Chiang meeting was the General’s idea. He writes: “Instinct told us what experience later proved—to fear General MacArthur bearing explanations. Furthermore, better uses for the theater commander at this juncture came to mind, so a State Department officer was sent from Tokyo to Formosa with the explanation.” But that cannot be the story. The senior U.S. diplomat in Tokyo was Sebald, and he received no such instructions. Instead, two C-54s took off bearing sixteen officers, including Willoughby, Almond, Stratemeyer, and Whitney. MacArthur had told Sebald that he wouldn’t be a member of the party. Sebald sent word of this to Dean Rusk, then assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, and Rusk routinely filed the report. “I expected to play no role in the affair,” Sebald recalls. He was satisfied with the General’s explanation, which was that since only military matters would be discussed, he wanted to avoid any suggestion of political implications. But Acheson, unhappy over Truman’s pledge to defend Formosa, would see this as subterfuge to exclude a State representative from the group. He was as suspicious of MacArthur as MacArthur was of him, and, at times, as paranoid.39

  Bad weather kept the C-54s circling over Taipei for an hour and a half. Bounding down the ramp at last, the General gave Chiang what his staff called his “number one” handshake—right hands clasped, his left hand gripping Chiang’s right elbow. “How do you do, Generalissimo?” he boomed. “It was nice of you to come down and meet me.” The Gimo didn’t understand a word of this, but interpreters were everywhere, and the American staff officers plunged into a busy day with their KMT counterparts, studying maps and examining beach obstacles while their commander conferred with Chiang. At the end of the day MacArthur said he believed he had a “feel” of the island’s defensive plans and a grasp of the KMT intelligence net on the mainland. At a formal dinner, Madame Chiang, who spoke fluent English, “personally greeted by name every guest as he arrived,” Whitney recalls, “though she had never met most of us and probably had only heard of us through an official briefing for the occasion; how she did it I do not know.”40

  Back in the Dai Ichi, the Supreme Commander issued a brief statement. His visit to Formosa, he said, had been “primarily for the purpose of making a short reconnaissance of the potential of its defense against possible attack. The policy has been enunciated that this island, including the Pescadores, is not under the present circumstances subject to military invasion.” CINCFE-KMT conferences “on all levels” had been “most cordial and responsive in every respect. Among the problems which were discussed was the prompt and generous offer of the Chinese Government to send troops to join the United Nations forces in Korea.” Both parties had agreed that because “such action at this time might seriously jeopardize the defense of Formosa” it would be “inadvisable.” The General concluded: “It has been a great pleasure for me to meet my old comrade-in-arms of the last war. . . . His indomitable determination to resist Communist domination arouses my sincere admiration. His determination parallels the common interest and purpose of Americans, that all peoples in the Pacific shall be free—not slave.”41

  As MacArthur prose went, this was subdued. On the other hand, the generalissimo’s communiqué, which followed it, was roguish. The Gimo crowed that the talks had covered, not just the joint defense of Formosa, but also “Sino-American military cooperation.” Obviously he was trying to drive a wedge between the diplomats in Foggy Bottom and the UN commander in chief in Tokyo. Over half the pronouncement was devoted to expressions of admiration for MacArthur’s “determined leadership in the common fight against totalitarianism in Asia and for his deep understanding of the menace of Communism.” Now, he declared, “victory” over Mao’s mainland armies was “assured.”42

  This was front-page news in America. MacArthur affected surprise, but he should have known that newspapers, ever in search of controversy and aware of the delicate relationship between the United States and Formosa, would seize upon every phrase and read labyrinthian meanings into it. He and the generalissimo should have said nothing. Instead, as Truman noted, the visit “raised much speculation in the world press. Chiang Kai-shek’s aides let it be known that the Far East commander was in the fullest agreement with their chief on the course of action to be taken. The implication was—and quite a few of our newspapers said so—that MacArthur rejected my policy of neutralizing Formosa and that he favored a more aggressive method.” Trumbull Higgins observed that the generalissimo’s pointed remarks about the General’s grasp of Communism “left the impression that the government in Washington understood Communism rather less well. For Chiang an opportunity such as this to retaliate against a long series of Truman administration rebuffs must have been sweet.” The United Press quoted a State Department spokesman as saying, in response to a question, that the department did not know why MacArthur had failed to take his political adviser with him. Many commentators in the United States, including some who held a high regard for MacArthur, were dismayed. David Lawrence’s conservative U.S. News and World Report said: “There are those who doubt that a general disposed to brusqueness, independence and personal decisiveness is the best of diplomatic material.” Certainly some of the men around him weren’t. Time quoted a “reliable source” in the Dai Ichi as saying that MacArthur believed: “1) the Korean War would be useless if the U.S. did not fight Communism wherever it arose in Asia; 2) this meant backing Chiang’s Nationalists, the British in Hong Kong, and the anti-Communists of Indo-China, Siam and Burma; 3) anything less than this firm, determined action would invite Communism to sweep over all of Asia.”43

