Truman Library - Robert G. Nixon Oral History Interview, November 5, 1970

News correspondent with the International News Service, 1930-58; served as editor of the service for a time. He first came to Washington, D.C., in 1938 where he served as their State Department and foreign relations correspondent. He was a war correspondent, attached to the British army in France and Belgium, 1940, during invasion of the low countries; evacuated from Dunkirk but later returned to France; evacuated with remnants of the British army from Brest, June 20, 1940; covered London Blitz, 1940-41; war correspondent, attached to United States forces in European theater of operations, 1942-1943; correspondent in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, and Mediterranean theater, participating in North African invasion and campaign. Covered Casablanca conference, 1943; Quebec conference, 1944; and Potsdam, 1945. Washington correspondent covering the White House beginning in 1944.

Bethesda, Maryland
November 5, 1970
By Jerry N. Hess

NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

HESS: To assist in our discussion today, I have brought in three volumes of the Public Papers. They are volumes 1950, 1951, and 1952-53.

Yesterday we were discussing the trip to Wake Island and the release that was handed to the press after the meeting on October the 15th. We have that release now. While you are looking over that, are there any additional things that come to mind?

The release mentions that the President and General MacArthur spoke first and then their joint staffs met. I had that reversed yesterday.

NIXON: There is one thing that I should correct. I said yesterday that Truman later told me that MacArthur had assured him that the war

would be over by Christmas and that he would be able to release two divisions from the forces in Korea. These two divisions were not to come back home, as I erroneously said yesterday. They were to be sent to Germany.

The cold war with Russia, centered in occupied Berlin, was going on very furiously at the same time the conflict was in Korea. The threat of a war with Russia was a continuing threat. So, these two divisions were a highly important factor to President Truman and his Chiefs of Staff. These two things bore a very close relationship in what was going on.

Looking over this communiqué, that was put out at Wake Island after the President and General MacArthur conferred, I see again how barren it was of news. It contained no reference of the pressing matters that were discussed. It did not mention the assurances

that General MacArthur gave the President, flatly, that the Chinese Communists would not enter the war because if they did, they would be annihilated by our air superiority. It did not mention that MacArthur stated that the war would be over by Christmas, and that the two divisions could then be released to be sent to Germany to face Soviet Russia. Instead it was an entirely general statement, primarily devoted to what the President described as the "major problem of peaceful reconstruction of Korea."

There was the reference to Japan. Which I mentioned was really the outstanding news in it because of the bareness of the statement. The President said, in that reference, "As already announced, we are moving forward with preliminary negotiations for a peace treaty to which Japan is entitled. General

MacArthur and I look forward with confidence to a new Japan which will be both peaceful and prosperous."

The matter of a peace treaty with Japan was news, but the rest of it was more or less just words. I note, interestingly, that the President at the outset of this statement, patted MacArthur on the back and completely ignored MacArthur's repeated refusal to come to Washington for a conference, or to meet him at Pearl Harbor.

He said, "I did not wish to take him away from the scene of action in Korea any longer than necessary and, therefore, I came to meet him at Wake." He went on to say that their conference had been, "highly satisfactory." But, as I said, there was no reference to, or even hint of, the real topics of their discussion.

HESS: What do you recall about the trip back to the United States and the President's speech at San Francisco?

NIXON: It was rather uneventful. We flew back to Hawaii and stayed overnight at the naval installation there at Pearl Harbor. We left the next morning before daylight to fly to San Francisco, where the President was met by a quite large crowd at the airport. That evening he went to the Opera House and made a speech telling about his trip to Wake Island to meet General MacArthur. The speech was largely about peace. The fact that for the first time in history the United Nations had combined together to fight a war against aggression in Korea. A lot of very kind things were said about MacArthur.

He took MacArthur off the spot by saying that he had gone to Wake Island to see MacArthur:

"Because I did not want to take him far away from Korea, where he is conducting very important operations with great success." He went on to say, "It is fortunate for the world that we had the right man for this purpose."

He had made earlier reference to the fact that it was a source of pride to our country that it had been asked to furnish the first commander of United Nations troops. Then he went on to say: "It is fortunate for the world that we had the right man for this purpose--a man who is a very great soldier--General Douglas MacArthur."

He also discussed the continuing threat of Soviet Russia. But, again, the real things that went on at Wake Island, in his private discussion with General MacArthur, were never even hinted at. We then flew on back to

Nothing that MacArthur had assured Truman would happen ever did happen. China came into the war in a matter of days. The war, instead of being over by Christmas, lasted two full years more with the loss of many, many thousands of American boys.

HESS: Before we proceed further with the events in Korea, let's mention the assassination attempt on Mr. Truman's life which occurred on November the 1st of 1950. Just where were you when you first heard of the attempt?

NIXON: I was at the White House. The President was living at the Blair House. (The White House was being torn down and rebuilt completely.) We were going out to Arlington Cemetery where the President was to dedicate a statue to Sir John Dill, who during World

The Combined Chiefs of Staff had been set up to help coordinate the efforts of the United States and Great Britain to fight the war against Hitler's Germany. Dill had died in Washington and was accorded the honor, by this country of being buried in Arlington.

I was there at the White House waiting for our limousine to arrive so we could go with the President out to Arlington Cemetery. My recollection is that we were to leave around 2:30, but the car had not yet arrived. We were to go across the street in the car and wait until the President came out and got in his car to go out to Arlington.

This was one of those strange things that happen by chance. At the White House, we knew nothing about what had happened at Blair House.

As it happened, we were inside. This attack on Blair House occurred some distance--it's...

