by H. W. Brands
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MATTHEW RIDGWAY GOT the news at the front without realizing what he was getting. Spring had arrived in the mountains of Korea, which meant that hail was mixed with the driving snow. Ridgway was showing Frank Pace around when a reporter from Pace’s detail approached him.
“Well, General, I guess congratulations are in order,” the reporter said.
Ridgway was puzzled. “What for?” he said.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” Ridgway demanded. “What’s this all about?”
The reporter said no more. He walked away, perhaps wondering if he had heard things right. Not until that night back at his command post did Ridgway learn, via an urgent message over his radio, that MacArthur had been fired and that he—Ridgway—had succeeded to all his commands.
He flew to Tokyo as soon as he could. In the same office where MacArthur had willingly handed him the Eighth Army, the senior general now unwillingly turned over the entire Far Eastern theater. MacArthur angrily denounced Truman, questioning his mental stability and telling Ridgway—as Ridgway recorded in a private memorandum—that a physician who knew Truman’s doctor declared “that the President was suffering from malignant hypertension; that his affliction was characterized by bewilderment and confusion of thought.” MacArthur suggested that Truman had but months to live. Meanwhile he—MacArthur—would return to America and “raise hell” against the president’s misguided policies.
Ridgway let MacArthur rage, and when he published his memoir five years later he tactfully reported a much calmer conversation. “He was entirely himself—composed, quiet, temperate, friendly, and helpful to the man who was to succeed him,” Ridgway wrote of MacArthur. “He made some allusions to the fact that he had been summarily relieved, but there was no trace of bitterness or anger in his tone. I thought it was a fine tribute to the resilience of this great man that he could accept so calmly, with no outward sign of shock, what must have been a devastating blow to a professional soldier standing at the peak of a great career.”
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WILLIAM SEBALD HAD watched the last days of MacArthur’s command convinced that the general had got in over his head. “I am afraid that the General underestimates the difficulties involved in the world situation or, for that matter, in political circles in Washington,” Sebald wrote in his diary. “What appears easy here is magnified many times in complexity when viewed in the light of the broad world picture. Should the matter come to a showdown, I think the General would lose: he could not stand the searchlight and shafts of public criticism.”
Yet Sebald was as shocked as anyone when the ax fell. He learned the news from someone who had heard it on the radio. “Refused to believe it at first,” he wrote. The State Department instructed him to visit Shigeru Yoshida, the Japanese prime minister, and assure him that the change in command connoted no change in American policy. “He was visibly shaken but grateful for my message and its assurance,” Sebald recorded. A short while later Sebald went to headquarters. “Called on General MacArthur who met me with a smile—unfortunately, I was so keyed up that tears came into my eyes. The General handed me, and lit, a cigarette. We sat down; I said, ‘General, you are a better soldier in this than I am.’ The General was very bitter about the method employed in sending him home, ‘publicly humiliated after 52 years of service in the Army.’ He said that if the President had indicated that he wished him to retire, he would have done so without difficulty.” MacArthur read deep significance into his dismissal. “He intimated that his removal was a plot in Washington; that Formosa would be handed over to Red China; that the Philippines would fall next; Japan would be isolated and fall too; that our whole position in the Far East would crumble.” MacArthur considered his successor. “On General Ridgway, he said he is an excellent soldier; whether he is also a good administrator remains to be seen, but he doubted it. He wondered whether Gen. Ridgway had ‘sold his soul’; he hoped not. These were, of course, bitter words, which may, perhaps, excuse them. Under the circumstances, they are understandable.” MacArthur defended his conduct. “The General denied that he has violated any orders from Washington. When the letter to Rep. Joseph Martin was first mentioned, the General said that he didn’t even remember it and had to fish it out of his files; in any event, it was a personal letter.”
Sebald, wiping the tears from his eyes, said MacArthur still had his support. The general responded gravely, “Bill, your weakness is that you have probably been too loyal to me. You may have to pay for that loyalty.”
52
ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, April 11, eighteen hours after the news conference announcing MacArthur’s dismissal, Truman offered his explanation to the American people, except that he hardly touched on the matter they all wanted to know about. He spoke by radio from his office. The lengthiest part of the speech was a reiteration of the administration’s argument that Korea was but one theater in the struggle against world communism. “The question we have had to face is whether the communist plan of conquest can be stopped without a general war,” he said. Until now the United States had been successful. “So far, we have prevented World War III. So far, by fighting a limited war in Korea, we have prevented aggression from succeeding.” America’s allies had been heartened by the resolute stand of American and UN forces. But the enemy remained determined. New intelligence suggested that a major offensive was coming. Yet Truman wasn’t overly worried. “If a new attack comes, I feel confident it will be turned back. The United Nations fighting forces are tough and able and well equipped.” He placed the burden of decision on the enemy. “They may take further action which will spread the conflict. They have that choice, and with it the awful responsibility for what may follow.” He hoped they would choose another course. “We do not want to see the conflict in Korea extended. We are trying to prevent a world war, not to start one.”
