Why Truman Fired MacArthur

This essay is adapted from Kori Schake’s new book, The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States, which traces the history of American civil-military relations and explores the importance of a military’s political neutrality in a democratic society.

Douglas MacArthur’s firing by President Harry S. Truman in 1951 is the only genuine case of wartime insubordination by an American military commander. General MacArthur had a history of disregarding civilian authority dating back at least to the 1932 Bonus March. There is no question that he believed his strategy for war in Korea merited support, despite its being contrary to the commander in chief’s, and that he directly violated orders. There is no question that the president had a right, even a responsibility, to remove him from command. Moreover, MacArthur had flirted with running for president while in command in Korea and was unrepentant in retirement—worse, he believed that the military owed no allegiance to civilian leaders.

MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor twice in his first 15 years as a soldier, for reconnaissance during the 1914 US raid into Mexico and for action in World War I. In that war, his actions in combat also garnered a remarkable seven Silver Star awards. He served as superintendent at West Point en route to becoming chief of staff of the US Army and military adviser to the Philippine government. He retired from active duty in 1937 and continued a civilian advisory role in the Philippines, but he was recalled to active military duty in 1941 to command the US Army in the Pacific, based in Manila.

The Japanese invasion of the Philippines drove MacArthur’s forces back to Corregidor, from which he was rescued, but his Philippine and American troops endured starvation and atrocities so severe that the Japanese commanders were subsequently convicted of war crimes and executed. MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor (President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed the country needed “a hero, not a scapegoat”). Safely in Australia, MacArthur was elevated to supreme commander of the southwest Pacific, a placatory appointment further illustrative of civilian morale efforts and an additional headache for Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was actually orchestrating the war in the Pacific.

MacArthur’s service was marred by the violence with which he broke up an encampment of World War I veterans protesting for unpaid bonuses in Washington, DC, in 1932 (he insisted the American veterans were a “communist-led menace”); the unpreparedness of his forces for Japanese attack even after Pearl Harbor; and his easy willingness to be rescued from the Philippines while his soldiers endured the Bataan Death March. While admitting MacArthur’s brilliance, Omar Bradley—chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when MacArthur commanded troops in Korea—criticized him for an “obsession for self-glorification, almost no consideration for other men with whom he served, and a contempt for the judgment of his superiors.” As early as 1932, FDR paired MacArthur with Louisiana Governor Huey Long as “the two most dangerous men in the country.”

MacArthur wrote the Japanese constitution, ordered its economy, and was effectively godfather to modern Japan.

The zenith of MacArthur’s career was as occupation authority in Japan after World War II, a position to which he was promoted by President Truman. MacArthur wrote the Japanese constitution, ordered its economy, and was effectively godfather to modern Japan. While it’s tempting to see his expansive responsibilities in postwar Japan as the key to his imperiousness and his belief that his own judgment should supersede that of elected officials, those tendencies were evident in his comportment throughout his career.

While in Japan, MacArthur politicked for the Republican presidential nomination in 1948, publicly criticized US policy, and looked to Republican ideologue John Foster Dulles for counsel, yet both military and civilian leaders in the Truman administration overlooked his norm violations and appointed him at the age of 70 as commander of UN forces in Korea.

MacArthur’s amphibious landing of 75,000 troops in Inchon in September 1950 proved a colossal success, recapturing South Korea’s capital in weeks. It turned the tide of the war. Having preserved South Korea from collapse, MacArthur’s forces proceeded north in execution of his orders, which were the “destruction of the North Korean armed forces.” Although his direction from the Joint Chiefs limited MacArthur’s operations, Secretary of Defense George Marshall appended: “We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of [the] 38th parallel.” But civilian and military superiors did restrict MacArthur’s tactical and strategic freedom of action. And MacArthur complied with the Joint Chiefs’ numerous rejections of operational requests that they deemed “tactically unsound and logically infeasible,” including requests for aircraft to enter Manchurian airspace in hot pursuit or to bomb military bases, attack bridges and hydroelectric plants, blockade China’s coast and attack its industry, and use Taiwanese troops to attack the Chinese mainland.

What the secretary of defense was unquestionably clear on was the insistence that MacArthur should justify his decisions as militarily necessary. The administration was anxious to keep the Soviet Union and China out of the war, and the pivot from defending South Korean territory to pursuing North Korean forces beyond the 38th parallel created international difficulties. Yet, as MacArthur drove North Korean forces toward the Chinese border, the president and the Joint Chiefs gave him wide latitude in operational conduct, with President Truman saying as late as November of 1951, “You pick your man, you’ve got to back him up. That’s the only way a military organization can work.”