NIXON: Nothing. We were indoors and heard nothing. By a matter of perhaps two or three minutes, I missed being out at the Pennsylvania gate when this shooting took place. I had just come back from lunch. I had walked through Lafayette Park, crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, and came through the gate into the White House.

There were several reporters who covered labor news at the CIO office, which was then in a small building, on Jackson Place. From where they were, they could look out on the rear of Blair House. These labor reporters, together with the press officer of the CIO, heard these shots. They ran out on the street and around the corner. They were the ones first

My phone rang in the White House. It was the direct line to my office. They told me that it had been reported that there was a shooting in front of Blair House and for me to find out what was going on.

So, I dropped the phone and raced into Charlie Ross' office. Charlie was seated with Jim Rowley, the chief of the White House Secret Service detail, now chief of all the Secret Service. I said to Charlie, very excitedly, "Charlie, somebody's trying to kill Truman. Do you know anything about it?"

come over to the White House yet. Jim Rowley jumped up and raced out of the room shouting, "Where is my Tommy gun?" Which later he denied ever having said. He was excited and didn't know what he was saying. He was a little embarrassed, I'm sure, by this. But he insisted to me later that he never...

Ross, knowing nothing about this, obviously, and Rowley knowing nothing about it, I ran out of the White House up West Executive Avenue, across the street to Blair House. The first thing I saw was one of the Secret Service men with a revolver in his hand, standing over a man lying at the base of the steps that lead up to the Blair House. The man was bleeding at the mouth, nose, and ears. He

looked as dead as a mackeral. He was not; he had been shot through the upper part of his body and a lung had been punctured.

Another Secret Service man, a young fellow, came out of the side entrance to Lee House. These are Georgian type row houses, with steps leading up to center doors of both of them. This other Secret Service man came racing out, he had a Tommy gun in his hand. He bent over this man and started to go through his pockets to try to get some identification. Neither Secret Service man said a word. I said, "Where's the President? Is he all right?" That was the key question, and he nodded.

About that moment, President Truman came to a front window. He had been taking his usual after lunch nap and was awakened by the shots and commotion. He came to the window in his bvds, long handles. He looked out and then

By this time, there was a lot of excitement in front of the Blair House. Reporters were arriving. Police were arriving. Nobody knew what had gone on, or what had happened. I then heard someone say, "My God, there's another one."

There was a hedge that ran along the edge of the steps going up to Lee House. It went on around in a half square, boxing in this rise in the little lawn. Here, lying under the corner of the hedge, inside, was another body. This man was dead. I found out as things developed that he had walked up to the police guard in the little sentry box that guarded the side entrance to Lee House, and had shot this policeman through the throat. But as the policeman fell, despite his wound, he took dead aim and shot this man squarely through

The man who was lying on the pavement in front of Blair House had, at the same time, walked up to the policeman who was in front of Blair House, pulled his gun, and shot him through the leg. Both the policemen later recovered. Ambulances were arriving, and they were swiftly taken away to the hospital.

HESS: One of the White House guards was killed, do you recall that? Private Leslie Coffelt.

HESS: Two were wounded; Joseph Downs and Donald Birdzell. Two were wounded, one was killed.

NIXON: That's right. Coffelt was the policeman shot at close range. The other policeman, who was shot in the leg, had backed out into the street, into Pennsylvania Avenue, to take action against this man who had just killed Coffelt. It never was clear who had shot the attempted assassin, who survived, whether it was one of the policemen (the one that was shot through the leg), or whether it was a Secret Service man, because quite a bit of firing was going on, and it all happened very suddenly.

A block away, a District policeman, directing traffic at Pennsylvania and Seventeenth Street, was struck in the side by one of the bullets, but was not wounded, the bullet simply sliced the side of his coat, just above his belt.

As I say, nobody seemed to know what had gone on. No one knew the identity of these

people. There was not even a hint that they were Puerto Ricans. There was a natural assumption that these must be agents of a foreign Communist power, but they turned out to be Puerto Ricans. Their idea of trying to kill the President was in the mistaken hope that this would bring autonomy to Puerto Rico.

HESS: I believe the same group a couple of years later threw some hand grenades in the House of Representatives did they not?

NIXON: Yes. A woman and two men, also Puerto Ricans, fired some shots in the House gallery wounding...

As I say, under these circumstances, nobody knew what really had happened or what was going on. By illustration, to show you the confusion that reigned, the head of the White House police force, which was a separate force from the District force and guards the White House as its duty, finally got over there. I talked to him, of course. I had also talked to the policeman down the street who had been directing traffic. I had gotten his name, and I told the police chief what he had told me about the shooting. The police chief was so confused that he later, in talking to reporters, gave this policeman's name as being the name of one of the would-be assassins.

It was just one of those dreadful afternoons. It was an afternoon of utter confusion, and it took hours to straighten the matter out.

NIXON: No, I certainly didn't. I had too much on my hands. My recollection about that is that no one went. We assumed that he had had to cancel his trip. When he did go out there, he left in his car by the rear entrance, so no one knew he was leaving or saw him leave. Obviously they couldn't park his car out in front of Blair House with all this going on.

HESS: Did that exit come out on Jackson Place or on Seventeenth Street or could you go both ways?

NIXON: You could go both ways. At that time, at the rear of Blair-Lee House there was a huge parking lot. It was completely open.

NIXON: There was an alley that came through onto Jackson Place, but the other part of it, leading over to Seventeenth Street, was a large open parking lot. That was one time that the President didn't have us tagging along.

Had these Puerto Ricans waited another fifteen or twenty minutes, the President would have been coming down the front steps of Blair House to get into his car, a perfect target. They probably would have killed him. This was pure chance. They were trying to force their way into Blair House to kill him in his bedroom, which was on the second floor. Had they waited, Truman might have suffered the fate of Lincoln, or of Kennedy later.

