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Holding the Line: August 24-28, 1950 |
 Foreign policy questions predominate discussions in Washington. Public statements by United Nations Commander Douglas MacArthur and Navy Secretary Francis Matthews prompt controvery.
[Executive Secretary to the National Security Council] Jimmy Lay said this morning that he was somewhat surprised at the last State Department’s drafts . . . . He pointed out that the President had asked for policy recommendations on what we do when we reach the 38th Parallel [the pre-war border between South and North Korea]. Jimmy said that he could hardly understand how, in the light of the President’s specific request [on whether to advance militarily across the parallel in an effort to reunite the country], we could reply to the President merely stating that we have no policy recommendations at this time.
State Department Staff Assistant to the National Security Council Max Bishop
Our purpose was to develop in the National Security Council an organization which would serve as a staff no matter what administration might be in power. They were selected for their objectivity and their lack of political tie-ins. They were supposed to stay out of politics . . . . President Truman was always determined to keep politics out of national security problems. All the time I served with him . . . never once did he show any interest in partisan politics, either in the selection of men or on acting upon advice given to him. Really, for a man who was supposed to be partisan he was the most un-partisan man I have seen in that area. . . .
Special Consultant to the President Sydney Souers
When Lay succeeded to the secretaryship, Souers remained on hand several days a week, as a consultant to the President. In this capacity he served as a sort of informal father-confessor and guardian for Lay, an elder-statesman-type personal adviser to the President, and an informal link between them, present at Lay’s daily briefings of the President, confidante to both.
In other words, Souers served as a sort of super-secretary of the NSC, not a personal substitution for the secretariat's neutrality, but part of it himself. He did not function as the presidential alter ego on the NSC, or even as the NSC staff channel back to his White House colleagues. He was rather a quiet participant in the direct relationship between the President and Lay, close-mouthed with his White House colleagues, concerned neither to represent their interest to Lay, nor Lay's to them.
The gap between the White House staff, as a politically oriented, totally presidential entity, and the neutral secretariat of NSC was never bridged in Truman's time on any systematic basis. . . . This had very serious consequences for the evolution of the NSC and for its utility as Presidential staff machinery; consequences of which Souers and Lay were not unaware. But for one reason or another, the missing link was never forged in Truman's time . . . .
Richard Neustadt
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
International News Service White House Correspondent Robert Nixon
The President read the release and discussed it with Mr. Harriman. At 9:30 A.M., Secretary of Defense [Louis] Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State [Dean Acheson], Mr. Harriman, [Press Secretary to the President] Mr. [Charles] Ross, Administrative Assistant to the President] Mr. [George] Elsey, [Army Aide to the President] General [Harry] Vaughan and [Naval Aide to the President] Admiral [Robert] Dennison met with the President for [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General [Omar] Bradley's customary briefing on the military situation. After General Bradley had concluded his short presentation, [Army Chief of Staff] General [J. Lawton] Collins and [Chief of Naval Operations] Admiral [Forrest] Sherman in turn gave an account of their recent visit to Japan and Tokyo. Following their remarks, the President said that he wished to read a statement from General MacArthur. The President then read a copy of the . . . 7-page release. Upon concluding the reading, the President turned to Secretary Johnson and stated that he decisively repudiated the statements MacArthur had made, that MacArthur had made statements in direct contradiction of the foreign policy of the United States . . . .
