At 9:00 A.M. Monday Bradley laid this verdict before the President. Harriman and the secretaries of state and defense having endorsed it, Truman revealed that he had been determined to do just that since Thursday. Tuesday afternoon they met again to discuss changes in command; Ridgway would be the new SCAP and James Van Fleet—who, ironically, detested the Korean stalemate even more than MacArthur—would take over the Eighth Army. The President would issue a public statement: “With deep regret I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States and of the United Nations. . . .” The instructions to MacArthur would be sent in diplomatic code to Pusan, where Muccio would turn them over to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, then touring the front. Pace would have the unenviable task of flying to Tokyo and handing them to the General.31
The presidential orders, Truman decided, would be drafted by Marshall with Acheson’s advice. That was a mistake. Both men were hostile toward the Supreme Commander, and he reciprocated. The secretary of state, the more tactful of the two, had his hands full, first keeping a tense appointment with Senators Pat McCarran and Styles Bridges (they wanted to tell him that the President was heading for a fight with MacArthur and was “sure to lose”) and then routing John Foster Dulles out of bed and dispatching him to Tokyo, to assure Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida that America’s policy toward Japan would be unchanged (Dulles wanted time to consult Taft; Ache-son told him it was out of the question). Thus the version which would reach MacArthur was Marshall’s, gruff and abrupt. After a terse sentence notifying the addressee that he was being relieved as SCAP, UN commander, and CINCFE, it concluded: “You will turn over your commands, effective at once, to Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway. You are authorized to have issued such orders as are necessary to complete desired travel to such place as you select. My reasons for your replacement will be made public concurrently with the delivery to you of the foregoing message.” Even Napoleon, exiled to Elba by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, was designated sovereign of the island, assigned an escort of four hundred members of the Imperial Guard, and granted a handsome annuity. And Napoleon’s orders were drawn up by his nation’s enemies.32
By acting firmly, the administration had crossed the Rubicon, if not the Yalu, and had resolved, as far as the White House was concerned, the vexing problem posed by the intractable commander in Japan. But in the United States the executive branch of the government is only one of several forces which determine the country’s handling of foreign affairs. The others are the two great political parties, the people, and the fourth estate. It was all very well for the secretary of state to write insouciantly that “we settled down to endure the heavy shelling from the press and Congress that the relief was bound to and did produce. “ The manner in which the objective was achieved was also bound to and did produce seismic changes in the public’s conception of the administration and its Asian policies. To cite but one example, the establishment of a sensible relationship with China was relegated to a sterile deep freeze from which it did not begin to thaw for almost a quarter-century. There were, to be sure, other causes of this, but the outburst of emotion which followed the sacking of the General was surely the bitterest of them. And it did not have to happen that way. Great though the provocation in the Dai Ichi undeniably was, the problem could have been met another way; Sherman had suggested one, and it was not the only one. Acheson described the situation more astutely when he said: “There was no doubt what General MacArthur deserved; the sole issue was the wisest way to administer it.” So it was, and it could scarcely have been administered more unwisely.33