HESS: Did Mr. Truman usually use that rear entrance when he was going to get into his car?

NIXON: No, invariably that car would be parked right in front of Blair House. He would come down the steps and enter the car in public view. The only precautions that were taken were that the police guards at either end of the Blair-Lee House, would stop foot traffic until he was in his car and away. There were always a couple of Secret Service men on guard there, but that was the only precaution.

HESS: After this point in time did you ever hear President Truman speak of that assassination attempt, or of assassination attempts in general?

NIXON: There's one little anecdote that I might mention. Later that afternoon someone asked the President what he would have done had one of the assassins forced his way into the house. The President said, "I would have taken his gun away from him and shoved it in his

All Presidents are aware of the perils that are implicit in their job. They know that some crazy man might come along and try to kill them. When the three of us used to go everywhere with Roosevelt in an open car, or when he would be seated in public view, the Secret Service placed us in such a position around and near the President that if there was any attempt made on his life, that we probably would absorb the bullets rather than the President being struck. The Secret Service takes every possible precaution to avoid these things.

NIXON: They recognize, that it's almost impossible to guard against everything when a person is

Look what later happened to Kennedy in Dallas, and how it happened. There's more peril from some person with an imagined grudge, like this young man who shot Kennedy or the Puerto Ricans, than there is of a foreign agent. The reason should be obvious. If an agent of a foreign power assassinates a President, inevitably, you have a war. The First World War began when Archduke [Francis] Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarejevo. It's extremely unlikely that an assassin would ever be an agent of a foreign power in the atomic era.

These Puerto Ricans were cranks. They were, of course, partisans of their cause.

They wanted to obtain autonomy for Puerto Rico. But they weren't put up to that by any foreign power.

The possibility of learning the connections of this man who shot Kennedy were obliterated by his being shot down in jail at Dallas by an unbalanced man. The man who attempted to kill President Roosevelt, Zangara, was obviously unbalanced. So it goes.

HESS: Returning to events in Korea, we are now at November the 1st, 1950. A few days before this, there had been reports of captured Chinese soldiers being taken prisoner by our forces in Korea. Do you recall what your impression of President Truman's early reaction to this occurrence was?

My recollection is that MacArthur issued a statement that Communist China, had entered the war. It was to the effect that this was a wholly new and different war. It was only then, as far as I recollect, that it was really known that China had entered.

HESS: At a press conference of November the 16th, 1950, the President read a rather lengthy statement about the "Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea." The footnote to that was: "On November the 3rd, 1950, Chinese Communist armies began to move into North Korea from Manchuria."

NIXON: That was the burden of MacArthur's statement. I don't recall that here or there Chinese troops had been made captive. This all came as a very sudden shock and surprise

in Washington as I recall it. I wish I had the exact quote of what MacArthur said. Again, it was to the effect that this was now a new and enlarged war.

HESS: Moving on, perhaps there is one other item that we should mention before we develop further the events of Korea, and that is the death of Charles Ross on December the 5th. Where were you when you heard of Mr. Ross' death? Do you recall?

NIXON: I had just come out of Ross' office to go to the press room. Ross had a handful of us in for a late afternoon press conference. This was around 5:30 in the afternoon. Charlie was standing behind his desk, and he had a sudden heart attack. He dropped into his chair and died.

NIXON: This was just a few moments after I had left his office to go to the press room.

One local reporter, not a White House regular at all, remained behind to ask Charlie a question. He was leaving the room when Charlie had his heart attack. He came out immediately to tell Charlie's secretary, then came on into the press room. General Wallace "Wally" Graham, the President's physician, whose office was in the basement of the Executive Wing, was immediately summoned. He did what could be done, but it was too late. He administered an injection in the heart muscle, but it was no good.

NIXON: Oh no, of course not! Why should we be? This was a presidential appointee. He doesn't do it for us; he does it for himself. He does so with his own reasons and desires in mind. It's entirely his affair, not ours.

NIXON: There again, it was a matter of the personal wishes of a President. Charlie Ross had been a top rank newsman before he became Press Secretary, plus the fact that he was a close friend of the President's, having been the St. Louis Post-Dispatch representative in Washington.

At that time, his assignment was the White House. Earlier he had covered Capitol Hill, and the President had known him for quite a long while. During the 1944 Roosevelt campaign, Truman made a swing across the country, making speeches on behalf of the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. This was a rather obscure bit of campaigning completely overshadowed by Roosevelt's campaign. But it was made, and four or five news reporters went along on the vice-presidential train to cover him. One of these was Joe Short. I assumed that the President got to know him well, liked him, and thought well of him. Truman, among other things, wanted to bring a newspaperman into the job who would know how to handle press relations, through long practice. So, that's the way that happened.

press assistant. Do you know if there was any consideration given to making Eben Ayers Press Secretary?

NIXON: I really have no idea. That, again, is a matter of what the President wanted to do and what he might have been given advice to do. There's no automatic step-up in a job of that sort. These are presidential appointments. I'm sure that he wanted a newsman in the job who was well known to the whole news fraternity in Washington.

HESS: On the evening of December the 5th, 1950, the same evening that Charles Ross died, Margaret Truman sang at Constitution Hall. The next morning a reporter, a critic in town, by the name of Paul Hume received a letter. What do you recall about the Paul Hume incident?

NIXON: This was one of those things that involved a proud papa. This was the time when Margaret was beginning a singing career. She had appeared in Detroit and various other cities. She came to Washington to appear in a concert at….

NIXON: The President, Mrs. Truman, and I and others went down that evening from the White House. The proud father sat up in a box close to the stage, and a good time was had by all.

