This Day in Military History (MacArthur Named UN Commander in Korea)

July 8, 1950— Having claimed that he knew “the Asiatic mind,” and acclaimed as the architect of Allied victory in the Pacific only five years before, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander of the UN troops desperately trying to repel Communist forces from taking control of the entire Korean peninsula.

At the time, the appointment seemed logical, even inevitable, considering the general’s decades of experience, bravery, intellect, and a strategic skill manifested during WWII with an “island-hopping” campaign that minimized loss of life.

But, within a year, MacArthur’s overweening ego and hubris would imperil US troops, threaten a wider conflict, and precipitate a historic showdown concerning civilian authority over American armed forces with President Harry Truman.

Some signs, even within the first two weeks after Communist forces invaded South Korea, were already ominous for MacArthur’s leadership. Aides were initially reluctant to break the news of the attack to their boss, and even after learning of it, for the first 24 hours he downplayed its severity.

If he could get the 1st Cavalry Division into action, he told GOP foreign-policy maven (and future Secretary of State) John Foster Dulles, “Why, heavens, you’d see these fellows scuttle up to the Manchurian border so quick, you would see no more of them,” according to Bruce Cumings’ The Korean War: A History.

When he was prevailed upon at last to depart from Tokyo (where he was serving as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan) for the first of a series of one-day flyovers over Korea, he veered sharply towards alarm, telling Truman that South Korean forces were in no position to repel the invaders without American support.

One military observer—like MacArthur, often mentioned as a Presidential candidate—Dwight Eisenhower, was skeptical but not surprised that his fellow WWII hero was not at the top of his game. Privately, he wondered if MacArthur, now 70, might be too old for command.

Eisenhower, who had noted acidly that he had “studied theatrics” under MacArthur as his aide in the Philippines in the 1930s, would have had the personal knowledge and credibility to gain immediate public approval for a decision to relieve his old boss of command. But MacArthur’s superior at the moment was Truman, who lacked the stature of the commander of US forces in Europe in the last war.

Two and a half months after his appointment, MacArthur pulled off the kind of unexpected, daring move for which he had become known by ordering an amphibious assault on Inchon, the port city of Seoul that, because of its tides and lack of beaches, was deemed by MacArthur’s subordinate Gen. Edward Almond, “the worst possible place” for such an operation.

Inchon achieved the surprise MacArthur desired, and he predicted to Truman that US troops would be home for Christmas. But instead of stopping at the 38^th Parallel, the point at which America’s allies had agreed would restore the division between North and South Korea at the start of the conflict, the commander “went ahead to the Yalu frontier and set up an enormous disaster, which clouded his reputation,” according to historian David Fromkin.

“There’s a spot where the mountains go down on a north-south basis,” Fromkin explained to C-Span’s Brian Lamb in a September 1995 interview on “Booknotes,” “and if you’re a commander going there, you don’t want to get in that position because you have to split your troops. But he [MacArthur] did and he shouldn’t have; he went all the way up to the Chinese border, although there were signs that if he did so, they’d come in against us with their limitless manpower.”

The counterattack by the Chinese forces reversed all the gains by the US at Inchon. Communist momentum was only blunted when Matthew Ridgway took over command of the US Eighth Army in Korea and re-energized the demoralized troops.

By now, MacArthur was not only violating Truman’s directive to clear any statements with the White House first, but alarming the Joint Chiefs of Staff and allies with his urging that China lay down its arms or face “a decision by the United Nations to depart from its tolerant efforts to contain the war…[that] would doom Red China to the risk of imminent military collapse.”

He provided GOP leaders eager to score points against Truman over the military stalemate with a soundbite for taking the war to China: “There is no substitute for victory.”

Truman’s decision to relieve MacArthur of command led to a firestorm of controversy back home, but it was necessary to preserve the constitutional structure of ultimate Presidential authority over the military.

Just as important, by scotching the general’s proposal to drop up to 50 nuclear bombs at air bases, depots, and supply lines to create a radioactive barrier and halt Chinese and North Korean advances, Truman prevented the direct intervention of the Soviet Union in the conflict—and the possibility of World War III.

Quote of the Day (William James, on War, ‘An Explosion of Imaginative Energy’)

“Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrills and excitements. The only relief from Habit's tediousness is periodical excitement. From time immemorial wars have been, especially for non-combatants, the supremely thrilling excitement. Heavy and dragging at its end, at its outset every war means an explosion of imaginative energy. The dams of routine burst, and boundless prospects open….

“This is the constitution of human nature which we have to work against. The plain truth is that people want war. They want it anyhow; for itself, and apart from each and every possible consequence. It is the final bouquet of life's fireworks.”— American philosopher, psychologist, and educator William James (1842-1910), “Remarks at the Peace Banquet,” published in the Official Report of the Universal Peace Congress, held in Boston in 1904, and in The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1904

One hundred and twenty years ago this month, William James’ analysis of the psychological roots of war came amid a convulsive thrust of American power far outside the nation’s continental bounds. It was the culmination of his rising concern, since the Spanish-American War six years before, over the possibility that his fellow citizens would be embroiled in yet another overseas conflict.

