by H. W. Brands
This was the bone of contention. “General MacArthur has stated that there are certain additional measures which can and should be taken, and that by doing so no unacceptable increased risk of global war will result.” Moreover, MacArthur had said or strongly implied that the joint chiefs agreed with him. Bradley denied it. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that these same measures do increase the risk of global war and that such a risk should not be taken unnecessarily.” Bradley didn’t dispute that the measures MacArthur recommended would benefit the American position in Korea and perhaps in the Far East generally. Bradley explained that it was appropriate for MacArthur to think in these terms. “A field commander very properly estimates his needs from the viewpoint of operations in his own theater or sphere of action.” But the joint chiefs had to look at the larger picture. “Those responsible for higher direction must necessarily base their actions on broader aspects, and on the needs, actual or prospective, of several theaters. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in view of their global responsibilities and their perspective with respect to the world-wide strategic situation, are in a better position than is any single theater commander to assess the risk of general war.”
Bradley judged it absolutely crucial for the committee—and Congress and the American people—to correctly identify the central struggle of the present era. “One of the great power potentials of this world is the United States of America and her allies. The other great power in this world is Soviet Russia and her satellites. As much as we desire peace, we must realize that we have two centers of power supporting opposing ideologies.” The bipolar division of world power dictated America’s broad strategy. “From a global viewpoint—and with the security of our nation of prime importance—our military mission is to support a policy of preventing communism from gaining the manpower, the resources, the raw material and the industrial capacity essential to world domination. If Soviet Russia ever controls the entire Eurasian land mass, then the Soviet-satellite imperialism may have the broad base upon which to build the military power to rule the world.” Bradley reminded the members that three times in the past five years the United States had taken action to thwart Soviet imperialism. In Greece in 1947, in Berlin in 1948 and in Korea since the summer of 1950, America and its allies had responded to communist aggression. “Each incident has cost us money, resources and some lives. But in each instance we have prevented the domination of one more area and the absorption of another source of manpower, raw material and resources.” The conflict in Korea must be viewed in the context of this continuing global effort. “It is just one engagement, just one phase of this battle that we are having with the other power center in the world which opposes us and all we stand for.” American actions had not been without peril. “In each of the actions in which we have participated to oppose this gangster conduct, we have risked World War III. But each time we have used methods short of total war. As costly as Berlin and Greece and Korea may be, they are less expensive than the vast destruction which would be inflicted upon all sides if a total war were to be precipitated.”
MacArthur had said that Russia’s timetable of aggression had an internal logic not tied to events in Korea. Bradley didn’t disagree. “I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow. As long as we keep the conflict within its present scope, we are holding to a minimum the forces we must commit and tie down.”
Bradley invited his listeners to consider the issue from the Soviet point of view. “The strategic alternative, enlargement of the war in Korea to include Red China, would probably delight the Kremlin more than anything else we could do. It would necessarily tie down additional forces, especially our sea power and our air power, while the Soviet Union would not be obliged to put a single man into the conflict.”
Bradley reiterated how this shaped the recommendations the joint chiefs gave the president. “Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war. The course of action often described as a ‘limited war’ with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the strategic prize. Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy.”
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BRADLEY’S CATEGORICAL CONCLUSION proved the most compelling public statement by either side at the committee hearings. For a soldier of Bradley’s stature, with no history of politics, to contradict MacArthur so completely caused even the most ardent of MacArthur’s supporters to pause and reconsider.
Yet it was the statements that were not made public that did the real damage to MacArthur. The rule of excision in the hearings was to delete testimony that might compromise American security. Such testimony included remarks related to American knowledge of Chinese and especially Soviet arms and war readiness; revealing what the American side knew might tip the communists as to how the Americans knew it. Democrat Harry Byrd asked Omar Bradley about Russian strength in the vicinity of Manchuria and North Korea. Bradley responded forthrightly, “There are 35 Russian divisions in the Far East. Nine of them are in the Vladivostok area; four in the Port Arthur-Dairen area; three in Sakhalin; two in the Kurile Islands; one near Kamchatka; and sixteen others scattered along the railway from Lake Baikal on east.”
“About 500,000 in all?” asked Byrd.
“Thirty-five divisions, plus supporting troops, run probably something like 500,000 or more,” Bradley replied.
Bradley’s comments were deleted when the transcript was released.
Another category of excisions revealed American vulnerabilities in a larger war. Harry Byrd’s questioning continued: “What would happen to the United Nations forces in Korea should these 500,000 trained troops be thrown into action with enemy submarine attacks to prevent the evacuation of our troops should they be badly outnumbered and have to evacuate?”
Bradley answered: “Should Russia come in with this army strength, her naval strength, which is quite strong in submarines, and her air power, which is quite strong in the Far East—if she should come in with all of those, we might have a hard time supplying our troops in Korea and would even, under certain circumstances, have difficulty evacuating them.”