HESS: Do you know if Margaret knew of Charles Ross' death at the time she was singing?

I make no pretense of being a music critic myself, but I thought she sang in a very pleasing voice without much volume, but she was

no Metropolitan soprano. She had a pleasing voice and a pleasing stage personality. Her voice seemed to me, as little as I knew about music, to be the type that would sing Mozart well, rather than something heavy. When Ross had his heart attack and died there at the White House, President Truman had already gone over to Blair House. When he was told what had happened, he purposefully kept this from Margaret, so when she appeared there at the hall that night she knew nothing about it. She was quite fond of Charlie Ross, and the President didn't want anything to upset his daughter on her debut here in Washington.

As far as I know, this fellow Hume was the only unhappy one that night at Constitution Hall. I remember during intermission, I was out in the lobby, and I talked to Hume. Knowing that he was a music critic, I was curious

about his reaction, wondering whether my reaction was right. As I say, I thought she was doing pretty well. But in our conversation he didn't think so, he sort of ripped her up the back.

NIXON: Yes, intermission. Poor voice, terrible voice, nothing was right. He ripped her up the back, just in conversation with me. But papa and mama were pleased, and very proud of daughter Margaret, as they naturally would be.

The next morning the President, when he awakened, went to the front door of Blair House and got the morning Post to read what he expected to be praiseworthy notices of daughter Margaret's appearance at Constitution Hall. Instead, he found that Hume had written this rather scathing review of daughter Margaret.

So, the President sat down at his desk there in Blair House, immediately, and wrote a very scorching letter to Hume, which Hume made public in the newspaper he worked on. This letter was one of those four letter word types of things in which I believe he threatened to punch Hume in the nose.

So, this again brought down criticism on Truman. Poor fellow, he couldn't win. It was difficult for me to understand. This was what any proud papa would normally do, defend his daughter against an attack of this sort, scathing criticism. My reaction was that Truman should have been praised as a proud father defending his daughter's honor, instead of his being subjected to some of this, "Oh, my God," criticism as he was when the burden of his letter became known. It was an opportunity for people of the opposition party to criticize.

I think I had ought to add, in justice to Mr. Truman, that not only had his only child been subjected to rather scathing criticism, but his, perhaps, oldest friend and his most favorite staff member in the White House, Press Secretary Charlie Ross, had died the previous evening. This was bound to be weighing heavily on his mind. It's no wonder that with the combination of the two things, his boiling point rose to a fairly high level.

Oh, about my little chat with Hume in the lobby during intermission at Constitution Hall the previous night, I had forgotten to say that after I had gotten Hume's reaction to Margaret, which was not a favorable one, I said, "Oh look, Paul, give the little gal a break when you write your review." I said, "Gee, I'm sure she's doing the best she can, and she's trying to make the grade in a very tough circuit. Her voice sounds

pleasant and good to me." And I said, "It won't hurt you to give her a break." I let it go at that, but he didn't, and it wouldn't have, you know.

HESS: In looking over the press conference of November the 30th, there are some questions and answers dealing with the possible use of the atomic bomb in Korea and in the Far East.

One question was: "Mr. President, will attacks in Manchuria depend upon action in the United Nations?"

Question: "In other words if the United Nations resolution should authorize General MacArthur to go further than he has, he will..."

And then the President interrupted and said, "He will take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation, just

NIXON: I particularly recall it because I asked that question. The first two questions you read, were asked by some other reporter, but when the President replied that we would take whatever steps were necessary, that's when I popped up out of my chair and asked if that included the use of the atomic bomb, because the President's reply had been all inclusive.

NIXON: Certainly. That has been the pervasive question throughout the world ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would this country ever use it again? That was the $64 question.

The President soon backed away from this statement of his because Prime Minister Clement Attlee came hotfooting it over here just as fast as an airplane would bring him when this answer of the President's was sent him by his Embassy here and appeared in the British press.

Attlee was extremely upset by this. He came over to confer with Mr. Truman and find out if he really meant that if necessary the atomic bomb would again be used. He was fearful that such an action would touch off a third world war in an area of the world so many thousands of miles away that it would be almost impossible to win.

The Communist Chinese hoards and the Russian hoards would be pitted against us and probably against Great Britain. The Prime Minister was a very unhappy man. They held

a series of conferences, the President and the Prime Minister, and their various advisers and staffs. At the end of which, the President backed off entirely from his previous position on the use of the atomic bomb.

HESS: Yes. This was released on December the 8th, 1950. It's a joint statement following discussions with the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the second to the last paragraph starts:

Did you ever have any indication from any members of the administration, anyone in Government, after this time, that the atomic bomb

NIXON: Yes. This backing and filling about the use of the atomic bomb still left it, as far as I was concerned, an open question. I had gotten a very firm answer from the President that if necessary, it would be used.

In their joint statement after the Truman-Attlee conferences, it seemed to me that the President was less positive. There was a phrase, "a hope that it would never be necessary." Which was a much less positive statement than it could have been.

Things went from bad to worse in Korea. Our troops were right up on the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from Manchuria. When these Chinese hoards came into the battle in vast numbers, our armies were surrounded and virtually trapped. This was particularly bad around Chosen Reservoir. At this point, they were

having to fight their way out of this encirclement to the coast to a port where our Navy could evacuate them. For a number of days the situation was extremely critical. There was a question of whether our Army was going to get out, or to be completely encircled and annihilated. This was a grave and critical situation indeed.

With this in mind, I ran into Steve Early, alone, out in the White House yard one afternoon. I said, "Steve, do you suppose we will be able to get our Army out of that encirclement?"

Steve looked at me very gravely, and said, "Bob, we better by God get them out!"