At 6:00 P.M. Tuesday the President, having signed the necessary orders, departed to dine at Blair House, leaving Acheson, Harriman, Marshall, and Bradley to sort out the details. They thought they had about twenty hours to do it; Pace, it had been decided, wouldn’t call at the Dai Ichi until the following afternoon. But Tokyo, as Sebald notes, “was flooded with press reports indicating ‘an open break’ between MacArthur and the administration.” Shortly before 7:00 P.M. William D. Maxwell, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, phoned his Washington correspondent, Walter Trohan, to relay a tip from Japan. An “important resignation,” it was rumored, was expected there the next day. Trohan rode to the White House to ask Joseph Short, who had replaced Charlie Ross in December, for a comment. The new press secretary said: “There’s nothing to it.” Trohan started to write a story anyhow, but tore it from his typewriter when his managing editor phoned again to say: “Forget that MacArthur tip. We’ve checked this source in Tokyo, and it turns out the fellow doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”34
Short, unaware of Maxwell’s second call, burst in on Acheson and the others—“the firing squad,” as MacArthur later called them—and said the Tribune “has the whole story and is going to print it tomorrow morning.” Bradley hurried over to Blair House with word of this. The General, he predicted, would quit before he could be dismissed. It was at this point, Truman writes in his memoirs, that he decided “we could not afford the courtesy” of a formal change in command. At the time he put it more trenchantly: “The son of a bitch isn’t going to resign on me! I want him fired!” Gavin Long observes dryly: “Undoubtedly President Roosevelt would have managed things better.”35
Meanwhile the commercial cable carrying Muccio’s instructions had broken down. Bradley drove to the Pentagon and wrote out a longhand message to Pace, asking him to fly to Tokyo within the hour, advising SCAP of his relief. Bradley paced the communications room while awaiting the reply “Cable received.” It never came. Pace, trapped by a power failure, was conferring with Ridgway in a tent near the front. At 11:00 P.M. Bradley, now frantic, called the President to say that he was radioing MacArthur directly. This too was inexplicably delayed, and no one in Tokyo had an inkling of what was coming when Short—who was hurriedly mimeographing the gag rule, Truman’s January letter to MacArthur, and other relevant documents for the press—alerted White House correspondents to an extraordinary 1:00 A.M. press conference. At 12:56 A.M. he gave them the story, and at 1:03 the wire services were beaming it around the globe.36
Truman was asleep by then, but the event already bore his unmistakable stamp. Here, as so often in his feisty administration, he had done the right thing, in this case avoiding the hazards of a general war, in the wrong way. Because he insisted that MacArthur be fired, instead of permitting him to retire gracefully, millions questioned the President’s motives. The deed seemed punitive, even indecent, and it violated all the traditions which the General cherished. The unceremonious, peremptory dismissal denied him the right to deliver a farewell address to his troops, to counsel Ridgway, to speak to the Japanese people, or to discuss the forthcoming peace treaty with any Nipponese officials. Clark Lee wrote: “Nothing could alter the summary language of the order, nor the implication that after so many years of service MacArthur had become a terrible threat to the security of the United States, so dangerous that he must at one instant be stripped of all command and power; such a peril that he could not be treated with ordinary decency and customary military protocol. ” The Duke of Marlborough, boarding a plane in New York, said, “It’s been done in a rather unceremonious way, don’t you think?” Carlos Romulo asked: “Was there need to swing the ax in just that fashion? ”37
While the clock in the White House press room read 1:03, it was three minutes past 3.00 P.M. in Tokyo, April 11, the day and hour of Shigeru Yoshida’s first garden party of the year. Yesterday there had been a breath of spring in this land of the crysanthemum, and MacArthur had observed that the cherry blossoms were firm, if not yet quite in bloom. Today had dawned chilly, however, with thick, lowering clouds and gusts of harsh wind swirling around the American embassy compound. Late in the morning it had begun to pour, drops beating on glistening umbrellas as steadily as a drumroll. Keira Huff, dismayed, had cried, “Oh, why does it always have to rain on the day of the Prime Minister’s garden party?