How many submarines did the Russians have in the vicinity of Korea? asked Byrd.
“Approximately 85,” Bradley said.
“If they went into action, could we then still evacuate our troops?”
“Yes, to a certain extent because we have considerable naval forces there who could help us.”
But it wouldn’t be easy, Byrd sensed. “It would be a very serious situation?”
“It would be a very serious situation,” Bradley confirmed.
Byrd asked about the broader consequences of Russian intervention. “What other areas in Asia is Russia likely to take over if there is war in Asia?”
“Through the use of the Chinese they have the possibility of and even capability of taking over Indochina, Siam, Burma and maybe eventually India,” Bradley said. “In addition to that, they could take over Hong Kong and Malaya.”
Bradley knew that this alarming estimate might sound defeatist, but he thought the senators needed to hear it. He insisted on the deletion of the exchange before the hearing transcript was released to the newspapers and published the next day.
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OTHER EXCISED TESTIMONY revealed a fundamental reason for the administration’s reluctance to escalate in Korea: There was precious little for the United States to escalate with. American airpower, in particular, was stretched very thin. Hoyt Vandenberg told the committee that Korea was already claiming a large part of America’s available air
strength. “The Air Force part that is engaged in Korea is roughly 85 percent—80 to 85 percent—of the tactical capacity of the United States,” he said. “The strategic portion, which is used tactically, is roughly between one-fourth and one-fifth. The air defense forces are, I would judge, about 20 percent.”
Many Americans, and much of the world, imagined the United States had boundless military capacity. MacArthur had suggested as much, regarding airpower, in answering Henry Cabot Lodge that the U.S. air force could take on China without diminishing America’s capacity to check the Soviets. Vandenberg wasn’t going to disabuse America’s enemies of such notions, but he needed for the senators to hear, behind closed doors, that this was far from the case. “I am sure Admiral Davis will take this off the record,” Vandenberg said, referring to the officer overseeing the excisions, who did indeed take his remarks off the record. “The air force of the United States, as I have said, is really a shoestring air force.” Vandenberg had used the phrase in open testimony; now he provided the details. One small, intrinsically insignificant country—Korea—was absorbing an alarming portion of America’s air resources. “These groups that we have over there now doing this tactical job are really about a fourth of our total effort that we could muster today.” To escalate against China, even if only from the air, would be reckless in the extreme. “Four times that amount of groups in that area over that vast expanse of China would be a drop in the bucket.”
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OTHER REMARKS CONTRADICTED MacArthur’s recurrent complaint about the advantage the Chinese derived from the administration’s refusal to grant him permission to bomb beyond the Yalu. Democrat Walter George of Georgia, echoing MacArthur’s assertion that “China is using the maximum of her force against us,” said it was unfair that MacArthur had to fight a limited war while the Chinese fought all out.
Omar Bradley responded that George was quite mistaken—and, by implication, that MacArthur was quite misleading. The Chinese were not fighting all out, not by a great deal. “They have not used air against our front line troops, against our lines of communication in Korea, our ports; they have not used air against our bases in Japan or against our naval air forces.” China’s restraint in these areas had been crucial to the survival of American and UN forces in Korea. On balance, Bradley said, the limited nature of the war benefited the United States at least as much as it did the Chinese. “We are fighting under rather favorable rules for ourselves.”
Hoyt Vandenberg amplified this point. “You made the statement, as I recall it, that we were operating against the Chinese in a limited fashion, and that the Chinese were operating against us in an unlimited fashion,” the air chief said to Republican Harry Cain of Washington.
“Yes, sir,” Cain replied.
“I would like to point out that that operates just as much a limitation, so far, for the Chinese as it has for the United Nations troops in that our main base of supply is the Japanese islands. The port of Pusan is very important to us.”
“It is indeed.”
“Our naval forces are operating on the flanks allowing us naval gunfire support, carrier aircraft strikes, and the landing of such formations as the Inchon landing, all without the Chinese air force projecting itself into the area,” Vandenberg said. “Therefore, the sanctuary business, as it is called, is operating on both sides, and is not completely a limited war on our part.”
George Marshall made the same argument. Marshall proceeded with the greatest concern for confidentiality in addressing the limitations on the war. “The next thing I would like to say, I wish to be certain it will be eliminated from the record,” he said. “In your questions yesterday, there was a debate between us as to how much advantage the Chinese Communists were getting out of our not bombing their supply bases in Manchuria, and what the possible result of that was in casualties to our troops.” Marshall said he had raised the issue with the joint chiefs just hours before, asking them, “What happens to the Army if we do bomb, and what happens to our Army if we don’t bomb in that way.” The chiefs had been quite clear. “Their general view was that the loss of advantage with our troops on the ground was actually more than equaled by the advantages which we were deriving from not exposing our vulnerability to air attacks.”