Implicit in this was the atomic bomb. Steve was telling me, in so many words, that if our troops could not fight their way out or if they were either annihilated or captured and we had no more army left in North Korea, the

NIXON: This was at the height. This was after Attlee's visit, some several weeks later. My recollection is that it was along in the latter part of December. In any event, it was at the height of this desperate situation involving our troops around the Chosen Reservoir, and their trying to fight their way out to the coast to be taken off in Navy vessels.

HESS: One other thing that we might want to pin down a little bit, was why Steve Early was there at the White House at this time. One thing I want to mention is that on the death of Charles Ross on December the 5th, Steve Early was asked to come back and run the press office. He came on the 6th and stayed for a period

of time, I think he stayed about a couple of weeks, before Joe Short took over. It may have been less than that I'm not sure. But did you feel at the time that you were talking to him that he was there in his capacity with the press office, or with the Pentagon perhaps?

NIXON: Remember he was either Assistant Secretary of Defense, or Deputy Secretary of Defense, in any event, a high post. He had been, and he remained a very close adviser of the President's. During this interim that you speak of, he was there, really, in his Defense Department capacity. He was taking care of the press relations sort of with his left hand.

NIXON: Yes, I guess it was Ayers. He had Ayers in the press office to take care of the routine. He was really around the White House, in and out of the President's office at…

HESS: They really needed someone who was up on what was going on and Steve Early was called in more for that than for his knowledge of just how to run a press office.

When I asked Steve that question, I was asking him in his Defense Department capacity, not in any capacity as a Press Secretary. He

was bigger and more important than just the Press Secretary that he had been before under Roosevelt and for a short while under Truman before he was made Deputy Defense Secretary. I knew that he was in a position to know.

He knew that I wasn't asking him a news question. I wasn't asking him a question that I was going to go off and write about. I was asking him a question about a matter of deep concern to all at that time and on a basis of a longtime friendship. He knew that I was not asking him a question that I would repeat to anyone.

That's the way it went. You could ask someone with authority, in a purely conversational way, forgetting for the moment that you were a reporter. You were just talking to a friend, and the friend was replying as a friend and not as an official of Government.

HESS: Now we are up to the winter of 1950 and early 1951. Things in Korea were not going well. What do you recall about the events of this period up until April that led up to the dismissal of General MacArthur in April of 1951?

NIXON: MacArthur had given the President the wrong information. For which he could be forgiven. Let's face it, his own military intelligence had fallen down. His own estimate, of what the situation might be, was wrong. He had no control over Communist China entering the war. One of the impelling reasons that Communist China did come into the war, was that our Army had crossed the 38^th parallel and were right up on the Yalu River, the frontier of Communist China. You may note that in the present conflict in Vietnam, that beyond bombing, which was carried out in the earlier days, we have

never carried the war over the so-called "demilitarized zone," which is sort of an equivalent to the same thing as the 38^th Parallel in Korea. We have never sent our armies into North Korea, because North Korea abuts onto Communist China, and a lesson perhaps was learned in Korea that if we sent our troops into North Vietnam that this conceivably might again bring Red China into the war against us.

The things that I have just mentioned were military matters. Generals can make mistakes. Circumstances that occur may be beyond their control. Military matters, whether they are right or wrong, are still within their purview because they are a soldier. But MacArthur didn't leave it there. He began more and more to meddle in national politics in this country. He was not only

ignoring the President, as we shall see, but he was ignoring direct orders from the Chiefs of Staff, meddling progressively into the national political scene. It was well-known that he was a Republican general. His politics were of the Republican Party. As he learned, and should have known, he had no business indulging in national politics.

He was not only meddling in national politics, but he was defying foreign policy. He was defying the policies that the President had laid down for the conduct of the war. He was refusing, by his own actions, to obey the direct commands that were sent in by the Chiefs of Staff on behalf of the President.

On December the 6th, 1950, because of this continued meddling, the Chiefs of Staff sent him the text of a presidential memorandum, which directed that he should make no speech, give

no press release, or make no other public statement concerning foreign or military policy unless it were first cleared by the State Department or the Department of Defense. He was further directed that advance copies of any speeches or press releases should be submitted to the White House, but still this didn't stop him. He was continuing to meddle and run his own show in defiance of directives from the President and the Chiefs of Staff.

Things were beginning to get rough. This presidential directive to not make any statements was prompted by, among other things, an action MacArthur had taken earlier.

In the latter part of August, MacArthur had sent a letter to Clyde A. Lewis, Commander in Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which he had requested. It was to be read at their national convention in Chicago. At the outset

of the Korean conflict, the President laid down a very firm policy concerning the Nationalist Chinese Government of Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Formosa and concerning Red China. In one of his first statements about the Korean conflict, a few days after the Blair House meeting took place, on that Sunday evening when South Korea was attacked, he had stated that he was assigning the Seventh Fleet to patrol the Straits of Formosa to prevent Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Chinese leader, from launching any attack on Red China, which would have enlarged the war. At the same time, it prevented Communist China from taking advantage of the situation and attacking Formosa, which they had long threatened to do. There was the possibility that any attack by Chiang's Chinese Nationalist troops on Red China would bring on a third world war. Now, MacArthur was opposed to this

policy. Instead of keeping it to himself, he began stating it publicly. This was the burden of the letter that he wrote the VFW Commander, Lewis, in August to be read at their convention in Chicago.

When Truman found out about this, he demanded of General MacArthur that the letter be withdrawn and not be used or made public. However, it became public anyway. Here, again, was a five star general defying the firm policy laid down by the White House and his Government in Washington.

