Why truman relieved macarthur

He oversaw the occupation of Japan as proconsul, behaving much like a head of state. One biographer, William Manchester, described him as follows:.

Yet he was also endowed with great personal charm, a will of iron, and a soaring intellect. MacArthur had presidential ambitions and had indicated his interest in the Republican presidential nomination, although he did not officially declare his candidacy.

A poor showing in early primaries prompted him to abort the campaign. In any case, MacArthur enjoyed being in Asia. In fact, he had not been in the United States since In September, a UN counteroffensive began with an amphibious assault on the coastal city of Inchon, and continued with the retaking of Seoul, prompting the retreat of NKPA troops threatening Pusan. Then, in a controversial move, UN troops advanced north of the 38th parallel and approached the Yalu River, the border between China and the Korean peninsula.

Buoyed by the success of the Inchon operation, Truman and his advisors decided that the unification of Korea under Syngman Rhee was possible, and perhaps necessary to end the war. Unification would also inflict a symbolic victory over communism.

MacArthur shared and encouraged such views. MacArthur not only did not worry about such intervention, he assured Truman that it would not happen.

When, to the contrary, intelligence reports indicated that communist Chinese forces had already infiltrated North Korea, MacArthur refused to believe them. In their first face-to-face meeting on Wake Island in the Pacific in October , MacArthur assured Truman that the UN advance north of the 38th parallel would not provoke Chinese intervention and that the war would soon be over. MacArthur was wrong on both counts. In late November , Chinese troops launched a major attack, causing numerous casualties.

MacArthur, suddenly pessimistic, sent repeated messages to Washington claiming that UN forces could not hold out very long and that nuclear weapons should be employed against China. At this point, the Truman administration dropped the idea of unifying Korea and sought instead to maintain the anticommunist government in the South.

MacArthur, however, would not accept this change in strategy. Troops evacuating from a port of that character, in commercial ships, are terribly subject to air and underwater attack; and in my judgment, it would be a much too risky procedure. Americans tended to believe that, having won World War II, the American military could dispatch China with one hand and whack Russia with the other. Other testimony deleted from the published transcript severely undercut the idea that Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalists would be of any help in a larger war.

Marshall and the others roundly rejected it. The committee inquired. Marshall explained that the Pentagon had sent a reconnaissance team to Formosa to determine the readiness and improvability of the Chinese Nationalists, and it had yet to report back. He particularly worried about Communist infiltration of the Nationalists. Marshall noted that similar infiltration by German agents and sympathizers had debilitated the French army in ; in the present case the possibility of infiltration rendered any reliance on the Nationalists extremely dubious.

The problem with the Nationalists started at the top, Marshall and the chiefs declared confidentially. It is true some of them are getting tired of the Communists and might be more loyal to him now than they were before, but in my opinion he is not in position to rally the Chinese against the Communists even if we could get him ashore.

The secret testimony damaged MacArthur in ways he never understood. Veteran observers of Washington expected the Senate committee to draw formal conclusions; the tenor of the hearings, the predilections of the questioners and the partisanship of the moment suggested that there would be a majority report, a minority report and possibly separate statements by individual members. But the co-chairmen of the committee, Democrats Richard Russell of Georgia and Tom Connally of Texas, guided the process in a different direction.

Though they were of the same party as the president, they felt no obligation to make a hero of Truman, and so they reckoned that a report by the majority Democrats was unnecessary. This calculation simultaneously spiked the efforts of the minority Republicans to issue a formal condemnation of Truman. The United Nations, which was formed to provide a forum to prevent future wars, included the membership of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and 57 other countries.

Adhering to its policy of containment, the United States could not ignore the threat of communism in Asia, but neither the president nor the public wanted a long, drawn out war. MacArthur arrived at his post a World War II hero, having successfully led multiple troops through the war. MacArthur was revered and highly praised in the United States. The general assured the president that the Korean War would be short-lived and that the American troops would be home by Christmas.

MacArthur was initially successful in driving back the North Korean forces over the 38th parallel. He made a controversial move, however, when he continued to push the North Koreans further north and suggested bombing cities in China that were thought to be aiding the North Korean troops. After finishing first in the class of at West Point, he was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his bravery and skill during both the Veracruz expedition in Mexico and World War I.

By the end of the war, MacArthur was a brigadier general and was made superintendent at West Point in the early s. After becoming the youngest major general up to that time, MacArthur rose to become chief of staff of the U. Army in His career took a major step outside the mainstream of military life when he became a field marshal of the Philippine Army in the mids.

After the war, he commanded the armed forces in Asia and oversaw the rebuilding of Japan. He was also considered arrogant and obsessed with his own image. MacArthur had command of the U. Reversal followed reversal, and retreats often turned to routs. By the end of the summer, North Korea controlled the entire peninsula except for the city of Pusan and the defensive perimeter around it. MacArthur devised a bold plan for an amphibious invasion to land in the western port city of Inchon, near the South Korean capital city of Seoul, timed to coincide with a breakout from the city of Pusan.

The defenders of Inchon could always tell when a possible attack was coming because, due to the tides, the harbor was navigable for only a few hours on one day every month. The U. More than 13, marines with heavy air support took Inchon in one day with only 21 casualties. By September 27, the U. Army troops began moving north and crossed into North Korea, while in Washington, DC, the Truman administration basked in the grand victory.

To capitalize politically on American military victories, the Truman administration requested a conference with MacArthur. The two men met on Wake Island on October Ostensibly they were discussing strategy, but both men understood that the event was really a publicity stunt. With less than one month to go before the midterm elections, Truman wanted to share in the glory of the recent military victories. The meeting went better than either man expected, but the consequences of that short meeting were far-reaching.

The accounts of what was said publicly and privately do not differ. The formal meeting that followed was short and productive. I want to get out of here before we get into trouble. At a. MacArthur asked to be excused to attend a luncheon and return to Japan.

Truman praised MacArthur in a speech in San Francisco. He reassured the American people that he and MacArthur were in complete agreement on policy and strategy. The Truman administration desperately wanted a big win in a major theater of the Cold War on the eve of the midterm elections and brushed aside new Chinese warnings about intervention.

Let the Americans be our neighbors.