stars. Yet, from the ghastly slaughter of 1917-1918 he retained a profound horror of the effects of war, as well as a never-faltering belief in the idealism that lay behind that war.
That slaughter he saw at close hand. He was decorated seven times by an awed government and people for valor in the field.
After what he had seen in the trenches, war could never again be a mere profession to Douglas MacArthur. He would continue to be a professional soldier, but forever afterward war to him would be an awful act, to be entered on only for the most transcendental of purposes.
In this feeling MacArthur was one with most of the nonmilitary intelligent men of his age. He had a profound hatred of war, but any war upon which he embarked must henceforth be a crusade. In no other way could the suffering be justified.
It would occur to few of that generation that wars fought for a higher purpose must always be the most hideous of all. It is desperately hard for men to accept that there is a direct path from the highest ideals to the torture chamber—for no man who accepts with his whole heart can fail equally to reject with his whole being.
In his feeling for war, MacArthur was a typical American of his school. He was one with Woodrow Wilson, whose pronouncements deeply influenced him, and he was one with Franklin Roosevelt. War was to be entered upon with sadness, with regret, but also with ferocity.
War was horrible, and whoever unleashed it must be smitten and destroyed, unto the last generation, so that war should arise no more.
When war is entered upon for the highest moral purpose, there can be no substitute for victory, short of betrayal of that purpose, and of the men who die.
In 1918, and 1941, and even in 1951, probably most Americans felt as felt Douglas MacArthur. Yet MacArthur, raised to the highest honors of the Republic, would remain an uncertain hero in the public mind. He was an aristocrat, if military, and he was a devout Christian—not a social Christian, but a weight-of-centuries Anglican to whom God stood close at hand; and near such men most Americans have always felt uncomfortable.
It was no accident that of all American military men, only MacArthur and Eisenhower, untypical of their caste, should be seriously considered for the Presidency, and that of the two only Eisenhower, more in the mainstream of American social tradition, should receive the office.
MacArthur, the oldest and the ranking of the hierarchy of generals, was not one of them. And though his thinking was close to that of the people, he was not one of them. It was ironic—and again no accident—that a generation unborn when MacArthur won every significant decoration on the field of battle that could be given by a grateful Republic should come to call him 'Dugout Doug.'
It was as well. Right or wrong, had Douglas MacArthur been a man of the people, and so minded, he might have overturned the Republic.
For now, in early 1951, two points of view concerning war entered collision course. One, MacArthur's, was that of Wilson, Roosevelt, George Marshall, and most of the older generation. War must never be an extension of politics; it must be jihad.
Such men recoil at the thought of nuclear war, but in general prepare for nothing else. A crusade, by its very nature, cannot be limited.
But in Korea, in 1950-1951, the United States was not fighting a holy war. Momentarily, and at MacArthur's urging, it had lost sight of its original goal and proceeded into the never-never land.
President Truman and his advisers, wrapped tightly now in the embracing U.N. cloak, would not enter the twilight zone again.
Now troops were being used as a counterpawn on the broader table of diplomacy, for a specific, limited purpose: the holding in check of expansionist Communism. The troops remained, fighting, because State argued that abandonment of Korea would be a political error irredeemable in Asia, even while the Pentagon, concerned for Europe, scraping the bottom of its strategic troop barrel, talked of ways to end the war 'with honor.'
To each group, the men about the President, and the men about MacArthur, the viewpoint of the other seem immoral. Collision was inevitable and necessary.
In December, Harry Truman dispatched Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins to the Orient. Shortly afterward, Lightning Joe Collins returned and reported MacArthur's views to his chief.
The Supreme Commander, Collins said, saw three possible courses of American action.
One was to continue the war in Korea as before, under limiting restrictions. This meant no large-scale reinforcement of U.N. troops, no retaliatory measures against Red China, such as bombardment of Manchurian bases, naval blockade, or the use of Nationalist Chinese forces.
A second course was to enlarge the conflict by the bombing of the Chinese mainland, blockading the coast, and setting Chiang Kai-shek free, with American support, to fight both in Korea and in South China, giving Communist China more than it had bargained for.
The third course would be to get the CCF to agree to remain north of the 38th parallel, and to make an armistice upon that basis, under U.N. supervision.
MacArthur then told Collins he personally favored the second course. The first course, to him, was identical with surrender. He would, however, agree to the third, if it could be managed.
Harry Truman was deeply disturbed. His thinking and that of MacArthur were in wide divergence. Truman felt that Course Two would inevitably lead to general war—not only with China but also with Russia, which could not sit idly by while its Asian ally was humbled.
Truman wanted a combination of courses One and Three—the door would be held while a collective political agreement was hammered out.
He recognized that MacArthur, however, had a perfect right to make his own views known to his chief. But the problem soon arose that MacArthur began to make his views known to everyone.
On 19 December, MacArthur requested four additional divisions, for the defense of Japan. He began to ask for more and more, to prosecute the war. The requests were impossible, short of mobilization. The U.S. Army had one division, the 82nd Airborne, in strategic reserve. NATO was just getting underway in Europe. It was unthinkable that U.S. troops be stripped from that area.
There were hardly any allied divisions in Europe worthy of the name, and they dare not be moved, even had their governments been willing—which they were not.
About the only move that could be made was to increase the ROK Army by from 200,000 to 300,000 men, armed with rifles, BAR's, carbines, and submachine guns. About this, MacArthur was not sanguine. He preferred to arm the Japanese.
On 29 December MacArthur sent a message to the Joint Chiefs, as he had before, that he desired permission to blockade the China coast and attack airfields in Manchuria. He stated he did not fear the Chinese would be provoked—MacArthur considered the United States already at war with China. He also stated that if his wishes were not granted, the Korean peninsula should be evacuated.
Summed up, Douglas MacArthur held that the U.S. should attempt to win, and win big, or get out.
On 9 January, after carefully clearing it with the President, the JCS sent MacArthur the following directive: to continue to defend in Korea, to continue to inflict losses on the CCF, and to withdraw only if essential to save his command.
MacArthur asked for clarification. He said he could not hold in Korea and protect Japan at the same time. He stated that U.N. troops could not continue to operate under the limiting restrictions without prohibitive losses. If international political reasons forced a continuance on the present terms, then the JCS—and the President—should be prepared to accept grave consequences.
General of the Army George Catlett Marshall hand- carried this message to Truman.
Truman became very disturbed. What MacArthur was telling him, in essence, was that the policy decided upon by the National Security Council, the JCS, and the President was not feasible.
Events were to prove MacArthur wrong, but at this time Truman could only give the general's views grave consideration. He called a meeting of the National Security Council on 12 January. What was decided here, mainly, was to inform MacArthur of the international political realities of the world situation. The United States had embarked on a course of collective security, through its allies and the U.N., and it had no intention of 'going it alone.'
Feelers among allies and U.N. had revealed not one government willing to back MacArthur's course.
On 13 January 1951 Truman wired to MacArthur:
