The United States had no choice but to go to war in Korea—to protect Japan. Russia held Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands on the north of Japan, and Korea was close to Honshu, the southernmost island of Japan. Any Russian move to conquer South Korea would place Japan “between the upper and lower jaws of the Russian bear.”
America may have had no spare cash, but for important items there is always money. Japan needed to be protected against possible attack by the Soviets, who were already on the Kuriles. Yet Japan didn’t want American air bases. The United States had to find another island. The United States had already taken over Okinawa, four hundred miles away; now it was time to make it into a military fortress. With MacArthur’s strong support, Congress in October 1949 had come up with $58 million for military construction on Okinawa. Okinawa, along with the Seventh Fleet patrolling the Straits of Taiwan, would provide Japan’s security against Communist aggression.
The supreme commander was not concerned about the outbreak of war in Korea. On the day the war started, he held a meeting with John Foster Dulles, John Allison, and William Sebald. “This is probably only a reconnaissance in force,” he cheerily told them. “If Washington only will not hobble me, I can handle it with one hand tied behind my back.”
Really? Then why had the United States been so unprepared? Why was the South Korean army getting clobbered? When Dulles (escorted by MacArthur) went to Haneda Airport to leave, four days after the invasion, an incident gave Dulles cause for concern about MacArthur’s insouciance. A message had come through from the Joint Chiefs for the supreme commander to participate in a conference call at one o’clock that afternoon. MacArthur didn’t want to take the call, which would presumably involve unpleasant questions. Dismayed at the supreme commander’s cavalier treatment of Washington, Dulles and Sebald concocted a ruse to get MacArthur back to his office in time for the call. They arranged for the loudspeaker to broadcast a fictitious announcement that the plane was leaving. After everyone said good-bye and Dulles and Allison boarded the plane, MacArthur got into his limousine and returned to the Dai Ichi Building. The minute they got word he was on his way, Dulles and his party returned to the waiting room, gleefully slapping hands that they had pulled off their bluff and forced MacArthur to face the music.
Korea was second priority, Japan came first. On the day he was appointed head of the UN command, MacArthur sent a letter to Shigeru Yoshida. It was a long letter, written in a style aimed to obfuscate rather than clarify. He didn’t say a single word about Korea, Russia, China, or national defense; the letter was all about domestic security.
To ensure that this favorable condition will continue unchallenged by lawless minorities, here as elsewhere committed to the subversion of the due process of law and assaults of opportunity against the peace and public welfare, I believe that the police system has reached that degree of efficiency in organization and training which will permit its augmentation to a strength which will bring it within the limits experience has shown to be essential to the safeguard of the public welfare in a democratic society.
MacArthur, a forceful writer, was clearly hiding something with all this verbiage. “Events disclose,” he continued, “that safeguard of the long Japanese coastal line requires employment of a larger force under this agency than is presently provided by law.” At the end of the letter he finally got to the point: He authorized the Japanese government to establish a national police reserve of 75,000 men and to increase the maritime forces by 8,000 men.
And what about Article 9 of the constitution? So long as the new police force and maritime force dealt only with domestic threats, there was no violation. All that was happening was a transfer. That the 75,000 new Japanese policemen matched almost exactly the number of American servicemen being sent to Korea was just a coincidence, nothing to worry about. Still, questions persisted: What kind of training was being provided? Where was the equipment coming from? The answer, best kept quiet, was that the equipment was coming from an office in the U.S. military called the Military Assistance Advisory Group; MacArthur arranged to bury its existence by having it report to the Civil Affairs Section. He also issued strict orders that this section keep the police reserve’s activities secret.
In planning his invasion of North Korea, MacArthur drew on the resources of the Japanese navy. A fleet of twenty-nine Japanese minesweepers under the command of the U.S. Seventh Fleet conducted raids on North Korea’s east and west coasts, disabling mines. When the boats returned, they received a message of commendation from the commander in chief of the U.S. Navy in the Far East. Exulted the Japanese commander: “Our great undertaking . . . should be recorded permanently on the history of the newly-born Japan.” Indeed—albeit under tight supervision—Japan was back in the business of war. To lead the new military forces, SCAP instructed the Japanese government to offer high salaries to attract the best candidates; when that didn’t work, it “depurged” former military officers and let them back into the military.
To deal with the war raging on the Korean mainland, the supreme commander developed a plan so daring, he said, that the odds against it were 5,000–1: an amphibious landing at the South Korean port of Inchon, beset by dramatic tides in the middle of a monsoon season that required utmost precision in timing. Everything—men, equipment, and supplies—had to be put ashore in exactly one hour. What appealed to MacArthur was that Inchon was only 18 miles from the capital, Seoul. The only other possible landing port was 135 miles from Seoul, separated by a huge mountain range, with only one road to the city: much too risky. It would have to be Inchon.
