Truman Vs. Macarthur: The Case Of Douglas Macarthur

American military officials are always thought of as men and women early defending our country and our friends and family in the military. In the case of Douglas MacArthur, this is not the case. MacArthur was willing to sacrifice the welfare of those under his charge for his own selfish reasons; political gain and to spite his boss and many other superiors. Truman clearly made the right decision to fire MacArthur, although it was a very unpopular choice. He saw the traits that made the general unable to defend America selflessly and acted on what he saw, even though the American public was very disappointed this decision. The first reason Truman was justified in relieving MacArthur was because on multiple occasions, MacArthur did not wait
for the White Houses’ approval on key military decisions. On one occasion, MacArthur claimed that the United States would defend Korea, before the government had decided it would pledge to that commitment. MacArthur did this on multiple occasions, proving that he had little respect for his superiors. Even when he did request for approval, he often went through with his actions and the approval would come after. Although some of his requests were legitimate, it showed that MacArthur was insubordinate and misused his power. This led to MacArthur beginning to decline in job performance. He made multiple, quite forseeable, mistakes in estimating what the enemy was planning, but the most atrocious part about making these mistakes was that he often blamed them on others. Another reason that MacArthur’s work performance declined and the reason he was eventually relieved from his duties was because he had no respect for his first and foremost boss, President Truman. MacArthur claimed in his book that he lost his respect for the commander in chief because in his mind, Truman had given up hope on succeeding in the war. In actuality, MacArthur was somewhat jealous of the president since he wanted to advance politically. When Truman blatantly asked MacArthur if he was planning to continue a political career, MacArthur shot down the idea, even though there is evidence that he was. When MacArthur continuously demanded for more men, equipment, and support to the point where it was weakening the military in the United States, two generals were sent to Tokyo to assess the need for MacArthur’s demands. One of them claimed that the materials were not necessary and that it seemed as though MacArthur was demanding these things to make himself, and his army, appear more grand than it really was. The general who went along also claimed that it was not for the good of the war effort, but rather for the general public in America, to gain popularity for the MacArthur’s next political endeavor.
MacArthur was also rather mean and accusatory against the American government in his memoir, “Reminiscences”, which was published shortly after being fired. MacArthur claimed that at the Wake Island Conference, when he met with Truman to discuss the war effort, that the presidency promoted propaganda and prejudice. Furthermore, MacArthur considered himself so far superior to other branches of government such as the State Department and CIA that he refused to listen to their intelligence. Even when the aforementioned entities had valuable information that could have influenced some of the major decisions in MacArthur’s career, such as the intervention of Communist China, MacArthur refused to listen to their guidance. MacArthur’s pattern of disrespecting superiors became so frequent that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to abandon MacArthur’s master plan that he had been working on for months. MacArthur’s refusal to acknowledge problems with himself and with his plans created a certain amount of distrust between him and those in Washington. Although Washington can take a tiny percentage of the blame for some of the failures in the Korean War, MacArthur began to accuse the government on the mainland for the “deplorable situation” of the war. MacArthur blamed the Truman administration for not being the strongest military in the world and it was inconceivable to blame the government of that time for every problem in the war. MacArthur also believed that he was the topmost authority in military strategy. Although it cannot be denied that he did have multiple well thought out plans, there were many others that fell through. These failed plans and his insubordination led to Truman sending an advisor by the name of Averell Hariman. Harriman was sent to give MacArthur another connection to Washington and to keep an eye out on MacArthur’s controversial actions. MacArthur claimed that Harriman was yet more evidence that Washington did not know enough about the situation in the Far East and it proved that Washington did not need to approve his plans, because he thought he knew more than they ever would. This was clearly not true by the fact that MacArthur would have succeeded in multiple failures if he had abided by Washington’s regulation. Although it is possible that Washington did not know more information than MacArthur, it is clear that it would have been valuable for MacArthur to take their intelligence into consideration. Even worse, MacArthur would withhold information from Washington from the very beginning of the war. When China attacked the United States Army, MacArthur waited several precious hours before notifying Washington. The fact that he would wait such a long period of time before telling his superiors is astonishing and showed that he was not a team player, something that he should have been as a military man. In an even more disrespectful manner, MacArthur often condescendingly took a contrasting standpoint to the opinions of the administration at the time, and then claimed not to know it was contradicting.