  Chiang excepted, that had been U.S. foreign policy since the National Security Council adoption of policy paper NSC-68 in April, but the administration in Washington had no intention of applying that doctrine retroactively to the decrepit regime in Taipei. Acheson was apoplectic. He had been dumbfounded, he writes, just “to read in the press on August 1 that General MacArthur had arrived in Formosa, kissed Mme. Chiang’s hand, and gone into conference with her husband.” The secretary fired off a message to the unfortunate Sebald, demanding a full report on the talks from MacArthur. Sebald says that he tried to get one, but the General first “appeared to be tired and promised to tell me about the trip later,” and then “made it clear that he had no intention of providing details,” explaining that he had been careful to confine the discussions to “military talks of a technical nature,” and that hence what had been said and done was his sole responsibility, not that of the State Department. Sebald protested; military agreements, he pointed out, had a direct bearing on foreign policy. MacArthur replied irritably: “Bill, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The Formosa policy has already been established by President Truman’s order of June 28, directing the Seventh Fleet to prevent any Communist attack from the mainland or any assault from Formosa against the mainland.” He had, he said, sent a full account of his meeting with the Gimo to the Defense Department. But that didn’t satisfy Acheson. He wanted a report to him, through his ambassador in Tokyo. He didn’t get one. They reached an impasse. Sebald, unhappy, sensed “a growing rift between the American authorities in Tokyo and Washington which, if uncorrected, could only lead to disaster.”44

  Apparently MacArthur shared his apprehension. Privately he told Sebald that his task of protecting Formosa was complicated by State’s “unfriendly” attitude toward Chiang—that chances of defending it would be improved by more cordial relations between the generalissimo and the United States—but publicly h
e issued one of his rare conciliatory statements. It hadn’t dawned on him, he said, that his visit to Taipei would be interpreted “as being sinister in any way.” He still didn’t see how it could be so construed. If he was wrong, he was sorry. “It is,” he told the press on August 5, “extraordinarily difficult for me at times to exercise that degree of patience which is unquestionably demanded if the longtime policies which have been decreed are to be successfully accomplished without repercussions which would be detrimental to the well-being of the world, but I am restraining myself to the best of my ability and am generally satisfied with the progress being made.” Thus far, one’s sympathies are with MacArthur. The mission hadn’t been his idea, he had behaved scrupulously, and his statement, if he had to issue one, had been discreet. His difficulty was that Chiang was then the Typhoid Mary of American diplomacy. Any contact with him was risky.45

  Acheson insisted that the General’s knuckles be rapped, so Secretary of Defense Johnson reminded him that he must continue to block any KMT forays against the Chinese coast, adding sharply: “No one other than the President as Commander-in-Chief has the authority to order or authorize preventive action against concentrations on the mainland.” MacArthur replied that he “understood” and would be “meticulously” governed by the directive, but to make assurance doubly sure and avoid any further embarrassment, Truman sent his roving envoy, Averell Harriman, to Tokyo “so that,” in the President’s words, “the General might be given a firsthand account of the political planning in Washington.46

  Accompanied by Generals Lauris Norstad of the Air Force and Matthew B. Ridgway, the army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Harriman was met by MacArthur at Haneda at 9:15 on the morning of August 6. During their drive to the embassy guesthouse, Harriman later reported to Truman, the General enthusiastically “described the satisfactory political development in Japan since my last visit. He spoke of the great quality of the Japanese; his desire to work, the satisfaction of the Japanese in work, his respect for the dignity of work. He compared it favorably to the desire in the United States for more luxury and less work.” Although Americans might forget it, the Supreme Commander was still carrying his full burden as ruler of Nippon. It was clear to Harriman that pacificatory SCAP, not warring CINCFE, was the role he enjoyed most.47

  Over the next two days, the presidential envoy flew to Pusan for a quick inspection of UN lines and conferred with the General for more than eight hours, sometimes alone, sometimes with Norstad and Ridgway. After the first day an aide confided in a correspondent that the two men were “pretty much in agreement.” There were no details, however, not even for SCAP officials. “In fact,” Sebald notes, “the underlying purpose of Harriman’s visit never was entirely clear to us . . . although we had a definite stake in it. We could only guess, as did many others, that the President was seeking to reinforce his strict policy that Formosa should not be used as a base of operations against Mainland China.”48

  That was the gist of it. MacArthur promised a swift victory in Korea, said he hoped he could launch his offensive there before the onset of winter because delay would increase the chances of Chinese intervention, and predicted that if Mao tried to seize Formosa he himself would assume command there and “deliver such a crushing defeat it would be one of the decisive battles of the world,” but most of the time was spent discussing the shaky relations between Taipei and Washington. The General acknowledged that Chiang could never reconquer China, though he suggested facetiously that “it might be a good idea to let him land and get rid of him that way.” His own problem, he said, was strategic. He had been charged with the defense of Formosa, and in that role he was crippled by the tension between the KMT and the U.S. administration. “We have not improved our position by kicking Chiang around,” he said, “and I hope that the President will do something to relieve the strain between the State Department and the Generalissimo.” That was reasonable, but then he encroached on diplomatic prerogatives by adding that he would “never” recognize Peking because that would strengthen Mao’s prestige. It should be the U.S. goal, he said, to destroy that prestige.49