Viewing the outcome of those hostilities, Secretary of State John Hay had pronounced it “a splendid little war.” Even the vast possessions in the Caribbean and in the Pacific gained by the U.S. at a cost of only 4,000 casualties, however, did not lessen James’ grave misgivings about the nation’s new imperial role.

The philosopher’s younger brothers, Wilkie and Bob, had served in the Civil War, ending up physically and emotionally wounded, respectively, in the postwar period.

Already troubled by their fate, William began to think even harder about the war fever that had swept through America again. It was a line of inquiry that Sigmund Freud would pursue, through different premises and on a worldwide scale, in his last significant work, Civilization and Its Discontents (1931).

James went on to argue in the speech and essay from which I’ve quoted that this instinct for war was so ferocious that it could only be tamped down by degrees, not abolished instantly. It was a mournful preview of what developed through the rest of the 20^th century, when technological advances spread destruction on a level that James had never seen and might not have even contemplated.

I thought of James’ speculations last night while watching, on TCM, the 1997 biopic MacArthur, starring Gregory Peck. A highlight of the movie was an extended passage from the victorious American general’s speech, a month after the dropping of atomic bombs, when the Japanese surrendered in September 1945 to conclude WWII:

“A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war….

“We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.”

The philosopher and the general would shudder at more recent developments. The rise of terrorism has increased the chances of regional wars (e.g., the War on Terror) and failed states so weak that their governments are no longer in control (Somalia, Afghanistan).

Moreover, the alliance system that MacArthur deemed no longer sufficient to contain the madness of armed outbreaks. Pointing to a new “axis of autocracies” (Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran) now cooperating, foreign correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov asks, in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Has World War III Already Begun?”

Pray that the answer is no. 

This Day in Media History (Marguerite Higgins, First Woman to Win Pulitzer for International Reporting, Born)

Sept. 3, 1920—Marguerite Higgins, who overcame the rampant sexism of her time and profession to become the first female winner of the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, was born in Hong Kong, in the Asia-Pacific Rim where she would establish much of her reputation.

In the Library of America anthology Reporting World War II, Higgins was the last by birth among the approximately 80 writers represented. A day shy of 25 when Japan formally surrendered, she reported on some of the major stories coming out of the latest six months of the European conflict: the refugee crisis and the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.

These would have been great scoops for any reporter. They were extraordinary for a recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and a woman in an unrelieved, unapologetic masculine environment.

But it was in Asia—specifically, in Korea and Vietnam—where Higgins advanced closer to achieving her stated post-collegiate goal of becoming more famous than Dorothy Thompson, perhaps the most influential female journalist of the day. How she moved towards her goal has made her the subject of speculation and even controversy ever since.

Stationed in Tokyo as the New York Herald Tribune’s Bureau Chief, Higgins was ideally situated to cover the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1950. Despite her credentials as a war correspondent in WWII, she was initially ordered out of the country by Gen. Walton Walker.

Only a direct appeal to Douglas MacArthur, who had become Commander in Chief of the United Nations Command in Korea, enabled her to report on the conflict. She joined MacArthur's troops on the daring invasion at Inchon that, for a time, changed the direction of the war. In fact, she was the only female reporter to land on Red Beach (“a rough, vertical pile of stones”) with the men.

The Pulitzer Prize committee cited Higgins’ "enterprise and courage" in her coverage of the campaign, noting that she deserved "special consideration by reason of being a woman." But even as she was winning a new level of renown, she was stirring animosity among the largely male cadre of war correspondents that would dog her even beyond her early death.

Thousands of readers were amazed at how Higgins smashed through conventions that restricted women’s chances for achievement; a smaller cadre of colleagues were disgruntled at how they believed she ignored traditional ethical codes in pursuit of her laurels. It is still not easy sorting through these issues more than a half-century after her death.

While displaying outward bravado, Higgins was inwardly driven by an insecurity so unrelenting that it manifested itself as bravery so extreme that some males believe it shaded into foolhardiness. (Among them was Herald Tribune colleague Homer Bigart, who, like Gen. Walker, wanted her out of the country--leading not just to heightened competition between the two journalists but also to a closely watched feud between the two.) 

Such aggressiveness might be taken for granted among male reporters but were eyed critically when exhibited by females—and led to speculation that Higgins was not above stealing colleagues’ scoops.

Another serious charge against her arose from her good looks. Anyone glimpsing the stunning blonde in the attached photo might be forgiven for thinking that Betty Grable or even Marilyn Monroe had suddenly morphed into a top-flight journalist.