This became how MacArthur finally cut his own throat. MacArthur's continued insubordination had been going on for a period of two years. He meddled in national politics. He criticized our foreign policy as laid down by the White House. But it was this public defiance of policy concerning use of Chiang Kai-shek's troops that finally was the straw that broke

MacArthur even went so far as to give the New York Times an interview on March 24, 1951. He described the weaknesses of Red China, as he called them. He said: "Even under inhibitions which now restrict activity of the United Nations forces and the corresponding military advantages which accrue to Red China." This, of course, again, was his way of saying that the Washington policy of not using Chiang Kai-shek's army was not to his liking and was wrong.

This was an outright insubordination and refusal to carry out the presidential directive that had been sent him to keep his mouth shut, unless, and until, any statements from him were submitted to Washington and cleared (if they could be cleared). The Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the same day, March 24, informed MacArthur that the President had directed that his attention

be called again to the memorandum of December 6. Stating specifically: "In view of the information given you, any further...any further statements by you must be coordinated by you as prescribed in the order of 6 December."

Now, this led up to the final debacle. Back here in Washington the Republican leadership in Congress had been demanding that Chiang Kai-shek's troops be used against Red China, and that a second front be opened. These Republican leaders in Congress included Senators [Robert A.] Taft, [Styles] Bridges and [William F.] Knowland, the latter of whom had been so involved in Formosan politics that he was widely described as, "the Ambassador to Formosa." On the House side, it also included Representative Joseph Martin. He had been Speaker of the House during the two years in which the Republicans had been in control of Congress after the 1946

action. After the 1948 election, he was the Minority Leader of the House. In other words, he was still the Republican's House speaker.

Martin wrote MacArthur a letter. (Earlier he had blamed Secretary of State Dean Acheson for the Truman policy regarding Formosa.) He introduced in the House Republican conference, which is part of the functions of the Congress itself, a resolution calling on the President to replace Acheson as Secretary of State, because, as Martin said, he had, "Lost the confidence of Congress and the American people." This was all about the policy toward Formosa.

Martin had also made some speeches in which he attacked the administration very bitterly on what he said was their refusal to use Chiang's army, which he described as having eight hundred thousand men. (Where they all were on the island of Formosa is a question.)

This letter to MacArthur, marked personal, was sent on March 8, 1951. In this letter Martin enclosed the copy of one of his talks about Formosan policy delivered in Brooklyn, New York on February 12. It stated that he had suggested, "That the forces of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa, might be employed in the opening of a second Asiatic front to relieve the pressure on our forces in Korea." He added that he had voiced this thesis in other speeches and intended to do so again on March 21 on a radio hookup. He said, "I would deem it a great help if I could have your views on this point, either on a confidential basis or otherwise. Your admirers are legion and the respect you command is enormous." Martin said further in his letter to MacArthur, "I

think it is imperative to the security of our Nation and for the safety of the world that policies of the United States embrace the broadest possible strategy and that in an earnest desire to protect Europe, we not weaken our position in Asia."

That was a real skyrocket. It was a direct contradiction of Truman's policy against employment of Chiang's troops. In the bluntest terms, he was criticizing the unwillingness of the Truman administration to marshal all available force against the Communist Chinese. It was critical of the attitude of America's allies in Europe. It was utter defiance, and worse than all of that, it was fodder fed to the Republicans in Congress to further their attack on the Truman administration.

Martin was out of town when MacArthur's reply was received. He had gone up to North Attleboro in New England, which was his home, for a brief visit. When he returned to Washington, he held onto this MacArthur letter for a time.

After he left Congress some years later, he wrote a book entitled My First Fifty Years in Politics, and in it he said, "With every week that passed the administration's course in Korea seemed more ruinous." (Now this was when he was still holding onto the letter from MacArthur.) "I had foreboding that as a way out we would agree to recognize Red China. I feared that Truman and Acheson would yield to pressures to compromise on admitting Chinese Communists to the United Nations and perhaps surrender Formosa and Korea before they were through, thereby, delivering Japan to the Communist orbit."

He decided that he would make MacArthur's letter public. He later pointed out that he had asked MacArthur, in his own letter, to give his comments and opinion on the Formosan policy either on a basis of non-use or use. In the

letter in which MacArthur replied, no restrictions were made on publication of, or use of the letter. So, on April 5, Martin made a speech on the floor of the House on the Far Eastern crisis. In the course of which he read General MacArthur's letter..

This finally blew the lid off, but President Truman in this instance, took no hasty action. He called in, one by one, his top advisers. General George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson were two that he called in. Marshall was completely familiar with what had been going on. Acheson had to be briefed on some of the things that happened, but he knew the full political implication of what MacArthur had done. Marshall knew of the long record of insubordination.

President Truman told me afterwards, that almost without exception, the counsel given

NIXON: He told me about Marshall and Acheson. Marshall very bluntly said, "Mr. President, you should have fired that s.o.b. two years ago." Because of the rather grave political implications involved, because of MacArthur's very high position, the President said that Acheson counseled him on what would happen. He advised Truman of the probable repercussions if MacArthur were fired. In effect, he was saying to the President that perhaps some lesser action should be taken.

Joe Short told me, later, that the first he knew of this decision was when the President called him to his office. (The MacArthur question, of course, was implicit.) He said to him, "Joe, I'm afraid I'm going to have to

fire that fellow." Joe said that it made his hair stand on end because of all the bombs that were going to go off, all the political repercussions, heaven only knows what.

We were told of this decision very late on the night of April 10. As a matter of fact, it was the early morning of the following day.

NIXON: I was going to say this was world shaking. Who would have ever dreamed of anybody firing this great five star general out of his job of conducting the war, not only against North

Korea, but now against Red China. Remember that this long record of insubordination, which I've tried to go over, was not known to the public. It wasn't known to anyone except the Chief of Staff's level in the Pentagon, and the President. To the public, and everybody else, MacArthur was a great hero who presumably could do no wrong.

