The General vs. the President
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Hoyt Vandenberg joined the others in saying America must stop the North Koreans. Yet the air force chief wasn’t so sure the Russians wouldn’t fight. He said his planes could knock out North Korea’s tanks with little trouble if the only cover the tanks received was from the North Korean air force. But if Russian jets joined the fight, that would be a different matter. They would fly from bases much closer to the action than the American bases in Japan.
Truman asked if American planes could knock out the Russian bases.
“It could be done if we used A-bombs,” Vandenberg replied.
Atomic weapons had never been used tactically—against specific military targets rather than strategically against cities—but the American military was developing plans for doing so. Experts and laypersons alike debated whether a meaningful distinction between tactical and strategic use actually existed, especially now that the Soviets had atomic weapons, too. Would the Kremlin consider any American use of such weapons an affront requiring a nuclear response? Would tactical use inevitably escalate to strategic use? No one could say, and no one at the Blair House meeting chose to pursue the matter.
Frank Pace seconded Omar Bradley’s doubts about committing American ground forces to Korea. The army secretary hoped MacArthur’s swift action in supporting the South Koreans would make that unnecessary.
Thomas Finletter asserted that MacArthur was the man of the hour. “General MacArthur should be authorized to go beyond mere evacuation,” the air force secretary said. He drew an analogy to the period before World War II, when the democratic powers had refused to stand up to German and Japanese aggression. “We should take calculated risks, hoping that our action will keep the peace.”
Louis Johnson disagreed. The defense secretary wanted to hold MacArthur on a short leash. “The instructions should be detailed so as not to give him too much discretion,” Johnson said. “There should not be a real delegation of presidential authority to General MacArthur.” He concurred with the army men about the inadvisability of sending U.S. troops to Korea unless absolutely necessary.
Truman listened, then made his decisions. He authorized the weapons shipments MacArthur had already begun. He directed that the general dispatch a survey group to Korea, to see what else might be needed. He approved the repositioning of the Seventh Fleet to keep Chiang and the Chinese Communists apart. Preparing for the worst, he ordered the air force to draw up plans “to wipe out all Soviet air bases in the Far East.” He emphasized, however, that this was an order for planning, not for action. The State and Defense Departments should calculate where the Soviet Union might move next. The president stressed the role of the United Nations. “We are working entirely for the United Nations,” he told the group.
As the meeting ended, Truman swore all present to secrecy. No one was to speak to the press, even on background, without clearance from him.
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ON MONDAY MORNING the White House released a statement condemning the “unprovoked aggression against the Republic of Korea.” The statement reflected Truman’s decision to act under the auspices of the UN. “In accordance with the resolution of the Security Council, the United States will vigorously support the effort of the Council to terminate this serious breach of the peace,” it said. “Those responsible for this act of aggression must realize how seriously the Government of the United States views such threats to the peace of the world. Willful disregard of the obligation to keep the peace cannot be tolerated by nations that support the United Nations Charter.”
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AS THE PRESIDENT’S statement was being distributed, Truman spoke privately with George Elsey about the situation in Korea. Elsey had served in the White House Map Room under Franklin Roosevelt and had accompanied Truman to Potsdam; he subsequently became a confidant and sounding board for Truman in matters of foreign and military policy. On this occasion Elsey initiated the conversation. “I stayed behind to chat with the President about the significance of Korea,” Elsey recorded. “I expressed my very grave concern about Formosa. I said it seemed to me this was the perfect course for the Chinese communists to take.” The North Korean invasion might well be a distraction to cover a Chinese attack on Formosa.
Truman’s concerns were broader. “The President walked over to the globe standing in front of the fireplace and said he was more worried about other parts of the world. He said he had ordered MacArthur to give ammunition to the Koreans, that the Air Force and the Navy were to protect the evacuation of Americans. That much was easy and clear. But what he was worried about, the President said, was the Middle East. He put his finger on Iran and said: ‘Here is where they will start trouble if we aren’t careful.’ ‘Korea,’ he said, ‘is the Greece of the Far East. If we are tough enough now, if we stand up to them like we did in Greece three years ago, they won’t take any next steps. But if we just stand by, they’ll move into Iran and they’ll take over the whole Middle East. There’s no telling what they’ll do, if we don’t put up a fight now.’ The President appeared sincerely determined to go very much further than the initial orders that he had approved for General MacArthur the evening before.”
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TRUMAN INITIALLY HOPED the display of American resolve would suffice to hold the line in Korea. The president continued to keep his top advisers publicly quiet, but he allowed Dean Acheson to brief a few congressional leaders privately. Acheson called Republican senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, a frequent thorn in the administration’s side, to say that the situation in Korea was “in pretty good shape.” The South Koreans had suffered from the surprise of the first assault but were now “in pretty good fighting shape.” Wiley wanted more information. He asked what General MacArthur was doing. Acheson said MacArthur had things well in hand and it was MacArthur’s judgment the president was relying on. Wiley asked if the United States would send in its own troops. Acheson said the president was considering the matter but no American troops had been committed as yet. In another conversation, with Democrat John Kee of West Virginia, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Acheson said he thought the South Koreans could defend themselves unless outside forces—Soviet or Chinese, presumably—entered the war.