The invasion succeeded, a brilliant maneuver. In an operation even more impressive than the 73,000 American troops landing at Normandy on D-Day, 70,000 men were disembarked from 262 ships in just fifty-seven minutes. The enemy was totally taken by surprise. Afterward the principal generals gathered in the supreme commander’s office to congratulate him, all vying for the appropriate superlatives. Said Gen. Paul Muller: “This is one of the greatest military achievements of all time. The only thing that I can think of comparable was Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm at Quebec.” Not to be outdone, General Willoughby said, “No, no. It was even greater. It was like the achievement of Hannibal in crossing the Alps.” MacArthur, listening and enjoying it all and smoking his pipe, chimed in: “No. It was none of those. . . . It was Napoleonic.”
If it was Napoleonic, the supreme commander might have paid more attention to what happened to Napoleon after he ventured into the heart of Russia and encountered winter. MacArthur’s friend Herbert Hoover advised him to “stop and dig in on the short line across Korea—and then use his Air Force on any armies north of that area.” And he should beware the “oncoming winter, the impossibility of an adequate campaign in those mountains and temperature.”
Yet MacArthur was flying high, impervious to counsel urging caution. Thomas Dewey caught the mood well: “The Russians,” he announced with glee, “promised not to use the atom bomb against us if we promise not to use MacArthur against them.” Even the president and the Joint Chiefs got swept up in the euphoria. The North Korean army was in disarray; already 60,000 prisoners had been taken. Intoxicated by the prospect of victory, George Marshall and the Joint Chiefs—with Truman’s approval and UN backing—ordered MacArthur to cross the 38th parallel and proceed up to the Chinese border. Acheson and Eisenhower agreed with this controversial decision. So, too, did 64 percent of the American people in a Gallup poll. The JCS instructions were very explicit: “Your military objective is the destruction of the North Korean armed forces.” Two days later George Marshall—now secretary of defense—sent him a “for your eyes only” cable: “We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel.”
Ostensibly to make sure they were on the same wavelength, President Truman flew three-quarters of the way to Korea for an October 15 meeting with MacArthur at Wake Island. In reality the president wanted to bask in the aura of a military hero, especially
with midterm elections coming up. The supreme commander played along. The two men listened to each other, smiled a lot, posed for a photo-op of the president pinning another medal on MacArthur’s chest, and went their own ways, both satisfied. MacArthur promised that the boys would be home by Christmas. He also told the president that the Chinese wouldn’t dare attack, and if they did, their corpses would be so numerous they would be piled six deep. Truman, a man who believed that presidents should not get involved in military details—a mistake later made by John F. Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs fiasco—took MacArthur at his word. No serious discussion was attempted: What were U.S. objectives? What if things didn’t work out as expected? What if China entered the war? What about Russia? The meeting might as well never have taken place, a waste of time by two great men who failed to do their duty.
MacArthur would later claim that no direct instructions had been given him, and no official record made. This is incorrect. The formal discussion lasted an hour and thirty-six minutes. MacArthur did most of the talking, usually in response to questions. Seven different people took notes. General Bradley, at the president’s request, compiled a transcript that was sent to MacArthur’s office for confirmation. The transcript was returned signed, indicating agreement (despite MacArthur’s later assertions of denial).
The president called the meeting a success, though he must have been miffed when MacArthur insisted on leaving and not staying for lunch. MacArthur thought most of the people from Washington were political lightweights. “Who was that young whippersnapper who was asking questions?” he badgered his aide. (It was the senior State Department official for Far Eastern affairs, Dean Rusk.)
By the end of the month the U.S./UN forces were well into North Korea. North Korea’s army had been rendered virtually nonexistent, and two million refugees were fleeing south, clogging all the roads. The Communist government of Kim Il Sung was on the run, clearly on its last legs.
Weakness invites war, MacArthur had always said. It would seem he forgot the corollary: Excessive displays of strength, too, invite war. Korea may have been a poor country nobody wanted, but as a buffer state it was very useful. For Japan it was a buffer against China; for China it was a buffer against Japan and America. Korea and China were “as close as the lips to the teeth,” said Mao Zedong. Had MacArthur stopped a hundred miles south of the border, leaving plenty of space between China and the allied forces, he might have avoided the teeth. But like Icarus flying too close to the sun, he ignored the Chinese warnings and proceeded to within thirty miles of the Chinese border. Because of the north-south configuration of the Korean mountain range, he had to divide his army in two, making coordination and resupply difficult, especially with winter fast approaching. He didn’t know it, but he was leading his troops into the valley of death.
His march to the Yalu wasn’t a strategy, it was a reckless gamble.
Hidden in the mountainous terrain were 300,000 Chinese troops. By being lightly armed and never lighting fires to cook food, either in the daytime or at night, they had managed to avoid detection by U.S. reconnaissance planes. On the night of November 25–26, 180,000 troops launched a savage attack and sent the allied troops reeling. Within weeks the allies were driven down to well below the 38th parallel. In seeking total victory the supreme commander had managed to accomplish what few great generals ever do: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow all over again, including temperatures of twenty below zero. One wonders how a man like MacArthur could let such a debacle happen. Had he not learned from his disastrous experience on December 8, 1941? The warnings from the Chinese had been numerous and explicit. And where was the intelligence? Observed Missouri congressman Dewey Short, a member of the House Armed Services Committee (and a MacArthur supporter): “It is difficult to understand how 200,000 to 300,000 troops could move in, and MacArthur not know anything about it.”