To illustrate, my bureau chief said to me, a little before this period, "If MacArthur is ever called back to Washington, you had better be the first to get the news and tell us." MacArthur, as I've said before, was the Hearst organization's nominee for the Republican candidate for the Presidency. This action by Truman, burst upon the country as a world shaking surprise.

There is, of course, a time difference between Washington and Tokyo. This had to do with the Chief's of Staff informing MacArthur

that he was being relieved of command in the Far East. I then went to my phone and dictated a story, which, incidentally, missed most of the newspapers the following morning. Of course, it was on the radio. It didn't miss the afternoon papers by any manner of means. It was the subject for a great deal of discussion, and comment and dismay, on the part of many for some time to come.

Joe Martin immediately telephoned Tokyo. He was going to make all the capital he could out of this for the Republicans. MacArthur was his chosen nominee for the Republican candidate for President in 1952, rather than Eisenhower. To Martin this was the great opportunity to end this long period of Democratic control of the White House. So, he phoned Tokyo and talked with General Courtney Whitney, MacArthur's top aide. He asked if MacArthur would come to Washington and address a joint session of

NIXON: No, I was at the White House. I listened to it on a TV in the press room.

Martin then went to Speaker Rayburn. While Rayburn apparently wasn't very happy about this, he conceded that it might be the right thing to do.

So, that's the way it was. There is no point in my trying to go into MacArthur's triumphal return and his emotional speech to Congress winding up with that doggerel, "Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away." This speech was a real tear jerker for the Republicans, and I suppose for a lot of other people. MacArthur was a very effective speaker and really a fine looking man, a very soldierly looking man, as we all know.

HESS: What is your personal opinion, do you think it would have been politically wiser not to have replaced him, as was done, but to have moved him someplace else? Could they have brought him back to Washington and given him a job in the Pentagon or something like that?

HESS: Also a matter of your own opinion. Why do you think that MacArthur did not make a stronger bid for the Republican nomination in 1952 than he did? He made a bid, his name was there, but he did not make a stronger showing as it appeared that he might here in April in ‘51?

NIXON: Here again, it was the involvement of politics. To have become the Republican nominee,

he would have had to have the support of the Republican Party leadership. He would have had to have an organization, which he didn't have. He had to have someone raise money for him. These presidential campaigns cost an awful lot of money. Senator Taft, at first, was the forerunner for the Republican nomination. He wanted it so bad he could taste it. He had an organization, and he was working very hard for it. The Republicans, however, had decided that Eisenhower was their best chance of getting back in the White House. There was a knockdown, drag-out battle between the forces wanting to make Eisenhower the nominee and the well-organized Taft forces. The upshot of it was that MacArthur simply got lost in the struggle between Eisenhower and Taft. MacArthur also apparently felt that he shouldn't try to oppose Taft.

HESS: Since they both drew their support from the conservative wing of the Republicans.

HESS: It seems to me that had the convention been held in April of '51 that General MacArthur would have been given the nomination.

NIXON: That's quite possible because of this tremendous emotional outburst that followed his firing. He not only appeared before a joint session of Congress, which of course, Truman didn't attend, but there was a well-organized, triumphal procession across the country. He was received by enormous crowds in San Francisco, Washington, and New York. I believe he then went on to Chicago. He had much attention from the news media. He dominated the news for a short period of time during this thing. But

when the conventions came, a little more than a year later, he was virtually forgotten.

HESS: That's right. It seems to me that he would have been politically wiser to have held off this confrontation until a time that was closer to the Republican convention.

NIXON: He couldn't do that. He had no control over it. This was the time that it had to be done. This was when Martin felt he could make tremendous political gain out of this.

HESS: Do you think that Martin was looking out for MacArthur's best interest in doing this. By bringing this to a head in April of '51 General MacArthur did not get the nomination. If Joe Martin had really been pressing for MacArthur, couldn't he have seen that it would be best to have done this closer to the convention?

the fact that MacArthur had been fired would long since have been forgotten. It would have certainly have been on a who cares basis. Time passes by and the irons cool off. You've got to shape it while it's red hot. I just assumed that Martin felt that this might be the thing that would cinch the nomination, even though the convention was a year away. At this point, really the only other Republican candidate was Taft. Eisenhower hadn't come into the picture, and Martin felt that MacArthur, with all the adulation and hoopla behind him, might be the real answer to the Republican's prayer for a man to get them back in the White House.

HESS: I'd like to read a couple of statements out of Mr. Truman's news conference of April the 26th, 1951. This is about two weeks after General MacArthur was fired.

NIXON: This was an obvious feed. This was Vernice Anderson's stenographic transcript. She had been behind the latticed door out there at Wake Island listening in on the supposedly private conversations between the President and MacArthur. She had been taking shorthand notes like mad. This stenographic transcript was a highly classified document. These classified documents, normally, are simply inaccessible. If anybody got hold of any of the contents, they had to be given them. It's just that simple. You could not go in to the President's safe (where

This article was in the New York Times just eleven days after the White House announced that MacArthur was being fired. As a result of this action, Truman's head was being literally beat bloody. His action was the subject of outcry all over the Nation. It was very difficult, in the fact of this action, for the White House to explain why it was taken. It was very difficult for any explanations to penetrate.

Here was a former captain of a field artillery battery, who had the audacity to fire a five star general who was in command of the United Nations forces in the Far East, fighting a very large and savage conflict. The outcries in Congress were intense and tremendous. The Republicans, in Congress, were doing everything they could to mall and criticize Truman.

