Truman Firing of MacArthur Hurt Approval Rating but Saved War With Red China

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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Seems odd now

that China wanted to perpetuate and support North Korea back then. Here we are in the 21st century, China is trying to modernize every way it can, and North Korea is at once a backwater of poverty and also one of the world's biggest pains in the butt.

I'll bet in many ways the Chinese now care little about whether Truman was right or MacArthur was right---but regret their own decisions regarding NK.

Truman Did What was Needed

Truman had the courage to confirm our nation's tradition of civilian rule over the military, first evoked by George Washington. Truman stood up to the prima-donna MacArthur rightly so. Roosevelt should have fired the drama queen long before Truman did, but his plate was pretty full. MacArthur's legacy is the failed mess he created in Korea that still remains a problem.

MacArthur provoked the superpower struggle on the Korean Peninsula where he would have happily started WWIII if given the chance. Truman did the right thing. In his own mind MacArthur thought he should have been the US military dictator, a role he loved as absolute ruler of post war Japan (he should be best remembered for his Japanese Peso). He was overrated as a general, demonstrated in being totally unprepared for the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese. MacArthur has been blamed for having prolonged the war in insisting on splitting the command of the Pacific, and then being hopeless reluctant to engage the enemy. MacArthur was almost oblivious to the naval and air commands that actually won the Pacific campaign and who did all the hard fighting while island hopping towards Japan.

Folks remember MacArthur posing for cameras and threwing temper tantrums through the media to gain attention. Revisionist conservatives love him for his neoconservative attitudes and his modus operandi for showboating they now emulate, but they also echo his shortsightedness and incompetence.

Harry Truman & General MacArthur

I do remember when President Truman told MacArthur who was who and what was what...the general was of course avery capable military leader and did a fine job in the pacific area to beat the Japanese after they started the war, but he was not elected to be president of the U.S. and Truman had enough of mister "High and Mighty".....Cordially,...

IN HINDSIGHT...

It probably would have served our nation and he world better if MacArthur had been allowed to finish the Koreans off, bloody the nose of the Chinese and to embarrass the Russians. 58 years later, the stalemate of Korea continues to haunt us, and will again, one day erupt into war. Perhaps a very ugly war of domestic destruction - even brought down upon our cities.

Further, a decisive move in Korea may have prevented the fall of the French in Indo-China and kept America from being swept into Viet Nam - as well as all that has followed from that defeat.

Truman's decision set America on the path of "half measures" it continues to tread today.