He sent a letter to the veterans of foreign wars that completely conflicted with the policy of the United States in respect to Formosa and when Truman asked him to correct it, MacArthur claimed that there were no conflicts. This just proved how far MacArthur was willing to go to show Truman that he did not respect him as he should have. Truman clearly tried to hold it together and was very polite about the situation, even softening the embarrassment to MacArthur by sending a private note and trying to keep the situation out of the public eye. Even with these very kind niceties, MacArthur refused to formally apologize, yet eventually complying twith the orders. MacArthur also claims multiple times in his memoir that Truman went over the top with his defense actions, even when some of them actually helped the American war
effort. Another main reason why Truman was right to relieve MacArthur of his post was because Truman had tried to fix their relationship multiple times. It would be unfair to say that Truman did not try to mend the break between Washington and MacArthur, but it became exceedingly clear that MacArthur had no interest in cooperating. When Truman had a meeting set up so the two of them could discuss the war, called the Wake Island Conference, MacArthur showed little enthusiasm about the meeting. Truman brought a collection of reporters along with him and a small posse of strategic employees, and MacArthur wanted to do the same. When Washington denied MacArthur an equal brigade, he decided to contrast the President by going with the smallest staff possible to him. MacArthur was also quoted as calling the meeting a “political junket” and before leaving, complained to his aides about the State Department, Truman, and the communists as the “evil people still in control.” In the same manner of disregarding the goals of the government that the worked for, while the government considered an end of war once their business in the Far East was resolved, MacArthur believed that the American military should fight Communism in other places in the world and acted upon this belief. This mean that even though he was hired to serve the State Department and Truman, he let his different opinions drive the military. The reason for MacArthur’s insubordination was probably mainly due to his outrageous surplus of self-confidence. MacArthur in many ways considered himself as a hero to the people of Seoul and exaggerated their dedication to him. The exceedingly suspicious part of this idea was that MacArthur’s greatest praises from the people of Seoul came from his own memoir, rather than an unbiased third party. MacArthur was also notoriously quoted as saying that the American soldiers would be “home by Christmas”, showing his complete trust in his army, often too much trust. Although the sentiment of this message was very comforting to the American public, it was misleading and unfair to the families waiting for their loved ones to return home. When the relationship between Truman and MacArthur continued to worsen, Truman decided to ask George C. Marshall, a retired defense secretary, to overlook MacArthur. At the same time, Eisenhower was appointed as NATO commander. Although MacArthur did not show his emotion, it was clear that in any other situation MacArthur would have come out with more authority rather than less. Truman quickly became infuriated when he realized that Marshall had very little more say-so in MacArthur’s actions and came to the conclusion that there was nobody who could control him. The fiercest thing that MacArthur said about Washington during his time with the military and directly after, was blaming failures that were uncontrollable on people who were not responsible for the problems. When the South Koreans four divisions along the 38th Parallel were terribly underequipped, even though they had been well trained, they failed miserably. America explained the reason that the South Koreans were not given more equipment was because they did not want South Korea to invade North Korea, which was completely valid in many respects. MacArthur dismissed this and claimed that it was fault of the US alone that South Korea suffered as many casualties as it did. MacArthur also portrayed Truman as a spineless, indecisive character, which was not the case. MacArthur explained that the US had no definite policies on Asia, but the US did have a plethora of regulation. MacArthur made it seem as though the administration that he was appointed to work for was disorganized and as though he was the one clear head in the room (again, not the case). As a boss with their employee, it is vital to the success of the relationship that there is mutual respect for one another. In the case of MacArthur and Truman, MacArthur was so disrespectful that it heavily got in the way of his job performance. For these reasons, it is clear that Truman made the right decision to fire MacArthur. MacArthur was insubordinate and had ulterior motives throughout the war, ignoring his primary goal, which should have been to keep every American as safe as possible. Because of his detest for Washington and administration in control at the time, he also did many things that were unacceptable and made it impossible to justify keeping him at his position. Especially during times of war, it was important that American politicians have a concrete agreement about issues, and MacArthur decided to publicly voice his contradictory opinion.

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[ 1 ]. Richard B. Frank, MacArthur (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 150.
[ 2 ]. Ibid.
[ 3 ]. Ibid, 152.
[ 4 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 196.
[ 5 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 378.
[ 6 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 205.
[ 7 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 362.
[ 8 ].
Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 192.
[ 9 ]. Ibid, 364.
[ 10 ]. Ibid, 362.
[ 11 ]. Ibid, 351.
[ 12 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 327.
[ 13 ]. Ibid, 341.
[ 14 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 205.
[ 15 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 184.
[ 16 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 341.
[ 17 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 197.
[ 18 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 339.
[ 19 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 205.
[ 20 ]. Ibid, 206.
[ 21 ]. Ibid, 183.
[ 22 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 356.
[ 23 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989), 198.
[ 24 ]. Ibid, 184.
[ 25 ]. Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989),
198.
[ 26 ]. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (n.p.: Time, Inc., 1964), 328.