What could Truman do to further explain the announcement that MacArthur was being relieved. The thing he could do (and I am certain did), was to copper his bets by letting it be known what MacArthur had told him at Wake Island and how wrong MacArthur was: "No, Mr. President, the Chinese will not enter the war. Should they enter the war they will be annihilated. We have a massive air superiority and their bodies will litter the ground by the thousands. The conflict in Korea is almost ended and will be over by Christmas. I will be able to turn loose two of my best divisions so they can be sent to Germany to help defend that area against Russian communism." He was dead wrong on all counts.

Truman was being told by the Nation’s press and Congress that he had done a dreadful thing. In his own defense, and in his administration's

defense, he obviously felt he had to do something further to justify this action.

Remember that this long series of active insubordination by MacArthur (which General Marshall said later to the President had been going on for two years) wasn't in public view. There had been some indications of insubordination in the latter part of this, in his defying foreign policy, but for whatever their reasons were, the White House didn't really go into it. This was a means, obviously, to get over to the public some of the other things that had happened. How wrong MacArthur had been in what he told Truman at Wake Island.

Now, as I say, this had to be a feed, because you simply do not get those things. You don't get classified things on your own. This was to the President's advantage. Nobody could, or would, do it, without implicit understanding

from the President that this was okay. Who else had a copy of this classified document? Very probably no one.

The way to draw attention to a thing is to use the prestige of the New York Times. Remember the New York Times is read here in Washington as much as the local papers, or perhaps more. It's a newspaper that everybody in Congress reads the first thing every morning. To give this transcript out (or some of the contents of it) as a White House press release, would have been the wrong thing to do. Remember Truman and MacArthur had mutually understood that their meeting together was a private meeting, out of which nothing would be said or printed. They could each speak freely.

For the White House then to come along to make public such a document, would be openly violating the agreed confidence of another man.

So, it couldn't be done that way. It could be handed to a reporter of the New York Times, a story written from it, and it would make a great sensation. Perhaps it would cool off some of the criticism being heaped on Truman, he hoped. (That was the purpose of it.) And it would leave no tracks back to the President. You see, it could be a leak, presumably, by anyone in Government in a high post, which I am convinced it was not. Here again was the repetition by the President of the Krock interview. It was done again, in defense of Truman policies. In this instance, it was handed to the reporter that was covering the White House and who had been with us on the Wake Island trip.

HESS: Who in your opinion on the White House staff handled the matter with Mr. Leviero, do you have any opinions on that?

NIXON: The obvious thing was for the President to call in Joe Short, his Press Secretary, and discuss this thing with him and let Joe hand it, as a messenger boy, to whatever reporter was selected. It being handed to the New York Times and appearing alone in that paper, made it a jewel to be admired by all, to be quoted by all. The very fact that it appeared only in the New York Times, increased the news emphasis of it.

HESS: I believe Mr. Leviero won the Pulitzer Prize for that. Do you recall if that's true or not? It's been some time since I've worked with this, but I think that he did.

NIXON: No. I don't know. This is simply a matter that I don't recall at all, perhaps he did. If he did, why, good for him. I would have been just as happy to have had it handed me.

He died later, and he isn't able to tell what did happen. He might have just wanted to let it go.

HESS: Any other thoughts on General MacArthur or anything to do with the General MacArthur matter, the firing of MacArthur?

NIXON: MacArthur was recognized as a very able soldier. They tell a story about him in the First World War. I think he was a young general then. You're not supposed to do these things if you're a general, but he did. He would lead his troops in this trench warfare armed only with a leaded baton. Obviously, he was a man of considerable courage. I'm not sure whether he won the Congressional Medal of Honor or not. Somehow that seems to stick in my mind, but he was a fine soldier. His whole record tells you that.

NIXON: Yes, that's right. His father was a General MacArthur in the Spanish-American war.

NIXON: I had forgotten that. He almost had Churchillian ability with the English language. He wrote extremely well. He was a praisemaker. He was a very dominant man. His personality was such that he and Eisenhower couldn't get along, at all. Eisenhower went out to the Philippines in the mid-thirties as MacArthur's aide when MacArthur was put in command of the training of the Philippine constabulary. Eisenhower was also an able writer, an able phrasemaker.

"Slick" Persons was a major on the War Department staff here in the mid-thirties when MacArthur was a Chief of Staff and Eisenhower

was on the staff. I recall Slick telling me back there in the thirties about the man with the strange Germanic name, Eisenhower. I remember him saying, "Bob, you want to watch this man, he's going to go very far." He credited Eisenhower with a lot of the phrasemaking that came out under MacArthur's name.

NIXON: No, no. Jerry I believe it was. "Slick" came from West Point days. He was a quite dapper dresser. His brother was Governor of Alabama.

MacArthur's abilities were well proven. He was one of the chief architects of our

victory in the Great War in the Pacific, as far as the Army action went. But he got himself into bad trouble by meddling in a sphere which he should never have touched. Instead of tending to his knitting as a soldier, he defied White House policy laid down by the President and made amply known to him. He was insubordinate to the Chiefs of Staff, who were over him. I'm sure that if any soldiers in his command were insubordinate, he chopped off their heads. But with his ego and the power he held, he felt he could do some of that with impunity, and he did get away with it for quite a long while. If he'd stayed out of national politics, if he hadn't meddled with foreign policy, if he hadn't played footsy with the Republican leadership in Congress, then his latter day military mistakes about Red China not coming into the war would have been forgotten. He would have never been

fired. He would probably have wound up his career in Japan when the Korean war was ended and come on back to this country as a great hero for his retirement.

Oral History Interview with Robert G. Nixon

Oral History Interview with
Robert G. Nixon