”38
It was not raining on the General, since he never attended anyone’s parties. His luncheon visitors that day were Senator Warren Magnuson and William Sterns, a Northwest Airlines executive. At the last minute Huff had also decided to stay home, though not to spare his wife’s dress. A newspaperman—warned by his Washington bureau of Short’s impending press conference—had phoned to say: “Be sure to listen to the three o’clock news broadcast. We think President Truman is going to say something about MacArthur.” Huff tried to phone Jean, but she and the General were already with their guests. Knowing that MacArthur was planning to go directly from lunch to a siesta, Huff left word to call him. Then he turned on his radio. At first there were no items of interest, but just before the commentator signed off, he said: “Stand by for an important announcement.” Moments later it came. In the next instant Huff’s phone rang. It was Jean: “Did you call, Sid?” He said: “Yes. It’s important. I just heard a flash over the radio from Washington saying that the General has been relieved of his commands.” She said: “Wait a moment. Repeat that, Sid. The General is here.” He did, and she said, “All right, Sid, thanks for calling,” ringing off before he could say more.39
Huff’s phone rang again. It was the Signal Corps, asking whether he would be home to accept “an important message for the General”—Bradley’s direct cable, delivered at last. It arrived in a brown army envelope, stamped in red letters: ACTION FOR MACARTHUR. His eyes damp, Huff carried it to the Big House. A half-dozen reporters had gathered at the lower compound gate. One said: “What’s the news? Has he got the word yet?” Huff held up the envelope and replied: “This is probably it.” He entered through the great gates, crossed the wide reception hall, where the flags of the General’s past hung from their splendid stands, and climbed the curving stairway. Jean, her face taut, met him at the door of MacArthur’s bedroom. Huff said helplessly: “Here it is. Anything I can do?” “No, thanks, Sid,” she said, taking it and turning away swiftly. “There isn’t anything anybody can do right now.” Inside the General opened it, scanned it, and said: “Jeannie, we’re going home at last.”40
Larry Bunker had reached Yoshida’s party early; he had to be back at the Dai Ichi when MacArthur returned there after his siesta. The rain had stopped, and prospects for a pleasant afternoon were improving, when one of William F. Marquat’s officers told Bunker of the newscast. Soon the guests were buzzing about it. Yoshida, deeply shocked, left the receiving line and required a half hour to compose himself. Meanwhile Sebald had arrived from the biweekly meeting of the Allied Council. George Stratemeyer’s wife told him what they had heard, and after confirming it—a message from State had just been delivered at his office, instructing him to calm the Japanese until Dulles could arrive—Sebald conferred with Yoshida in the prime minister’s upstairs study, expressing the hope that neither he nor his cabinet would resign, which would have been the traditional Japanese gesture of responsibility for any diplomatic misfortune affecting Dai Nippon. The prime minister assented, nodding slightly. He was, Sebald recalls, “visibly shaken.”41
So was every other high official, Japanese and American, though MacArthur retained his poise better than most. One of his first calls was to Whitney. “Court, have you heard the news?” he asked, and then began telling Whitney what his responsibilities to Ridgway would be. The aide would have none of it; if the General was leaving, so was he. Wearing his old robe, MacArthur received Bunker, Tony Story, and Dr. Canada. All felt the same; they didn’t want to remain without him. The General made no attempt to dissuade them. Then he said that he didn’t know who had been on “the firing squad,” but the language of his orders convinced him that “George Marshall pulled the trigger.” Since they permitted him “to complete desired travel to such place” as he might select, he was planning a leisurely tour of the Philippines, Oceania, and Australia, when he received a transpacific telephone call from, of all people, Herbert Hoover, for whom it was the middle of the night. The seventy-seven-year-old former President had succeeded in doing what the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs could not—getting through to the General promptly and directly. He had heard what had happened and had talked to several Republican leaders. They wanted MacArthur to come “straight home as quickly as possible, before Truman and Marshall and their crowd of propagandists can smear you.” Details would follow in a few hours.42