Events in Korea soon dispelled the optimism in Washington. North Korean tanks reached Seoul on the second day of fighting. Syngman Rhee’s government fled the capital, which appeared on the verge of falling. Truman tried to buck up the ROK leadership. He summoned the South Korean ambassador to the White House. A memo of the meeting captured Truman’s message: “The President said that he had already issued orders to General MacArthur to supply all items of ammunition and equipment which, in General MacArthur’s opinion, the Korean army was trained to use, and that the Koreans must now continue to fight effectively so that help from the United States could strengthen them. He pointed out that the battle had been going on for only forty-eight hours, and that other men and other countries had defended their liberties under much more discouraging situations through to ultimate victory.” The ambassador replied that his country’s soldiers were brave but lacked the necessary equipment. Truman reiterated his encouragement. “The President again said that help was on the way and that the Koreans must develop the steadfast leadership which would carry them through this crisis.”
On Monday evening Truman gathered his national security team again. Acheson recommended lifting restrictions on the use of American airpower, which until now had been confined to protecting the evacuation of American nationals. Acheson urged the president to order American planes to “offer the fullest possible support to the South Korean forces, attacking tanks, guns, columns, etc. of the North Korean forces in order to give a chance to the South Koreans to re-form.”
This much was easy. Truman approved the request at once.
Frank Pace asked whether Acheson’s recommendation applied only to areas south of the 38th parallel. Acheson said yes: no action north of the parallel.
Truman nodded, adding, “Not yet.”
Truman allowed himself to muse on the future of Formosa. He said he wished that consideration be given to “taking Formosa back as part of Japan and putting it under MacArthur’s command.”
Acheson didn’t think this wise at all. The secretary of state could only imagine what MacArthur might try to do with Formosa. But he deflected the president’s request. The Formosa issue, he said, should be deferred to a later day.
Truman continued to muse. He said he had received a letter from Chiang some weeks earlier in which the generalissimo had hinted at resigning his office if this would facilitate a constructive solution to the Formosa question. The letter was a private one, Truman said, and he had kept it secret. But the offer was worth considering. “We might want to proceed along those lines in order to get the Chinese forces helping us,” Truman said. “The Generalissimo might step out if MacArthur were put in.”
Again Acheson discouraged the president. Chiang was unpredictable, he said. “He might resist and throw the ball game.” Better to wait. Acheson added that the United States should not get mixed up in the politics of Formosa.
Truman now granted that Acheson was probably right. He said he wouldn’t give Chiang a nickel after the millions he had squandered. “All the money we have given them is now invested in United States real estate,” he said.
Joe Collins returned the discussion to the prospects for South Korea. The army chief said the situation there was bad. The ROK army was dispirited. “The Korean chief of staff has no fight left in him.”
Acheson contended that the United States needed to fight, even if the cause were doomed. America’s allies demanded nothing less. They might forgive defeat, but they could never forgive refusal to fight.
Truman reflected that he had done everything he could since becoming president to forestall this kind of situation. “Now the situation is here and we must do what we can to meet it.” He wondered whether he ought to mobilize the national guard. He asked Omar Bradley if this was necessary. If so, he—the president—would have to go to Congress to ask for money to pay for the mobilization. He reiterated that the United States must do everything it could for Korea.
Bradley replied that mobilizing the guard might be necessary. If the president committed ground forces to Korea, the guard would be needed to fill in elsewhere. But a decision wasn’t immediately required.
Truman told Bradley and the chiefs to weigh the matter. Yet he added, “I don’t want to go to war.”
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NEITHER DID THE members of Congress the president brought to the White House the next morning. Truman didn’t intend to involve them in the decision process, but as a former senator he knew he had to keep them informed. He praised the prompt action of the UN Security Council in condemning the North Korean invasion, without dwelling on the fortuitous absence of the Soviet delegate that made the pertinent resolution possible. He read to the senators and representatives a statement his press secretary, Charlie Ross, was about to release. The statement summarized the events of the preceding forty-eight hours: the North Korean invasion, the Security Council resolution, the North Korean refusal to heed the resolution, the council’s call to member states to render assistance in executing the resolution. “In these circumstances,” Truman read, “I have ordered United States air and sea forces to give the Korean Government troops cover and support.” More than Korea was at stake, the president asserted. “The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war.” The aggression must not be allowed to spread, as to Formosa. “Accordingly I have ordered the 7th Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa.” Yet the United States was not willing to reopen the Chinese civil war. “I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The 7th Fleet will see that this is done.” Truman reiterated that the United States was acting at the behest of the United Nations. “I know that all members of the United Nations will consider carefully the consequences of this latest aggression in Korea in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations. A return to the rule of force in international affairs would have far-reaching effects. The United States will continue to uphold the rule of law.”