Those same people were often convinced that someone that glamorous could not have succeeded through her own efforts, but by sleeping with important men to further her career. 

In the process, these critics ignored factors that facilitated her work—knowledge of French and Chinese; extraordinary sympathy and compassion for young soldiers that sealed their bond with her; and willingness to endure extreme discomfort and danger.

(Ironically, when particularly obsessed with a story, Higgins was so oblivious to how she looked that she neglected to clean her face.)

Opinion remains divided to what extent those charges were true. But, if ruthlessness in pursuing scoops and straying outside traditional sexual norms are to be assessed, many if not most of Higgins’ male rivals would be as guilty as she.

A third charge against Higgins is more troubling: that, through personal associations and ideological preconceptions, she abandoned objectivity in her reporting on the early days of the Vietnam War. 

In 1963, younger reporters such as David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan were making plain in their dispatches that South Vietnamese forces were collapsing in the Mekong Delta. Based on her high-ranking military sources, Higgins disagreed strongly, airing their view that the Viet Cong were being progressively crushed. Any problem in Southeast Asia had resulted from journalists accepting at face value the notion that Buddhists in Vietnam were being oppressed by President Ngo Dinh Diem's "Catholic-dominated government":

"In the fall of 1963 Washington went into the business of hiring and firing governments,” Higgins charged in Our Vietnam Nightmare. “We not only forgot the one overriding priority, the war effort, but also, for the first time in history, conspired in the ouster of an ally in the middle of a common war against the Communist enemy, thus plunging the country and the war effort into a steep spiral of decline."

Higgins was ill-prepared to examine the reality of Vietnam dispassionately. In 1947, she had witnessed how Communists employed deception in taking over Poland. Friendly with both Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, she had adopted their view of the need to counter Soviet aggression. And, in 1952, she had married William Evens Hall, an Air Force Lt. General.

Vietnam undermined the credibility of a fellow journalist who accepted the government line, columnist Joe Alsop. Long before that happened, a tropical disease contracted in that country led to Higgins’ death in 1966 at age 45. She is one of a handful of war correspondents buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

During her lifetime, Americans became very familiar with the sight of Higgins—in well-attended lectures, her book covers (War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent and News is a Singular Thing), and TV appearances (in 1956, the quiz show What’s My Line?). 

Though her celebrity has faded, her face and story have still attracted enough posthumous attention to land her on a postage stamp (in 2002) and have made her the best-known character in a little-noticed film about the early days of the Korean War last year, The Battle of Jangsari.

I have not yet seen that movie, but in a sense its most famous cast member, Megan Fox, should be able to identify intensely with Higgins. In both women’s cases, men were so besotted by their looks that they sometimes had a difficult time taking their drive and work seriously. Time will tell how well Fox counteracts that perception.

This Day in Presidential History (Truman Fires MacArthur)

April 11, 1951—When President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of command of American and United Nations forces in the Far East battling in Korea, it plunged the Missourian into the fiercest firestorm of his two controversy-filled terms.

But, though the short-term political damage was intense, the President demonstrated what distinguished the United States from younger, infinitely more fragile republics: the clear ascendancy of civilian over military authority.

It’s funny how current news items confirm the truth of Mark Twain’s observation that history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. This morning’s edition of The New York Times reported on retired General Stanley McChrystal’s decision to accept an offer from the Obama administration to lead an advisory board supporting military families.

Yes, that’s the same soldier who last year was removed by the President from his post overseeing our surge in Afghanistan. As far as I know, nobody today bothered to note the remarkable coincidence of this more recent event with the anniversary of the earlier civilian-military clash. A year ago, though, the parallel with MacArthur’s firing—a Democratic President in the midst of a troubling Asian land war sacking a general who questioned his leadership—was too irresistible for the media to miss.

But when you get right down to it, that’s about as far as the similarities went. Walter Karp’s extraordinarily incisive analysis of the MacArthur situation in American Heritage 27 years ago makes clear why the McChrystal case was at best only a 48-hour news story: plain-speaking Harry had done all the heavy lifting for Obama and, indeed, all his other successors in the Oval Office these past 60 years.

The differences in the outcomes of what we can call “the two Macs” are so stark that they speak volumes about the changed landscape in this country:

* Truman acted at a point when the prestige of the military was close to an all-time high. By mid-1951, Americans were dismayed that American soldiers had been set back on their heels by North Koreans backed by Chinese and Soviet Communists. But they hadn’t forgotten that just six years before, American commanders had brought “The Good War” to victory. The questioning of military authority that erupted in the Vietnam War was still off in the distance.