  Harriman explained that “the President wants me to tell you that you must not permit Chiang to be the cause of starting a war with the Chinese Communists, the effect of which might drag us into a world war.” Reviving the KMT forces for a full-scale attack on the mainland, he said, had not been the intent of America’s UN allies in supporting U.S. resistance to North Korean aggression on that peninsula. MacArthur replied: “As a soldier, I will obey any orders I receive from the President.” However, he thought it his duty to point out that in his view the Seventh Fleet’s patrolling of the Formosa Strait cut two ways. It shielded Chiang, but it also “protected” the Red Chinese. According to his intelligence, it had released two Red field armies from defensive positions in South China. Later he would remind Washington of that warning.50

  Seeing his visitors off at Haneda, the General shouted “loudly,” Harriman recalls, “so all could hear, ‘The only fault of your trip was that it was too short.’ ” The envoy wrote his report to Truman during the return flight. MacArthur’s trip to Formosa, he wrote, had been “perfectly natural,” and he was convinced that the Supreme Commander was loyal to “constitutional authority.” On that basis he felt that “political and personal considerations should be put to one side and our government [should] deal with General MacArthur on the lofty level of the great national asset which he is.” Yet, Harriman continued:

  For reasons which are rather difficult to explain, I did not feel that we came to a full agreement on the way we believe things should be handled on Formosa and with the Generalissimo. He accepted the President’s position and will act accordingly, but without full conviction. He has a strange idea that we should back anybody who will fight Communism, even though he could not give an argument why the Generalissimo’s fighting Communists would be a contribution towards the effective dealing with the Communists in China. I pointed out to him the basic conflict of interest between the U.S. . . . position as to the future of Formosa, namely, the preventing of Formosa’s falling into hostile hands . . . [while] Chiang, on the other hand, had only the burning ambition to use Formosa as a steppingstone for his reentry to the mainland . . . . I explained in great detail why Chiang was a liability, and the great danger of a split in the unity of the United Nations . . . . I pointed out the great importance of maintaining UN unity among the friendly countries, and the complications that might result from any missteps in dealing with China and Formosa.51

  On the whole Truman felt reassured. Formosa excepted, he and the National Security Council now shared the General’s conviction “that we should back anyone who will fight Communism,” and since his Far East commander had apparently agreed to toe the administration line, he told a press conference that he and MacArthur saw “eye-to-eye” on Formosa. The President “assumed,” he later wrote, “that this would be the last of it.” It wasn’t; even cautioning the General, he would learn, was hazardous. Three days after Harriman’s departure SCAP issued a new statement excoriating those who had interpreted his trip to Formosa as a political move. The visit, he said, had been “maliciously represented to the public by those who invariably in the past have propagandized a policy of defeatism and appeasement in the Pacific.” Since “defeatism” and “appeasement” were precisely the words Republican critics were using to describe administration courses of action in Asia, MacArthur appeared to be back in the fray. Sebald expressed “deep distress” over this new incident. “These public statements,” he wrote, gave “aid and comfort to the enemy by demonstrating divisions in our leadership and weaknesses in our national purpose.” During World War II, he later noted, the General had presided over the victorious alliance which had defeated Japan. Now “the alliance itself became the second front in MacArthur’s constant skirmishing with the outside world.”52

  That was on a Thursday. On Monday Secretary of Defense Johnson sent SCAP fresh instructions, once more forbidding an
y KMT sallies across Formosa Strait on the ground that “the most vital national interest requires that no action of ours precipitates general war or gives excuse to others to do so.” The General tartly replied that he fully understood the presidential determination “to protect the Communist mainland.” That was insolent. If Washington meant to take a hard line with him, this was the time to do it. Instead Truman encouraged him by altering his stand on Formosa. MacArthur had recommended a military mission for Formosa. The President now approved it, ordering a survey by MacArthur’s staff of Chiang’s army’s needs, reconnaissance flights along the Chinese coast, and “extensive military aid to Nationalist China.” Actually these were political, not military, actions: stratagems designed to relieve GOP and China Lobby pressure on the White House. But the General could not have been expected to know that. He was, as Clark Lee put it, “jubilant over the apparent reversal of American policy of abandoning Chiang Kai-shek.” That same week Clyde A. Lewis, the leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, invited him to send a message to be read at the forthcoming VFW annual encampment. Whitney tells us: “MacArthur decided that this was an excellent opportunity to place himself on record as being squarely behind the President.”53