When he finished reading the statement, Truman extemporized. The communist aggression in Korea could not be tolerated, he said. “This act was very obviously inspired by the Soviet Union. If we let Korea down, the Soviets will keep right on going and swallow up one piece of Asia after another. We have to make a stand some time or else let all of Asia go. If we were to let Asia go, the Near East would collapse and no telling what would happen in Europe. Therefore I have ordered our forces to support Korea as long as we can—or as long as the Koreans put up a fight and give us something we can support.”
Truman spoke a mouthful here, anticipating the next quarter century of American policy toward Asia. His claim that the Kremlin was behind the North Korean attack—that world communism was, in effect, a monolith—rendered the fighting in Korea a test of America’s global resolve. His prediction that a failure to resist aggression in Korea would lead to the collapse of one country and region after another—that the countries and regions were dominoes waiting to fall—made a forceful response all the more imperative. Skeptics at the time challenged both of Truman’s assertions, and historians would debate them. The evidence was mixed. In the early 1950s communists in other countries looked to Moscow for leadership, not to mention material support. But Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists had their own agenda, as events of the 1960s would demonstrate. And Kim Il Sung had sufficient reasons of his own for wanting to reunify Korea; he evidently received Stalin’s approval for the attack on South Korea but didn’t require Stalin’s inspiration. As for the domino theory, it was never really tested. The United States did fight in Korea—and then in Vietnam. The American defeat in Vietnam didn’t disprove the theory, which was more about America’s willingness to fight than about the outcome of any particular conflict.
Truman’s auditors on this day were not among the skeptics. The lawmakers were sobered into silence by the president’s remarks. After several moments Alexander Wiley asked whether Truman’s orders to General MacArthur were pursuant to the Security Council resolution. Truman said they most certainly were. Wiley then asked if MacArthur had sufficient military resources to give adequate aid to South Korea. What kinds of planes could he send, for example?
Hoyt Vandenberg started to answer, but Louis Johnson interrupted the air force chief to say this was highly sensitive information. Until all at the meeting promised secrecy, Johnson explained, General Vandenberg must say no more. The lawmakers gave the required pledge. Wiley thereupon withdrew his question. It sufficed, he said, to know that America was providing what the president deemed sufficient force.
After Frank Pace volunteered that no American ground troops were being sent to Korea, Senator Millard Tydings reported that conferees from the Senate and the House had that very morning come to an agreement to extend the military draft. Tydings made clear that the Korean crisis had strongly influenced the decision. Truman offered his thanks, calling the extension “vitally essential.”
Several of the lawmakers wanted to know about the connection between the administration’s actions toward Korea and those toward Formosa. Truman explained that his policy toward Korea was in support of the United Nations, while policy toward Formosa was wholly American.
Tom Connally asserted that the present moment was a crucial test of the United Nations. “If the United Nations is ever going to do anything, this is the time,” the Texas Democrat said. “If the United Nations cannot bring the crisis in Korea to an end, then we mi
ght just as well wash up the United Nations and forget it.” Connally’s statement evoked general assent, and Truman repeated that what the United States did in Korea would be in support of and in conformity with the decisions of the Security Council.
Dean Acheson noted that the president’s public statement conspicuously avoided mention of the Soviet Union. It referred simply to “communism.” The administration knew that Moscow was behind the attack in Korea, Acheson said, but proclaiming as much in public could be counterproductive. “This government is doing its best to leave a door wide open for the Soviet Union to back down without losing too much face.” The secretary of state added that it would be helpful if the members of Congress would similarly eschew reference to the Soviet Union. “If we publicly say that the Soviets are responsible for the actions of the communists in North Korea, then, as a matter of prestige, the Soviet government will be forced to continue supporting the North Korean forces and we will find ourselves with a really tough scrap on our hands. If, however, we leave the door open, the Soviet Union may well back down and call off the North Koreans.”
The lawmakers nodded. The Republicans doubtless considered how they might eventually use the president’s words and actions against him, but for the moment, with communist forces on the rampage, they were willing to fall in line.
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THE NORTH KOREAN attack on South Korea took Douglas MacArthur quite by surprise. Only days before the attack, MacArthur had met with Louis Johnson and Omar Bradley, who had traveled to Tokyo to talk about the defense of Asia. MacArthur handed them a memo conveying his assessment of the threats to the American position in the Far East. The memo focused almost exclusively on Formosa. “The strategic interests of the United States will be in serious jeopardy if Formosa is allowed to be dominated by a power hostile to the United States,” MacArthur asserted. “Formosa in the hands of the Communists can be compared to an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender ideally located to accomplish Soviet offensive strategy and at the same time checkmate counteroffensive operations by United States Forces based on Okinawa and the Philippines.” Communist control of Formosa would threaten to outflank anticommunist positions in Indochina and the Indonesian archipelago. “Historically Formosa has been used as a springboard for military aggression directed against areas to the south.” The loss of Formosa would echo across Asia and beyond. “The future status of Formosa can well be an important factor in determining the political alignment of those national groups who have or must soon make a choice between Communism and the West.” MacArthur understood that his views on Formosa differed from those of some in Washington, which was why he was making such an impassioned case. He meanwhile gave scarcely a thought to Korea, with the result that the North Korean attack caught him flat-footed and unprepared.