By so aggressively pursuing North Korean forces, the US had precipitated China joining the war—the very outcome that limiting the war had been designed to prevent.

When he exceeded his orders by bombing Yalu River bridges and the Joint Chiefs ordered him to stop, MacArthur justified his refusal because Chinese troops were “pouring across all bridges” and threatened to destroy his forces. By so aggressively pursuing North Korean forces, the US had precipitated China joining the war—the very outcome that limiting the war had been designed to prevent.

MacArthur sought and received authority for a new offensive in November 1950, but his estimate of 25,000 Chinese soldiers was low by a factor of eight, and rather than end the war on American terms, it proved disastrous. He complained bitterly and publicly about not being able to attack Chinese territory, resulting in orders not to comment publicly without State and Defense Department approval. The last straw was MacArthur writing the House minority leader, Republican Joseph W. Martin, a letter to be read in the chamber that was critical of Truman’s conduct of the war.

Throughout the Korean War, MacArthur refused to return to Washington; in fact, he had not been back since 1935, demanding that his military and civilian superiors travel to him for consultations. So to the extent that unclear instruction or communications difficulties existed, it was MacArthur, as the subordinate to the Joint Chiefs and president, who was at fault. Secretary of Defense George Marshall also ought to receive criticism, given that it’s the secretary of defense’s fundamental responsibility to ensure military plans are aligned with the president’s political objectives.

When Truman fired MacArthur on April 11, 1951, he cast the decision as

rank insubordination. . . . If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military. Policies are to be made by the elected political officials, not by generals or admirals. Yet time and again General MacArthur had shown that he was unwilling to accept the policies of the Administration.

Truman overstates the case, probably for political reasons—such as needing to overcome MacArthur’s popularity and brush under the rug Truman’s own culpability in selecting MacArthur and allowing him such latitude—and, by this point, personal resentment. Joint Chiefs Chairman Bradley fretted that the Joint Chiefs’ orders had been so crafted that relieving MacArthur might be unwarranted. He worried that “past orders had perhaps been too vague, and then, when ignored, not enforced.” But battlefield losses and command climate diminished both military support and public adulation for MacArthur.

Because MacArthur’s popularity was still formidable and Truman was a shrewd and effective politician, when he relieved MacArthur, Truman released a ream of supporting documentation and twice emphasized his regret at having to enforce the subordination of the military to civilian control. He understood he needed to win the political argument and made the case that

full and vigorous debate on matters of national policy is a vital element in the constitutional system of our free democracy. It is fundamental, however, that military commanders must be governed by the policies and directives issued to them in the manner provided by our laws and Constitution.

MacArthur’s clear transgressions are three: issuing public criticisms of the president’s military and foreign policies, violating the Joint Chiefs of Staff directive requiring Department of Defense and State Department approval of the same, and issuing a surrender ultimatum to North Korea that was not US government policy and contradicted the negotiations underway.

Truman firing MacArthur reinforced the supremacy of civilian authority.

In hopes of garnering the 1952 Republican nomination for president, MacArthur publicly prosecuted the case not only against Truman’s war strategy but even against the civilian leadership’s legitimacy to set policy, claiming it to be

a dangerous concept, that members of our armed forces owe primary allegiance or loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the Executive Branch of the Government rather than to the country and its Constitution which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous.

Lawrence Freedman summarizes the case succinctly: “Truman saw the issue as a general challenging the president’s political judgment; MacArthur framed it as a politician challenging a commander’s military judgment.” One reason the MacArthur case is so important in the study of civil-military relations is its establishment of the unequal nature of those perspectives. Truman firing MacArthur reinforced the supremacy of civilian authority. And the military leadership and the broader American public supported that conclusion. It’s the canonical case in American civil-military relations because Truman won the political argument.

Even with the clear case of insubordination, MacArthur’s firing was treated at the time as a politicization of the military. Walter Lippmann described it as “the beginning of an altogether intolerable thing in a republic: namely a schism within the armed forces between the generals of the Democratic party and the generals of the Republican party.” Not surprisingly, Truman got the last word, saying years later, “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.”

Kori Schake is senior fellow and director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Her new book, The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States, explores the importance of a military’s political neutrality in a democratic society.