In other words—and this was Marshall’s crucial point, as it had been Vandenberg’s—the limitations on the fighting in Korea, so loudly assailed by MacArthur and his supporters, in fact favored the American side.
Marshall elaborated. “I am referring to the air fields, which we have very few of with the length of runway required, and wing-tip to wing-tip of planes, which are very vulnerable. I am referring to the fact that our transportation runs without regard to visibility, whereas theirs”—China’s—“has to be handled only at night, and if the weather is fair, that is illuminated and is subject to destruction.” China’s decision to yield the air was what allowed America to remain in Korea. “We can move reserves with practically no restriction at all, and they have the greatest difficulty in relation to that. If bombing starts, we have a great many conditions that will be far less advantageous to us.”
Joe Collins supplied another example of American vulnerability, and he explained how communist restraint had prevented an utter American debacle. Referring to the moment MacArthur had initially sought permission to bomb into China, the army chief said, “When the first recommendations came in to bomb across the frontier, our troops were separated in Korea. The Tenth Corps was operating from the base at Hungnam, and our other forces were operating from bases at Pusan and Inchon. As soon as the Chinese attack began we were very much concerned about the fact that we would have to get that Tenth Corps out; and had we permitted the bombing north of the Yalu, we were dreadfully afraid that that might be the thing that would release the Russian planes, and additionally, have them give additional assistance to the Chinese, and might well have subjected the Tenth Corps to bombardment and possibly submarine attack during the perilous evacuation from Hungnam. Troops evacuating from a port of that character, in commercial ships, are terribly subject to air and underwater attack; and in my judgment, it would be a much too risky procedure.” Collins wasn’t quite so brutal as to say it, but his message was unequivocal: Far from complaining about the limited nature of the war, MacArthur should have been grateful for it.
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THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS were sobered, if not stunned, by the chiefs’ and Marshall’s descriptions of the actual condition of the American military vis-à-vis America’s enemies. Americans tended to believe that having won World War II, the American military could dispatch China with one hand and whack Russia with the other. The secret testimony of Marshall and the chiefs made patent that America’s military had its hands full already.
Other testimony deleted from the published transcript severely undercut the idea that Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalists would be anything but a burden in a larger war. Chiang’s forces had proven inept in their fight against the Chinese Communists, and several of the senators wanted to know if they could be expected to improve. Democrat Russell Long of Louisiana put the question directly to Marshall: “Do you have any indication that the Chinese Nationalist troops on Formosa could be depended upon to fight more fiercely than they did when they were fighting on the Chinese mainland?”
“Well, whatever reply I would make to that I would want off the record,” Marshall answered.
“I would like my question also to be off the record,” Long added.
Marshall explained that the Pentagon had sent a reconnaissance team to Formosa to determine the readiness and improvability of the Chinese Nationalists, and it had yet to report back. But he wasn’t at all hopeful. He particularly worried about Chinese infiltration of the Nationalists. “What we have feared all the time was a boring from within,” he said. Marshall noted that similar infiltration by German agents and sympathizers had debilitated the French army in 1940; in the present case the possibility of infiltration rendered any reliance on the Nat
ionalists extremely dubious. The Nationalists had abandoned a great deal of American weaponry in losing the mainland to the Communists; Marshall couldn’t see risking more.
Joe Collins again spoke more pungently. “We were highly skeptical that we would get anything more out of these Chinese”—the Nationalists—“than we were getting out of the South Koreans, because these were the same people that were run off China in the first place,” the army chief said.
The problem with the Nationalists started at the top, Marshall and the chiefs declared confidentially. “The trouble of it is Chiang is not accepted by a large part of the Chinese,” Omar Bradley declared. “Chiang has had a big chance to win in China and he did not do it.” There was little reason to think he would do better if given a second chance. “From a military point of view, in my own opinion I don’t think he would have too much success in leading the Chinese now. It is true some of them are getting tired of the Communists and might be more loyal to him now than they were before, but in my opinion he is not in position to rally the Chinese against the Communists even if we could get him ashore.” Talk of restoring Chiang and the Nationalists to power in China was idle or dangerous. “We do not feel they have the capability,” Bradley said. A turn to Chiang’s army, as MacArthur and others recommended, would not bolster American security but weaken it. “Their leadership is poor, their equipment is poor, and their training is poor.”
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THE SECRET TESTIMONY damaged MacArthur in ways he never understood. Veteran observers of Washington expected the Senate committee to draw formal conclusions; the tenor of the hearings, the predilections of the questioners and the partisanship of the moment suggested that there would be a majority report, a minority report and possibly separate statements by individual members.