But to read it now is to understand how quickly, and thoroughly, one of America’s most popular generals was undone. Not until the 1970s was the secret testimony declassified, and even then it languished in the archives, overlooked by all but a few specialists in a topic time seemed to have passed by. Yet it was the statements that were not made public that did the real damage to MacArthur. 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.
“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,” he said.īradley’s categorical conclusion proved the most compelling public statement by any official at the committee hearings. Omar Bradley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, flatly rejected MacArthur’s call for a wider war. The Senate hearings were closed to the public, but a transcript was released each day including all but the most sensitive comments. The Senate’s Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committes held joint hearings, at which MacArthur detailed his disagreement with the president and claimed the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for his position. The MacArthur firing prompted the Democratic-led Congress to invite the general to address a joint session, which MacArthur moved to applause and tears when he declared that “old soldiers never die they just fade away.” Among Republicans, there were murmurs of support for a MacArthur candidacy for president. And Europe, not Asia, was where the Cold War would be won or lost, Truman judged. The last thing Truman wanted was a wider war in Asia, which would weaken the American position in Europe. But the complaints began to confuse America’s allies and enemies as to what American policy was and who made it. Truman suffered the complaints for a time, out of respect for MacArthur and wariness of MacArthur’s allies in Congress. MacArthur complained that the president was tying his hands by forbidding the bombing of China, thereby sacrificing American lives and endangering American freedom.
MacArthur wanted to expand the war against China, which had entered the Korean fighting in late 1950. Buyīut Truman did fire MacArthur, whose complaints against the commander in chief had grown louder and more public. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear Warįrom the drama of Stalin's blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur's forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.