Huff was watching the General closely, trying “to figure out how he was feeling underneath his tense but quiet manner. I got the impression that he was aggrieved; that he had suffered a bit of heartbreak. But he never said a word to indicate his attitude, and all of us realized that it would be a grave error to make any sympathetic noises in his presence. Ordinarily,” Huff said, there was “a lot of warm friendliness about MacArthur,” but “in times of crisis” he seemed “to prefer to be alone, to fight it out by himself or with only Jean’s comfort and help.” Later that afternoon, in his office, he buzzed Bunker, put a last batch of papers in his out-basket, and said quietly, “You needn’t bring anything more in to me.”43
But then he opened up to Sebald. The diplomat arrived at the Dai Ichi in tears, unable to speak; the General lit his cigarette for him and motioned him to the worn leather couch. The dismissal, he said, merely reflected “the judgment of one individual.” What hurt, he said, was the “method” the President had chosen—it was cruel to be “publicly humiliated after fifty-two years in the Army.” Sebald, controlling himself, said: “The present state of Japan is a monument to you and I would hope that everything possible could be done to preserve it.” MacArthur was gloomy about the American position in the Far East. Peking was on the march; Tibet would fall, and then Indochina. He asked: “How could Red China be more at war against us?” and predicted long UN casualty lists in Korea, all to no avail.* Sebald felt that “this proud, sensitive, and determined man, who had followed a destiny which now had evaporated, was deeply hurt and, perhaps, momentarily defeated. Watching and listening to him was the most painful interview I have ever had.”44
It was clear to all around the General that he resented charges that, as he put it, he had been “conspiring in some underhanded way with the Republican leaders,” when in fact he had taken “no part whatsoever in the political situation.” This was, of course, completely untrue. Martin had used his letter unscrupulously, but it had been a political document to start with; Hoover’s message bore that out. Further confirmation rapidly followed. Earl Blaik cabled: TIME is OF THE ESSENCE TO OFFSET ADMINISTRATION HATCHET-MEN. In the early hours of Wednesday, April 11, while Americans were picking up their morning newspapers and reading of MacArthur’s recall, Republican senators and congressmen met in Martin’s office. With Taft presiding, and with the consent of the Democratic leadership, they invited the General to address a joint session on Capitol Hill. As they broke up, Martin told reporters that “in the light of the latest tragic development,” there would also be a full-fledged congressional investigation of the government’s foreign and military policies. He added darkly that during the meeting “the question of possible impeachments was discussed,” implying that not just Truman but his entire administration, perhaps even the Joint Chiefs, might be tried. When one party accuses the other of impeachable offenses, the issue is obviously explosive. Yet MacArthur, ordering his staff to pack quickly—he told Bunker that he wanted to take off on Tuesday—plainly did not grasp that in the United States he had become the symbol of a fierce cause, with an immense following. Like Wainwright in 1945, he appeared to feel that his countrymen would reject him as a loser. He told Story to draft his flight plan so that they wouldn’t land in California until night had fallen. He said: “We’ll just slip into San Francisco after dark, while everybody’s at dinner or the movies.”45
The President’s decision was well received in Europe, MAC IS SACKED trumpeted a headline in the London Evening Standard, while Ce Soir said Truman had acted under the “vohnte pacifique” of the world’s peoples, l’Monde devoted its
front page to the news, carrying L’Ordre de Revocation and La Declaration Presidentielle and commenting editorially that the allies could not yield to “un parleur de sa trempe,” a tall talker, like MacArthur. Soldiers in Korea were undismayed. The British Commonwealth brigade threw a party along the 38th Parallel, and from Seoul, where Ridgway had become a popular rival to MacArthur, Murray Schumach of the New York Times cabled: “The widespread feeling among officers of field rank is that the relationship between General Headquarters in Tokyo and the Eighth Army in Korea will become more pleasant.” Yet there were omens of ugliness ahead, for those who believed in the supernatural, at any rate. E. J. Kahn, Jr., cabled the New Yorker: “Almost at the very moment yesterday that the news of General MacArthur’s relief was coming over the radio at the divisional command post on the western front where I have been spending a few days, a terrific wind blew across the camp site, leveling a couple of tents. A few minutes later, a hailstorm lashed the countryside. A few hours after that, there was a driving snowstorm. Since the weather had been fairly springlike for the previous couple of weeks, the odd climatic goings on prompted one soldier to exclaim, ‘Gee, do you suppose he really is God, after all?’ ”46
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