The ebullient MacArthur, normally so self-assured, was now Gen. Gloom-and-Doom, predicting a bloodbath. His memos to the Joint Chiefs about the poor morale of his troops raised eyebrows in the Defense Department, leading George Marshall to observe sarcastically that when a general complains of the morale of his troops, the time has come to look into his own. Even more worrisome was MacArthur’s admission that his command was “incapable of holding a position in Korea and at the same time protecting Japan against external attack.” U.S. objectives in Korea may have been vacillating and murky, but no way was America going to do anything to jeopardize the security of Japan.
Truman, a man who had the rare ability of a leader to see the obvious clearly, agreed totally: Japan must be protected. Two things needed to be done: straighten out this military mess, and secure a peace treaty with Japan permitting occupation by a substantial number of U.S. troops. Shortly before Christmas 1950 the Joint Chiefs, acting on MacArthur’s recommendation, appointed Gen. Matthew Ridgway to be the new commander of the Eighth Army. Ridgway proved to be a brilliant commander, and immediately launched a counterattack. Within three months the American/UN forces were back at the 38th parallel, and both sides dug in for the long haul, neither side able to make much headway.
In the meantime, in January 1951, John Foster Dulles returned, with several prominent Americans in tow. The job of the so-called Dulles Peace Mission was to pursue possibilities for a peace treaty. The first thing Dulles did was huddle with the supreme commander for two hours and go over all the issues, especially the people he should meet. Dulles was very clear on what he wanted to do: see as many people as possible from government, commerce, and academia, and observe and listen. From here on MacArthur—though this was his baby—would stay out of it. Dulles’ guide would be MacArthur’s State Department advisor, William Sebald. Given the importance of “soft power” in such a delicate situation, special consideration would be given to the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, who had been to Japan twice before and had come, at Dulles’ request, to advise on promoting U.S.-Japan cultural exchange. Japanese newspapers that hoped for a rapid political resolution would be disappointed: The issues to be explored and resolved were farther-reaching than just military or political. This mission must be broad, open-ended, and fair. Any decisions to be made would be made only by the American president.
The toughest obstacle to overcome would be Shigeru Yoshida. No doubt Japan needed America’s military protection after North Korea’s invasion, but Article 9 was sacrosanct. The diminutive (five-foot-tall) cigar-smoking Yoshida—“the Winston Churchill of Japan,” SCAP teased him (knowing he was sensitive about his height)—was tough and inscrutable. How to deal with this man who had been put in jail during World War II for his antimilitarism? How to win his support for an American military presence? MacArthur told Dulles he had figured out the answer: There were two parts to this peace treaty issue, Japanese sovereignty and American military protection, and they needed to be separated: Get a peace treaty first, and make American military protection a totally separate issue.
All recommendations from the Japanese government as to whom Dulles should see—and they were many—were rejected out of hand by SCAP. The choice should be solely up to Dulles, his assistant Allison, and Sebald. Among those considered, however, were the eight hundred Japanese people who had written letters hoping for an audience, a few of whom Dulles and Sebald met.
The supreme commander then held a meeting for the entire delegation and laid out the issues as he saw them. According to John D. Rockefeller III, everyone was “very much impressed by the general—with his knowledge, his forthright and hard-hitting approach, his clarity and forcefulness of expression, and his devotion to his assignment.” Clarity certainly was needed: The issues were complicated. Was Japan ready for admission to the UN? What about the Philippines and other Asian countries that demanded massive reparations Japan could not afford to pay? How to guarantee the security of Japan without rearming the country and scaring its Asian neighbors? Was there any way to strengthen Japan’s defense capability without violating A
rticle 9? With the Communist nations offering Japan territorial concessions and access to raw materials, what economic incentives could the United States offer to keep Japan on the side of the free nations?
By the time the two-week marathon was over, Dulles’ open-handed approach had won many friends in the Japanese newspapers, believing that he would be compassionate and fair. Like the supreme commander, he came across as a man who had their best interests at heart. Before leaving for the Philippines to try to get the Filipinos to tone down their demands for massive reparations, he thanked the Japanese for their courtesy. “I came here with a question. I go back with answers. . . . I’m grateful to the Japanese for [their] cooperation and particularly to General MacArthur for his wise counsel.” In a letter he personally handed to the supreme commander, he wrote:
As our peace mission leaves Japan, I wish to express my profound appreciation for the assistance you have rendered us. If we have made progress on the road to peace—as I think we have—it has been due to the foundation you have laid and the wise counsel you have given. Your policies as Supreme Commander have so combined justice and mercy as to bring our late enemies to perceive and desire to share the ideals which animate our free world that makes it possible for us reasonably to plan on a future era of peace, trust and opportunity to be shared by Japan. Without that foundation our present task would have been hopeless.
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