a negotiated settlement and the withdrawal of
outside forces from Korea. In Washington this was
interpreted as an attempt to save North Korea
from total military defeat, without which there
could be no permanent peace in Korea. Truman,
after earlier virulent accusations that his adminis-
tration had been soft on communism and had not
provided sufficient support to Chiang Kai-shek,
found it politically difficult to resist MacArthur’s
wish to pursue a beaten communist enemy.
The day after US troops crossed the 38th par-
allel, Mao gave the order for Chinese interven-
tion, thinly disguised as the action of Chinese
‘volunteers’ to maintain North Korea as a buffer.
Stalin would not risk a war with the US, but
urged Mao to save Kim; first promising his
support, then reneging, Mao had to intervene
alone. Later that year Stalin did help, sending mil-
itary units and weapons to protect China and ‘vol-
unteer’ pilots to North Korea. The invasion of
Taiwan had to be postponed and the reconstruc-
tion of China itself was delayed by the need to
deploy resources for the war. For China, the
Korean War, coming so soon after the civil war,
was a setback, but its success in retaking most of
North Korea, in following a policy independent
of Moscow’s and in holding a front against the
American and UN troops raised its international
prestige. The Korean War made it clear to the
world that China was now, along with the US and
the Soviet Union, a power to be reckoned with
in Asia.
During the winter of 1950–1 the Truman admin-
istration had to take critical decisions. American
prestige was suffering in inverse proportion to
China’s success. Truman now faced criticism from
two opposite camps. There were those who
blamed the administration for crossing the 38th
parallel. And there was a vociferous minority, con-
stantly encouraged by MacArthur himself, who
called for a widening of the war and the defeat of
China, at least in Korea. MacArthur sent back
gloomy military reports to the effect that, unless
the US was prepared to give up fighting a limited
war and was ready to bomb the Chinese sanctu-
aries in Manchuria, a total withdrawal from Korea
would become necessary. Among the plans
MacArthur advocated was to sow a ‘defensive
field of radioactive waste’ across the supply lines
leading to northern Korea. The military successes
achieved by General Ridgway in pushing the
North Koreans back across the 38th parallel did
nothing to modify MacArthur’s public criticisms
of Truman’s military and foreign policy of search-
ing for a settlement with China. Despite repeated
warnings, MacArthur continued his efforts to
force a change of policy on the administration.
The final straw was a letter MacArthur sent to a
leading Republican congressman, which was
released to undermine Truman’s policies and in
which MacArthur gave his backing to the use of
Chiang’s troops. The war in Korea, MacArthur
wrote, had to be won: ‘if we lose the war to
Communism in Asia the fall of Europe is
inevitable, win it and Europe most probably
would avoid war and yet preserve freedom’.
MacArthur regarded himself as above politics, as
a wise guide to the free world in pointing to
the dangers of the communist global conspiracy;
he could not accept the change of policy in
Washington, which expressed a readiness to end
the war short of total victory by negotiating a
compromise settlement with the aggressor. His
enormous prestige and half a century of service,
MacArthur had convinced himself, made him
untouchable, beyond Washington’s power to
limit his freedom to speak his mind.
Truman, embattled at home, had no illusions
about the storm that would break out if he dis-
missed MacArthur, nor about the use his
Republican opponents on Capitol Hill would
make of the differences between the civilian
president and the great general on the issue of
how to conduct a war. For Truman the question
had become a different one. Who was to control
policy, the president or the general? Once
Truman had made up his mind, he did not lack
the courage to see things through. There could
be no doubt that he would defend the presidency.
In April 1951 he dismissed MacArthur with the
concurrence of the chiefs of staff and in a radio
broadcast explained to the American people that
the US objectives in Korea were limited. In the
short term, Truman’s standing suffered. A Gallup
poll showed that his popularity had dropped to