Truman Firing of MacArthur Hurt Approval Rating but Saved War With Red China
Robert Schlesinger, deputy editor for opinion at U.S. News, is author of White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters.
Few shared the president's certitude. Public reaction was swift and furious. "The reaction was stupendous, the outcry from the American people shattering," McCullough later wrote. Angry Republicans discussed impeaching the president. One Gallup poll showed 69 percent of Americans supported the general. Truman's own approval rating would reach 23 percent that month, and did not rise above the low thirties while he was in office. Of course, time grants perspective, and he is generally ranked as one of the near-great presidents, in part because of his strong assertion of civilian control over the rogue general.
Reader Comments
Error or "typo"
In the paragraph that begins, "Several days," is the following sentence correct?
"Vice President Alben Barkley and Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson advocated Marshall's firing."
Did the author mean Marshall or MacArthur? My reading is the latter person.
Treason?
MacArthur was not the great general he and his Republicans supporters want us to believe.
While his Inchon invasion in Korea did surprise the Reds and push them back this was not brain surgery, many generals could have done this.
But MacArthur was clearly aware that the Japanese probably would suddenly attack the Phillipines and he was asleep at the wheel, our planes were mostly shot up on the ground, and his considerable army was defeated in a few months.
It was his EGO that therefore led him to go back to the Phillipines, as if HE was going to save them! Others wanted to concentrate on a less costly route to the east, creating bases to bomb Japan with, which was much more critical to winning [and our submarines].
MacArthur was in a sense a role model for the right wing nuts who wanted to take over the US. For him to not just question but fight the elected government of the US, while he took an oath to take orders, was practically treason! But he was made into a hero by conservatives like the nasty Joe McCarthy.
You have to wonder if all of the odd things about the JFK assassination, and the military-industrial complex connections [which Eisenhower feared], were related to the extremist allies of MacArthur. Including Nixon, who just happened [!?!], to be in Dallas the day before!
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