Astute listeners sensed Truman was approaching the topic that kept them all tuned in. “You may ask why can’t we take other steps to punish the aggressor,” he said. “Why don’t we bomb Manchuria and China itself? Why don’t we assist the Chinese Nationalist troops to land on the mainland of China?” He answered his own questions. “If we were to do these things we would be running a very grave risk of starting a general war. If that were to happen, we would have brought about the exact situation we are trying to prevent. If we were to do these things, we would become entangled in a vast conflict on the continent of Asia and our task would become immeasurably more difficult all over the world. What would suit the ambitions of the Kremlin better than for our military forces to be committed to a full-scale war with Red China?” The United States must avoid this trap, for three reasons: “to make sure that the precious lives of our fighting men are not wasted; to see that the security of our country and the free world is not needlessly jeopardized; and to prevent a third world war.”
Finally he reached the issue of the hour. “A number of events have made it evident that General MacArthur did not agree with that policy,” Truman said. “I have therefore considered it essential to relieve General MacArthur so that there would be no doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy.” The decision did not come easily. “It was with the deepest personal regret that I found myself compelled to take this action. General MacArthur is one of our greatest military commanders.” But a president had larger interests to consider. “The cause of world peace is much more important than any individual.”
53
QUITE AN EXPLOSION,” Truman wrote in his diary, summarizing the public response to the firing. “Was expected but I had to act. Telegrams and letters of abuse by the dozens.”
He sampled the correspondence. “Your action toward MacArthur is completely unwarranted in my opinion,” a New Jersey writer declared. “I hope history will bear out the soundness of your action, for if you are wrong the consequences will be a great blood bath for all free people.” The writer supplied a bit of biography and a promise. “I vote
d for you in 1948 and have regretted it ever since. The way things look now I not only will not vote for you or the democratic party in 1952 but will actively work for republican candidates—even if he be Taft whose isolationism I consider almost as dangerous as your appeasement.” The writer signed off: “A loyal but alarmed American.”
A San Antonio woman said she had written to her senators and representative urging Truman’s impeachment. “You have sold us out, just as your noble predecessor sold us out at Yalta, and the Kremlin should give you a 21-gun salute,” she wrote. “They probably will—aimed right at our bewildered forces in Korea….You have kicked out, with insults, the most brilliant, courageous and successful man representing our country abroad….You have fired a man whose first and whole devotion has been to the best interest of our country. (He didn’t have to think about the Democratic vote in Missouri.) He has done a top job, but he couldn’t be red-taped. So he got fired, and the hell with U.S.A. Harry is top-boy, and he has to prove it. Why stop with Formosa? Let’s give them Japan, and Hawaii, and Alaska—and why not the Panama Canal?”
A Washington, D.C., woman said she had never voted for Truman and never would. But she thought he had outdone himself in incompetence this time and was undoing America. “General MacArthur has probably forgotten more about the Far East than those advising you in Washington have ever known. As a good American, I am ashamed of my President!…You have committed the worst blunder of your administration.”
The attacks mounted. By the afternoon of April 12 the White House had received more than 5,000 telegrams, with three-quarters of them, by staff estimates, opposing the president. At the Capitol the count was even more strongly against the president. The Republican Congressional Committee reported that the forty-seven Republican senators and two hundred Republican representatives had received 5,986 letters supporting MacArthur and only 32 siding with Truman. The telegrams for MacArthur were 42,024 compared with 334 for Truman. Telephone calls for MacArthur were 1,776 against 13 for Truman. The correspondence received by the Democrats in Congress didn’t come close to offsetting this negative tide.
Editorial opinion was mixed. The Columbus Dispatch asserted, “It is no secret that MacArthur’s dismissal from Japan was more deeply desired by the forces of communism than any number of Korean victories. With MacArthur out of authority in Tokyo, the Communist conquest of Asia becomes a softer assignment.” But the Cleveland Plain Dealer declared, “General MacArthur overstepped the prerogatives of a military officer in the issuance of political statements, and, therefore, President Truman exercised his right and followed his duty in relieving him of his command.” Yet the Plain Dealer immediately qualified its approval, saying, “The President may have set off a thorough exposure of the bankruptcy of his own administration.” The Boston Globe allowed that Truman had the right “to remove a subordinate commander who was unwilling to follow orders with which he did not agree.” But the Globe wanted to hear the other side of the story. “General MacArthur’s ideas are entitled to a full hearing, and he is obviously the best man to present them.” The Boston Herald likewise opined that a thorough airing was in order. “One of the principal difficulties in this whole situation is that most Americans, like General MacArthur himself, are not clear as to what the United Nations policy is in Korea,” the Herald said. “The coming debate ought to clear that up.” The Chicago Daily News put the burden on Truman to straighten things out: “Having taken full responsibility in the MacArthur case, President Truman cannot escape the greater responsibility of defining, in company with other members of the United Nations, what further course of action is to be followed.”
