The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 54
Truman seemed to regret MacArthur's hasty departure.to MacArthur's surprise, the president gave him a small honor ceremony, awarding him a Distinguished Service Medal (his fifth such decoration) and saying a few words of praise .As Whitney sourly remarked, no one who heard Truman's praise at the time would have guessed that the president would, four years later, answer the question "Do you regret firing MacArthur while in office?" "The only thing I regret is that I didn't fire him two years ago."The wording of the official communiqué was mild.A reporter commented that the communiqué was signed by both Truman and MacArthur "as if they were the heads of state."The restless MacArthur made no secret of his eagerness to leave.He took out a gold pocket watch, looked at it, rubbed his finger slowly over the glass, and put it back in his pocket.Truman told reporters at an impromptu press conference: "This is the most satisfying meeting I have ever had as president." MacArthur wrote off all questions, saying: "All comments must come from the president's press officer. "

According to New York Times reporter Anthony Liverro, Truman and MacArthur reminded him of "an insurance salesman who has finally signed a major contract with a would-be client...  And the latter is dubious about the effective scope of the entire contract." Truman was flattering and eager to show his sincerity to MacArthur and those around him.Before Truman boarded the Independence, he stopped Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, who wore only one star.The president said to him: "General Whitney, you should have been promoted to a major general long ago. As soon as I get back to Washington, I will do my best to make you a major general." Truman did what he said, and he returned to Washington. Shortly thereafter, Whitney received a second star.MacArthur stood in place until the "Independence" flew out of the end of the runway, and then walked quickly to the "Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces".A few minutes later, he was flying back to Tokyo.At this moment, he was furious that the President had meddled in his wars, and that anyone other than Truman had dared to be his equal.He asked William Siebold, "Who is that young man who asks questions so ignorantly?" Siebold finally deduced that he was Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.MacArthur made it clear that he was extremely "outraged" that such a mere person should ask him a question.He wrote years later: "This meeting ... made me realize that an elusive and insidious change was taking place in Washington. Gone were the defiant and cohesive figures of Franklin D. Roosevelt, replaced by A tendency to be perfunctory rather than decisive. "Truman"'s original boldness of resolve...is clearly being stripped away by the constant indoctrination of timidity and cynical whispers. The president appears to be being flattered by some of the more selfish UN politicians Flattery at the mercy of..."

This conclusion of MacArthur means that he has not grasped the central issue of the whole meeting.Telegrams from Washington, Harriman's visit in mid-August, and the President's own visits all kept telling him in clear and clear language that the United States was militarily impossible for an all-out war and that it must avoid confrontation with the Soviets and Chinese. There is a direct conflict.The legitimacy of the U.S. presence in North Korea depends on the United Nations, where support for Washington is tenuous.Whether MacArthur (or Truman for that matter) liked the situation or not is irrelevant, it is a political reality.When MacArthur complained that "the importance of this conflict in which the government has been involved has been purposely belittled," he was futilely continuing a debate he had lost.No matter how many times he was told, no matter who told him - or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the President - that the United States could not leave Europe defenseless by moving troops to fight in North Korea, MacArthur acted in an unreasonable manner. Retaliate with the old rhetoric: anyone who stops him from getting his own way is either a coward or a rebel.The Wake Island meeting was therefore a failure and a waste of time for anyone involved.

Nevertheless, the Wake Island meeting temporarily eased the White House's doubts about MacArthur.To those who attended the meeting in Washington, MacArthur projected himself as a god of infallibility, so confident that it was impossible to miss his mission or make mistakes in assessing the development of the battlefield situation.MacArthur's assertion that victory was imminent was so convincing that Dean Rusk approached Ambassador Mucho after the meeting and said, "John, I think you'd better go home with me and discuss the arrangements for the end of hostilities in North Korea." Joe pretended that he was on urgent business, and said that he would set off for home as soon as the situation allowed. (When he did go to Washington at the end of October, the topic of discussion was not victory but the consequences of China's entry into the war.) Charles Murphy saw MacArthur himself for the first time (except for Harriman and some of the accompanying generals, The same was true of the rest of Washington's entourage), he said that MacArthur "speaks very convincingly, extremely simple, very easy to understand. He just lays out the situation calmly. And when he explained the why and how of the other party Impossible (emphasis added by Murphy) to make a difference, hey, I know exactly what he means, and I'm totally blown away."