* Truman, a captain who led troops under fire in WWI, then achieved national attention investigating procurement policies in WWII, was intimately experienced with war and its commanders in a way that Obama is not. Truman had seen enough of war in his week’s worth of combat to understand the chaos of conflict and know that leaders were not infallible (the commanding officer and chief of staff of his division left headquarters just as the Meuse-Argonne offensive began). As head of a Senate committee investigating the defense industry in the war, he learned all the tricks used by what Dwight Eisenhower would memorably call “the military-industrial complex.” In contrast, Obama would not only be part of a generation that, because of the all-volunteer military, would be unlikely to serve in the armed forces, but, because he had only served in the Senate four years before he ran for President, he had little time to master the details of his work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

* MacArthur was an American legend, used to getting his way in several high-profile posts; McChrystal fell to earth almost as soon as he had nobody to run interference for him. Given a command of his own, no longer simply reporting to David Petreus, McChrystal ran straight into political headwinds. A Los Angeles Times piece that ran last year about McChrystal used terms such as “flinty,” “forbidding,” “hard-charging” and “unyielding.” Still, he certainly had nothing on MacArthur, who had been a WWI hero, superintendent of West Point, Army Chief of Staff, head of U.S. Army forces in the Far East in WWII, and overseer of the occupation of Japan after the war. Eighteen years before tangling with Truman, he disregarded orders from President Herbert Hoover by ordering attacks on the tents and shacks where the “Bonus Army” and their families were encamped in D.C. A few years later, when he bitterly complained about his reduced military budget to Franklin Roosevelt (“When we lose the next war and an American boy is writhing in pain in the mud with a Japanese bayonet in his belly, I want the last words that he spits out in the form of a curse to be not against Douglas MacArthur but against Franklin Roosevelt"), the President shot back: “Never speak to the President of the United States that way." MacArthur was fortunate not to be fired long before Truman got around to it.

* McChrystal was fired more for comments made by his staff in front of a Rolling Stone reporter than for what he himself said; MacArthur was relieved of duty for a letter he wrote to Republican Congressman Joseph Martin criticizing the President’s decision to seek a negotiated end to the Korean War. The lips of McChrystal’s staff concerning Obama and his aides loosened through considerable consumption of alcohol; MacArthur initiated his firing offense while he was stone-cold sober.

* McChrystal, a soldier with no discernible political ambitions, apologized before his last meeting with Obama, then left his post quietly; MacArthur, of course, did not. When asked what he did before WWII, Eisenhower replied that he had studied theatrics under General MacArthur. Has there ever been another American commander with such a flair for the dramatic as MacArthur? Do you think he could possibly leave the national scene without saying, “Old soldiers never die--they just fade away”? Do you think he could simply “fade away”? Not on your life--particularly when, even in the midst of WWII, he had done little to discourage speculation that he might run for President one day as a Republican.

* McChrystal was a blunt soldier serving a famously silver-tongued Chief Executive; MacArthur was an ornate rhetorician serving a President famously given to “Plain Speaking.” If a general’s staffers are any reflection on him, then McChrystal’s were, at times, almost hilariously offensive. On the other hand, while the press eagerly reported on every saying of MacArthur (perhaps the only American general to deserve a monograph entitled, Douglas MacArthur: Warrior as Wordsmith), Truman could not have been more direct in a radio address about the aim of the limited war he wanted MacArthur to conduct: “In the simplest terms, what we are doing in Korea is this: We are trying to prevent a Third World War.” The general, confident that he knew “the Oriental mind,” had previously dismissed warnings that advancing on the Yalu River risked bringing Chinese Communists into the war. The resulting massive offensive by Mao Tse-tung’s troops unleashed what MacArthur mordantly told the Joint Chiefs of Staff was “an entirely new war.”

A farmer and failed haberdasher before his entry into politics, Truman, unlike the Ivy-educated Obama, was not perceived by the public as a learned man, but he enjoyed reading history--and there is every reason to think it left an impression on him.

Several weeks ago, I caught a few minutes of a C-Span special featuring the descendants of American Presidents. The reminiscence I recall most vividly was from Clifton Truman Daniel, Harry’s grandson. (He also recounted this story in the pages of Prologue Magazine.) When four-year-old Clifton and two-year-old brother William came downstairs in their house, after their grandfather had left the 0val Office, Truman found them sneaking into the den to watch television. Nothing doing, the ex-President said: “I have a better idea.”

Truman pulled a book down from the top shelf, then began reading it to them. It wasn’t a comic-strip book, a boys’ adventure, or anything like that. It was Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. More than 40 years later, a now-grown-up Clifton still found that book “tough going.”

Maybe so, but Harry Truman appears to have absorbed the wisdom of the ancient Greek: even the seeming justice of a cause does not justify foolhardy military adventurism. He wanted Communist rulers to know that aggression would be countered, but he was absolutely bent on ensuring that military action would not be widened beyond a point where it could provoke a war waged against astronomical odds. Because Douglas MacArthur did not share this outlook, he had to go.