But the Chicago Tribune wanted to hear nothing more from this president. “President Truman must be impeached and convicted,” the Tribune asserted. “His hasty and vindictive removal of General MacArthur is the culmination of a series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for his high office. Mr. Truman can be impeached for usurping the power of Congress when he ordered American troops to the Korean front without a declaration of war. He can be impeached, also, for surrounding himself with grafters and incompetents. The American nation has never been in greater danger. It is led by a fool who is surrounded by knaves.”
54
COURT, PLEASE ARRANGE the trip so that we will arrive in San Francisco and New York after dark to enable us to slip into a hotel without being noticed.”
So said MacArthur, according to Courtney Whitney’s recollection. Speaking in his own voice, Whitney went on, “I looked with astonishment at MacArthur as he gave me these instructions, and suddenly for the first time realized the humiliation that seared his soul as a result of the foul and shocking blow by which his long and devoted service to the nation had been so abruptly terminated. So deep was this humiliation that it deprived him of a true understanding of public reaction at home. For he had only a general idea of the thousands of supporting cables which had accumulated from world-wide sources. He had read none of the press accounts of the popular indignation aroused by the President’s curt order. He knew nothing of the great pressure on the telephone circuits from people trying to get through to Tokyo to register their personal resentments and extend expressions of sympathy and understanding.”
Whitney, responsible for arranging MacArthur’s travel, took particular umbrage at a sentence in the dismissal decree overlooked by most others: “You are authorized to have issued such orders as are necessary to complete desired travel to such place as you select.” Whitney resentfully remarked, “This was the treatment accorded to the one great World War leader who had not taken time off from duty to return home to receive a hero’s welcome and the nation’s tribute for his World War victories, to the ‘principal architect’ of the Pacific victory as Stimson had so aptly described him, to a soldier after fifty years of devoted service, half on foreign soil, to the recipient of all the nation’s highest honors. No other American soldier had ever received such a list, and none had served abroad so long. I have never seen the order committing Napoleon to exile, but I dare say it exuded greater warmth and was couched in terms reflecting higher honor than that which authorized MacArthur to spend the public funds necessary to take him to an oblivion of his own selection.”
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THE JAPANESE WERE stunned by the news. Most were astonished at the idea that a general could be fired by a civilian official; in recent Japanese history power had typically run in the opposite direction. When the truth sank in—that MacArthur was leaving—they turned out in immense numbers to bid farewell to the one who had conquered and then resurrected them. MacArthur, accompanied by Jean and Arthur, left their residence in the American embassy at 6:30 in the morning on Monday, April 16. A thirty-man honor guard comprising members of each of the armed services stood at attention. MacArthur snapped a salute and entered his limousine. The car drove through the still-rutted streets of Tokyo, past crowds estimated at up to one million men, women and children. Ten thousand police turned out, most not for crowd control but in their own tribute to their de facto emperor. The nominal emperor, Hirohito, did not appear; he had paid a final visit—his first social call on MacArthur, or any other mortal—the previous day.
A nineteen-gun salute, the maximum allowed a five-star general, greeted MacArthur at Haneda Airport. The diplomatic corps was present, besides the senior American military officers and ranking Japanese officials. A military band played “Auld Lang Syne.” Jet fighters screamed above the field. MacArthur had previously changed the name of his plane from Bataan to SCAP; now that he was no longer Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the old name had been repainted onto the fuselage.
MacArthur followed Jean and Arthur up the ramp to the plane’s door. Jean openly wept. The general’s eyes were dry and his jaw set. Someone yelled, “Job well done.” The crowd cheered. Matthew Ridgway stepped forward and saluted. MacArthur returned the salute. He lifted his famous campaign cap to the crowd. He ducked his head and entered the plane.
It
taxied down the runway and lifted off at 7:20. All eyes continued to follow it as it climbed into the eastern sky.
Courtney Whitney sat beside MacArthur in the plane. “As I looked down,” Whitney wrote later, “I saw the upturned faces of those thousands of Japanese who jammed the airbase. They were still waving farewell, and I could feel rather than see that their lips still formed the traditional Japanese expression at parting: ‘Sayonara, Sayonara’—good-by and Godspeed.” Whitney looked to the horizon. “There stood Mount Fuji, still snow covered, rising majestically into the sky as if to claim the right over mortal man to bespeak the final farewell.” Whitney noticed that MacArthur was looking toward Fuji, too. “It will be a long, long time, Court, before we see her again,” MacArthur said.
55
THE CROWDS IN San Francisco began gathering hours before MacArthur’s plane came into view. The afternoon sun dipped toward the Pacific; a half-moon floated upward over the bay; high clouds parted like curtains on the stage of history. The most eager of the watchers headed for the airport, south of the city; others lined the highway and streets from the airport to Union Square at San Francisco’s heart. All took their cue from the radio reports of the airplane’s progress. Air traffic controllers put the Bataan at the 138th meridian, altitude seventeen thousand feet, at 4:22 p.m. The plane’s speed of two hundred sixty knots would bring it into sight a bit after eight o’clock.