Naval War College Review Volume 61 Article 23 Number 4 Autumn

2008 Truman and MacArthur: Policy, Politics, and the Hunger for Honor and Renown Douglas Kinnard

Michael D. Pearlman

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Recommended Citation Kinnard, Douglas and Pearlman, Michael D. (2008) "Truman and MacArthur: Policy, Politics, and the Hunger for Honor and Renown," Naval War College Review: Vol. 61 : No. 4 , Article 23. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol61/iss4/23

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embark on its “Titoist” escapade. The is not short of hindsight on any of these de-Stalinization theme set by the Twen- questions. tieth Communist Party Congress of the TOM FEDYSZYN in February 1956 made a Naval War College major impact on Soviet thinking. , , and even such hard-liners as Mikhail Suslov seemed predisposed to allow a

significant degree of autonomy in its in- Pearlman, Michael D. Truman and MacArthur: terpretation of communism. Were it Policy, Politics, and the Hunger for Honor and Re- not for the massacre of party officials in nown. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2008. Budapest’s Republic Square, Gati ar- 352pp. $29.95 gues, the revolution stood an excellent Michael D. Pearlman retired in 2006 as chance to succeed. professor of history at the Army Com- Perhaps the bigger nemesis was Wash- mand and General Staff College. He ington. The combined incompetence of now offers a complete history of the po- the Central Intelligence Agency; the mis- litical, diplomatic, and military factors guided, provocative propaganda of the leading to President Harry S. Truman’s Radio Free Europe (RFE) team in Mu- April 1951 firing of General Douglas nich; and the White House refusal to fo- MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Far cus on the plight of Budapest during the East. A presentation at times overdone Suez crisis created a “perfect storm”— for general readers, this scholarly work encouraging the Hungarian Revolution will interest those who specialize in without any serious thought of ever sup- American strategic and diplomatic deci- porting it. This would not have been so sion making from post–World War II painful had not 96 percent of all Hun- through the Korean War. garians, most of whom ravenously de- Problems between Truman and his voured the RFE reports, thought that the viceroy in Asia began early in the Ko- United States would provide unlimited rean War. In August 1950 Truman or- support for the revolution. dered MacArthur to rescind a public This account certainly warrants reading statement sent to the annual conven- by history buffs and public policy mak- tion of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in ers alike. Gati has a way of personalizing which MacArthur advocated preserving the day-by-day accounts of the action in Taiwan for a future attack on mainland Budapest that makes for an easy read. China. This statement was in direct However, the reader is left with a series conflict with White House policy to of provocative questions. What made the keep the war in Korea limited. Soviet politburo overturn its decision Late in December 1950, after the Chi- and ultimately send in tanks to Hun- nese attacked across the Yalu River in gary? Was Washington capable of focus- Korea, MacArthur responded to a Joint ing on more than one flash point at a Chiefs of Staff message with a time? Would at least one fluent counterproposal. He advocated these Hungarian-speaking CIA agent in Hun- decisive destructive blows: a blockade gary have made a difference in U.S. pol- of Chinese coastal areas, destruction of icy? Fortunately for his readership, Gati Chinese industrial capacities to wage

Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2008 1 Naval War College Review, Vol. 61 [2008], No. 4, Art. 23

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war, and Nationalist Chinese forces to Pearlman’s credentials are manifest. He counterattack on the mainland. has produced a thorough account of de- Early in 1951, when the Chinese com- cision making, bureaucratic and parti- munist forces began to falter in the face san politics, and old grudges and of tougher American and allied resis- resentments. The latter are sometimes tance, MacArthur became bolder and extraneous, but to his credit, he also ex- attacked the Truman administration’s amines another aspect of the Korean concept of limited war in Korea. On 24 conflict—events behind closed doors in March MacArthur preempted the ad- Beijing and . The work offers ministration by announcing his willing- valuable information on Sino-Soviet re- ness to negotiate with enemy lations during this period, though the commanders. author might have expanded on this subject beyond the limited issues of Sta- Truman conferred with his key advisers lin’s fear of an American nuclear attack and a consensus emerged that MacAr- andhissalesofarmstoMaoTse-tung. thur’s insubordination called for his dismissal. The occasion, though not the In sum, this is a first-rate research effort cause, was a letter from MacArthur to by a distinguished historian, writing in Joseph Martin, the senior Republican in a lively style that somewhat counterbal- the House of Representatives. The let- ances the book’s density, and of consid- ter, which praised a speech of Martin’s erable value and interest to students of calling for a second front in China, was the period. read into The Congressional Record on 5 DOUGLAS KINNARD April. Six days later, MacArthur was Emeritus Professor of Political Science University of Vermont fired.

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