Murphy's recollections of MacArthur and intelligence issues are not recorded in the minutes of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.MacArthur claimed to have "an intelligence system that provided reports that were different from those received by the ... departments in Washington, and ... he believed his intelligence and did not trust the information received by those departments".

After leaving Wake Island, Truman flew to San Francisco to deliver a speech on foreign policy.There he said that he "felt an urgent need to make it absolutely clear through my meeting with General MacArthur that our foreign policy aims and actions are fully aligned".Newspaper articles interpreted these comments as meaning that the President had either persuaded MacArthur to agree with him, or had silenced MacArthur.MacArthur was so sensitive to slights for his infallibility that he would lash out whether the slights were real or imagined.Through a spokesman for the First Building, he said: "General MacArthur has not changed any of his views on the strategic value of Taiwan." He also said: "There is no policy discussion on Taiwan on Wake Island. "

In the strictest sense, both of MacArthur's statements are correct.Truman realized the strategic value of Taiwan and the political cost of long-term contacts with Chiang Kai-shek, and they did not "discuss" the Taiwan issue in a formal sense: Truman just set the rules, and MacArthur mishandled his words and deeds Apologizes. (Truman told Ross and his deputy press secretary, Eben Ayres, on his return to Washington that he had not discussed Taiwan in formal talks because he and MacArthur had been working on the issue privately and he intended to "avoid any possibility of publicly humiliating MacArthur".) But the practical impact of the speeches the two men made after their meeting brought their rift back into the world.The distance apparently gave MacArthur the courage to say in Tokyo (through a spokesman) what he would not have dared to say in Truman's presence.

Another incident that should have caught Truman's attention in mid-November was that the "MacArthur problem" was not resolved at all.Columnist Stuart Alsop is starting to get bits and pieces of Wake Island that have leaked out.He reported that MacArthur assured Truman that the danger of Chinese interference no longer existed.The conservative "Freeman" magazine asked MacArthur to confirm or deny this report, and the answer was: "The statement you quoted (Alsope) in your call on the 11th is actually completely groundless. MacArthur. Tokyo, Japan ’” The White House knew that wasn’t the case, but at this point, MacArthur had to disavow the nonchalant assurances he’d made on Wake Island because he needed to save face: On October 13, 10 days after the meeting, he The army captured a Chinese prisoner.The war is about to enter a brutal new phase.

General George Marshall had concerns about the Wake Island talks that Secretary of the Army Frank Pace had difficulty understanding.Once back in Washington, Pace called on Marshall to report on the meeting.Pace compiled their conversation:
Pace: General Marshall, General MacArthur said the war would be over by Thanksgiving and troops could come home by Christmas.

Marshall: Pace, that's very troublesome.

Pace: Sir, you must have missed what I said.I mean, the war is over by Thanksgiving and the troops can go home by Christmas.

Marshall: I hear you.But the war ends so abruptly that we do not fully appreciate the problems we face.

Pace: By that, do you mean that the American people would not have had the full opportunity to understand the implications of the Cold War?
Marshall: That's what I mean.

Pace: General Marshall, in the eyes of the American people, this is an extremely difficult and enormous war.

Marshall: Yes, I know that, Pace.But you didn't live through the end of World War II the way I did, seeing people flock back to their civilian jobs, leaving their tanks in the Pacific to rot and rust, and seeing the military build up gradually wither.

Pace: I know, General Marshall.But since then, time has passed and things have changed.Do you think I would be naive if I said that the American people have learned their lesson?

Marshall: No, Pace, I wouldn't call you naive.I would say you are unbelievably naive.

The euphoria that followed the Wake Island talks, however, rested on a most troubling foundation: the belief that the Chinese Communists would not intervene in the Korean War.The Wake Island talks took place on October 10, and even as participants on both sides departed for Washington and Tokyo, Chinese troops were moving forward.

(End of this chapter)