The firing of Douglas MacArthur

In April 1951 Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur as the commander of US forces in Korea and replaced him with general Matthew Ridgeway.

This happened because of the opposing view that MacArthur had with dealing with the Korea war to Truman. From the start of the war turning in the UN forces side MacArthur in September and October 1950 argued that it was only right for the US not just to contain communism ( which was set out in the Truman doctrine) in Korea by pushing the North Korea's back to the 38th parallel but he thought that it was needed to invade Korea to unify the country under the capitalist leader Syngman Rhee. MacArthur had this view because he was more right wing than Truman and supported the Republicans more which view was that containment was not working like in China which fell to communism in 1949 and he thought that the communist states needed to become capitalist by force. Truman was not keen to give the order to do this because he feared that if the US forces crossed the 38th parallel that would make the US the invaders and that it could mean that Mao's Chinese forces would feel threatened and help out the North Korea troops ( which they did!) but went a long with the plan.

MacArthur even assured Truman in October 1950 that it was unlikely that the Chinese would cross the border to help the North Koreans. He was wrong and in the same month over 300,000 Chinese soldiers crossed the Yalu River into North Korea. This was to start with a disaster for the UN forces as by January 1951 the Chinese and the North Koreans had push back over the 38th parallel and had recaptured the capital city of Seoul. MacArthur still had the idea of total victory and that he was willing to use nuclear weapons if needed to on China. Truman hated this idea of the war going nuclear and felt that it would look racist using the nuclear bomb a third time in Asia. Truman feared the idea of a nuclear war so he fired general MacArthur as he thought that the 'security of the free world is not needlessly jeopardized; and to prevent World War 3. MacArthur returned a hero's welcome when he came home and many Americas was strongly against Truman's actions. Over time the public began to understand Truman's decision and the idea of a limited war which went against the idea of unconditional victory.

Comments

  1. Hums Teacher12 November 2018 at 11:59

    This is one of the strongest responses I've read so far, Edward. I would only add that MacArthur had been criticising Truman (his commander-in-chief) in the press which made it more important for Truman to fire him.

    Good work.

    ReplyDelete

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