asked these men bluntly what they felt should be done. All were agreed that the Administration faced a serious threat.
It took an hour to hammer out the decision.
Averell Harriman, head of the Mutual Security Agency, stated that MacArthur should have been relieved two years ago. Harriman was unhappy with MacArthur's handling of some occupation matters in Japan, where he had also opposed Washington policy.
Acheson, moustached and deliberative, said he believed that MacArthur had to be relieved but that he thought it should be done very carefully. 'If you relieve MacArthur, you will have the biggest fight of your Administration,' he said.
Omar Bradley, head of the JCS, looked upon the question as a matter of military discipline. A true centurion, Bradley saw a clear case of insubordination; he felt MacArthur deserved relief.
Secretary of Defense George Cattlett Marshall counseled caution. He was reluctant to discipline MacArthur; it might make trouble with Congress.
President Truman let these men talk, then and later. He did not advise them that he had already made up his mind and that the 'ayes had it.' MacArthur would be relieved. Truman advised Marshall to reread the file of communications between Tokyo and Washington.
On 7 April Marshall reported back to Blair House that he now felt MacArthur should have been fired long ago.
On Sunday, 8 April, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred.
On Monday, with everyone in agreement, Truman then told them that he had made his decision after MacArthur's 'pronunciamento' of 24 March. At 3:15 that afternoon, the President signed an order relieving MacArthur of all his several commands, and replacing him with Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway.
Truman's intention was that this notice of relief be given MacArthur through Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, then in the Far East. Dean Acheson sent the orders through Korean Ambassador Muccio, with instructions that Pace was to proceed immediately to Tokyo, to deliver them in person.
But Pace could not be reached; he was up near the Eighth Army front, firing a howitzer in the company of General Ridgway. One of the traditions of modern war that had grown up was that distinguished visitors be taken to a firing battery of heavy artillery, suitably behind the front, and there be allowed to fire 'one at the enemy,' which made for a good picture and gave a feeling of active participation, all without untidy risk.
Pace could not be reached, and the message was too hot to be bandied about in lesser hands.
Later, Matt Ridgway, who had spent all afternoon in Frank Pace's company without ever learning that he was already Supreme Commander, Far East, remarked that Mr. Pace had an odd sense of humor. It did not occur to General Ridgway that Mr. Pace was as ignorant of the fact as he.
Truman then sent word to John Foster Dulles to go to Japan and inform the Japanese Yoshida Government that the change would affect them in no way. While Dulles prepared to emplane, Omar Bradley dashed into Blair House, visibly excited.
There had been a leak, Bradley said, and a Chicago paper was going to print the story of MacArthur's relief the next morning, the 11th.
A President—any President—hates to be scooped almost more than anything else. More than once such a fear has changed the course of history, and now Harry Truman decided that courtesy be damned, he could not wait until Frank Pace finished getting his kicks gallivanting around the front.
MacArthur would get his notice over the wire, at the same time everyone else in the world got it. And so he did.
At 0100, 11 April, Truman's press secretary gave a group of grousing, sleepy-eyed reporters a presidential release:
'With deep regret, I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his whole-hearted support to the policies of the United States Government and of the United Nations.… I have, therefore, relieved General MacArthur of his commands and have designated Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway as his successor.
'Full and vigorous debate on matters of national policy is a vital element in the constitutional system.… It is fundamental, however, that military commanders must be governed by the policies and directives issued to them.… in time of crisis, the consideration is particularly compelling.
'General MacArthur's place in history as one of our greatest commanders is fully established. The Nation owes him a debt of gratitude for the distinguished and exceptional service he has rendered.… For that reason I repeat my regret at the necessity for the action I feel compelled to take in his case.'
In the free chancelleries of Europe there was joy. As an indication of how deeply and consistently almost all of America's allies felt on the subject of MacArthur, at the front in Korea British battalions staged an impromptu celebration, and other U.N. units fired their guns in the air.
In the United States, most of whose people were not sure what was going on, there was shock.
That night Truman went on the air, explaining his course to the American public: 'The free nations have united their strength in an effort to prevent a third world war. That war can come if the Communist leaders want it to come. But this nation and its allies will not be responsible for its coming.'
There is no question but that there was an element of wishful thinking even in Truman's stand. Collective security had a fine sound, but it was still little more than a word; it would still be the United States, and the United States alone, that held the far frontier. No one else had the will or the power.
China would not be punished for its transgression. Evil would continue to exist; it would even be allowed to prosper, if it could. Peace, if and when it came, would not be moral but pragmatic.
The door would be held, and men would continue to die, not for victory, but for time.
There are men who said that the task was merely postponed and that it would be far harder in the future. There are men who said the United States should have won, or got out. History may prove them right.
But while a civilization lives, it may hope—as long as the far frontier, whether it be Korea or Berlin, is held.
General of the Army MacArthur took the news, which came to him as a slap in the face, calmly, and with good cheer. When Matt Ridgway reported to him at the
Matt Ridgway personally did not feel a drive to the Yalu, or an enlargement of the war, was worth the cost. As a soldier, he did not question the President's right to do what he had done. But out of the loyalty he held in his heart for MacArthur, he was angry that the dismissal had been done so summarily.
No general, even those who disagreed with, stood in awe of, or disliked MacArthur, could feel happy at the outcome of the Case of the Haberdasher and the General.
But even these, who were with MacArthur, and even Truman, only the nation's servants, had to agree that the Republic never stood stronger.
On 11 April a violent storm broke over much of the front in Korea. It snowed, hailed in some sections, and a howling wind blew, leveling tents and stinging the eyes of the soldiers who now heard the news of the historic dismissal.
As the sky darkened and the earth seemed to shudder, one soldier remarked, 'Say, do you suppose MacArthur was God, after all?'
Everybody smiled, and then the storm was gone. The war went on.
But MacArthur was not God. He was not even Caesar, as Truman had half feared. Caesar, recalled, brought his army back to Rome; MacArthur, an erect, brilliant, but an old, old man, returned across the lonely Pacific almost alone.
And the storm broke across America, violent, emotional, and as indecisive as the one that had whipped the Korean front. Where MacArthur went, millions cheered him. But even those who screamed in the crowds were not sure what they were screaming for, or against.
Men wrote Congress by the thousands, but from the letters came mostly emotion, and not much sense. Sometimes it is necessary for men to scream against a world they never made, and cannot control.
The general went before the houses of Congress, and there he spoke. Men from Fresno to Piccadilly, who had never heard MacArthur speak, who knew him only as a legend, stood transfixed at his eloquence, as it was
