Replies to post #272106 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

MacArthur vs. Truman: The Showdown That Changed America

By Christopher Klein // October 13, 2016

VIDEO: The Korean War: 5 Things to Know
.. http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war/videos/the-korean-war-5-things-to-know ..
The spread of Communism in Korea led to a battle that was brief yet bloody, and a national divide that exists to this day.

A new book by historian and best-selling author H.W. Brands chronicles President Harry Truman’s removal of General Douglas MacArthur from command of the Korean War and explores how the showdown between the two men about how to wage war in the nuclear age reverberated throughout the rest of the Cold War.

“This looks like the last straw,” a seething President Harry Truman scrawled in his diary on April 6, 1951. Once again the commander of U.S. forces in the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur, had gone public with his differences with the commander in chief over the conduct of the war—this time in a letter to House Republican Leader Joseph Martin.

VIDEO: Truman Sacks MacArthur President Truman defends his dismissal of General MacArthur

Truman thought it nothing less than “rank insubordination,” and five days later he delivered the shocking news to the American people that he had relieved MacArthur of his command and replaced him with General Matthew Ridgway. “With deep regret I have concluded that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States Government and of the United Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties,” the president said.

The tension that had been mounting for months between the modest president and the egotistical general went beyond mere personality differences. Still upset that MacArthur had mistakenly assured him during a face-to-face meeting on Wake Island that the communist government of China would not intervene on behalf of North Korea, Truman favored a “limited war.” MacArthur, however, publicly advocated the more expansive use of American military power, including the bombing of China, employment of Nationalist Chinese forces from Formosa (Taiwan) and the possible use of nuclear weapons. Fearing that such an approach risked a massively expanded war in Asia and even the start of World War III—with the Soviet Union coming to the aid of China—Truman clashed repeatedly with MacArthur before finally dismissing him.



Continued: http://www.history.com/news/macarthur-vs-truman-the-showdown-that-changed-america

Thanks for the nudge to revisit.

It wouldn't surprise many if Trump



was thinking that war was his only way to boost his popularity.