And there, for many days, while the Eighth Army righted itself and began to batter its painful way back up the peninsula, the matter rested. Oddly, it was U.N. success that brought the divergence between MacArthur and the Commander in Chief to a head.
By March 1951, the CCF had been halted, hurt, and forced back. It was apparent that it would soon be forced completely out of the Taehan Minkuk. The lines would then stand where they had in June 1950, and where they had stood in October. But this time there was no exaltation in Washington, no confidence in cheap victory. With each of its allies screaming for an end to the war, now deeply aware of the dangers involved in humbling China, Washington was willing to negotiate.
The
Military reports indicated that there was a strong possibility that the CCF in Korea could be brought to ruin by continued offensive action. But would the collapse of the CCF, and the resultant loss of face in Asia, force the U.S.S.R. to act?
The answer will never be known, for the United States had had enough of challenges.
On 20 March Truman, Dean Acheson, Marshall, and the Joint Chiefs discussed the possibilities of peace in Korea, and then informed MacArthur:
'State Department planning a Presidential announcement shortly that with clearing of bulk of South Korea of aggressors, the United Nations now preparing to discuss conditions of settlement in Korea. United Nations feeling exists that further diplomatic efforts toward settlement should be made before any advance with major forces north of the 38th parallel. Time will be required to determine diplomatic reactions and permit new negotiations that may develop. Recognizing that parallel has no military significance, State has asked Joint Chiefs of Staff what authority you should have to permit sufficient freedom of action for next few weeks to provide security for United Nations forces and maintain contact with enemy. Your recommendation desired.'
MacArthur sent a message back that no further restrictions should be placed on his command, since those already in force—no bombing of Manchurian bases or diversions against the Chinese mainland—precluded the possibility of clearing North Korea anyway, in his mind.
Then Truman, with members of State and Defense, drew up a presidential announcement. In draft it read:
'I make the following statement as Chief Executive of the Government requested by the United Nations to exercise the Unified Command in Korea, and after full consultation with United Nations Governments contributing combat forces in support of the United Nations in Korea.
'United Nations forces in Korea are engaged in repelling the aggressions committed against the Republic of Korea.…
'The aggressors have been driven back with heavy losses to the general vicinity from which the unlawful attack was first launched last June.
'There remains the problem of restoring international peace and security in the area in accordance with the terms of the Security Council resolution of June 27, 1950.…
'There is a basis for restoring peace and security in the area which should be acceptable to all nations which sincerely desire peace.
'The Unified Command is prepared to enter into arrangements which would conclude the fighting.… Such arrangements would open the way for a broader settlement for Korea, including the withdrawal of foreign forces. …
'The Korean people are entitled to peace. They are entitled to determine their political and other institutions by their own choice.… What is needed is peace, in which the United Nations can use its resources in the creative tasks of reconstruction.…
'A prompt settlement of the Korean problem would greatly reduce international tensions in the Far East and would open the way for the consideration of other problems.…'
The announcement said, in effect, that the United States, acting for the U.N., was willing to settle, without threats, recrimination, or talk of punishment. The Communists had tried a gambit, and failed. The U.N. had tried one of their own, and had also failed. No one had really lost—but no one had really won. The United States said that the
Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children, civilians and soldiers were dead, crippled, or homeless. But the frontier had been held. After all the fighting, and suffering, and dying, all was as it had been. Nothing had been settled—except that now each side knew the other had the will to fight, in defense of what it considered vital interests.
The West better understood the East. It was to be hoped that the reverse held true. At least that much had been accomplished.
The Truman Announcement was the product of a new group of men in the American Government, whose like had not been in government since the War Between the States. These: men had no hope of, nor interest in, making the world safe for democracy, or of destroying evil. They were vitally concerned with the continued good of the United States, and with preserving some semblance of order in the world, if not democracy.
In the seventh year of the Nuclear Age, they accepted the fact that each of the two opposing power systems held an effective veto over the other. They would not, except as a last extremity, accept general war.
They would fight; they would reluctantly spill the blood of their nation's young men, but if possible, only in limited fashion, and only to prove a point to the enemy.
They tended to be level-headed, pragmatic, cynical of sweeping conclusions in any direction, with complete awareness of the dreadful complexities of the modern political world. They did not envision surrender. But they also saw no clear-cut answers, in a world that held only awesome problems.
It was typical that many of these men, like Dean Acheson, wore London suits, for they had inherited the mantle the British Lion had worn a hundred years earlier.
Many of them, strangely, often had the name of Woodrow Wilson on their lips, as they talked to the public. This was ironic, because a Wilson would have vomited them forth from his Administration. Like a great many of the American people, the crusader Wilson would never have understood them.
Nor did General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who had come to full maturity in Wilson's time.
The Truman Announcement was coordinated with every friendly government on the globe, but it was never issued. For General of the Army MacArthur, America's Supreme Commander in the field, in a statement almost unprecedented in American history, beat Harry Truman to the punch.
On 24 March 1951, with no word first to Washington, he issued his own pronouncement from Tokyo:
'Operations continue according to schedule and plan. We have now substantially cleared South Korea of organized Communist forces. It is becoming increasingly evident that the heavy destruction along the enemy's lines of supply, caused by our round-the-clock massive air and naval bombardment, has left his troops in the forward battle area deficient in requirements to sustain his operations.…
'Of even greater significance than our tactical successes has been the clear revelation that this new enemy, Red China, of such exaggerated and vaunted military power, lacks the industrial capacity to provide.… crucial items necessary to the conduct of modern war. He lacks the manufacturing base … he cannot provide … tanks, heavy artillery, and other refinements science has introduced into the conduct of military campaigns. Formerly his great numerical potential might well have filled this gap, but with the development of existing methods of mass destruction, numbers alone do not off-set … such deficiencies…
'These military weaknesses have been clearly and definitely revealed since Red China entered upon its undeclared war in Korea. Even under the inhibitions which now restrict the activity of the United Nations forces and the corresponding military advantages which accrue to Red China, it has shown its complete inability to accomplish by force of arms the conquest of Korea. The enemy, therefore, must by now be painfully aware that a decision of the United Nations to depart from its tolerant effort to contain the war to the area of Korea, through an expansion of our military operations to its coastal areas and interior bases, would doom Red China to the risk of imminent military collapse. These basic facts being established, there should be no insuperable difficulty in arriving at decisions on the Korean problem if the issues are resolved on their own merits, without being burdened by