Administrative Assistant to the President George Elsey
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Administrative Assistant to the President George Elsey
Shortly after that, about thirty minutes after that, Louis Johnson called me up and said that they’d been talking about this - with [Deputy Secretary of Defense] Steve Early and others, over at the Defense Department, at the Pentagon - and he didn’t see that this order of the President’s made any sense: you couldn’t withdraw a letter which was already on the ticker. I said “Louis, don’t argue with me as to whether the President’s order makes sense or not. I heard him give it, and you accepted it; and whether it can be done or not, you’d better do it. He wants that order sent to MacArthur.” Well Louis had a long talk with me, and finally I said, I’m not going to enter into this discussion at all. The President gave you an order and I have nothing in the world to do with it, and I’m not going to be a party to discussing whether the President knows what he’s doing or not.” Then I telephoned [Special Assistant W.] Averell [Harriman] and told him about this and said that he might expect some similar calls; which occurred as soon as he’d hung up the receiver from talking to me, Louis had him on the phone. And this went on for an hour or so; I must have had two or three calls from Johnson, I don’t know how many Averell had. Finally I said, I wasn’t going to talk with him any more, I wouldn’t answer the telephone if he called me; the President had given the order; the order must be carried out; and that was all there was to it.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
A half hour later, . . . [Press Secretary Charles] Ross, [Special Consultant] Admiral [Sydney] Souers, and [Administrative Assistant] . . . [George] Elsey went in to see the President to explain to him the conviction that MacArthur should be ordered in writing, and not simply orally as Secretary Johnson proposed to do, that the statement on Formosa should be withdrawn. About 12 noon, Mr. Ross called [Deputy Defense Secretary] Steve Early to find out what had transpired. Early admitted that nothing had been done about the MacArthur statement and that he and Johnson were trying to draft a statement on the following lines: That if any questions arose in Washington about MacArthur's statement to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the reply would be that the administration had no prior knowledge of it. Ross told Early that was emphatically not enough, and that it was not in accord with what Johnson had promised the President to do. Ross sent out an alarm for . . . [Special Assistant W. Averell] Harriman, and Harriman and Ross together went in to see the President. Ross told the President that Defense seemed to be weak and indecisive. Upon hearing this, the President called Secretary Johnson on the phone and told him that he wished MacArthur "ordered" in writing to withdraw his statement to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The President told Johnson exactly what he wanted inserted in the [Department of Defense] message [of August 26, 1950, ordering the withdrawal of MacArthur's statement to the Veterans of Foreign Wars]. The balance of the morning was spent in routine checks by Ross and Harriman in making sure that Johnson had carried out the President's orders. >From one to three o'clock (P.M.), Ross, Harriman, [Assistant Press Secretary to the President Eben] Ayers and Elsey discussed the manner in which this episode should be treated with the press.
Administrative Assistant to the President George Elsey
[General Douglas] MacArthur is regarded as a Republican and seemingly is playing the Republican line in Far Eastern and Asian policy.
Assistant Press Secretary to the President Eben Ayers
This [order to withdraw MacArthur’s message] was entirely the President's action; . . . [Secretary of State Dean Acheson] and I made no recommendation to him. But after he had done it, I think . . . [we] both felt that it was very important to carry through his order for two reasons: one, that MacArthur should recognize that the President was insisting upon his carrying out his orders which had been an experience that MacArthur had never had; and secondly, that . . . MacArthur’s letter would have less significance in the eyes of the world if it were clear that the President had ordered him to withdraw it.
Special Assistant to the President W. Averell Harriman
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley
Before we left, the question came up--I don’t know who asked it, I think it was the President--as to how the message got in this country, if it came by communication to the Military Establishment. I said I thought if it had, that I would have heard of it. . . . Oh, around 10:30, 11 o’clock, I heard from one of the generals, then from [Secretary of the Army] Frank Pace, that there had been an error. [MacArthur's command in] Tokyo had asked for communications . . . . Army communications had been used to send that message some several days before that time. I went over to see the President . . . [in the early afternoon] without appointment, because unintentionally I had not told him the truth that day . . . . The President was quite indignant. There was discussion at that time between the President and myself about relieving MacArthur as Korean commander, not in any other field, as I recall it. It is permissable, I think, to state the conclusion that we would do nothing about [dismissing MacArthur] . . . at that time. . . . That is the only discussion of that type I ever had with the President.
Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson
Johnson is consumed by an inordinate ambition. He wants to be president, and it is felt that he is without principle in furthering his ambitions - that he would have no hesitancy, if such a thing were possible, in turning to the Republicans if he could not get the Democratic nomination, and that he would not hesitate to attempt to get the Democratic nomination even against the president, should the president decide to run again. We discussed possibilities for the cabinet post, should Johnson be let out. . . . It was pretty well agreed that nothing can be done before election, unless something further develops that makes it absolutely necessary. The speech delivered by [Navy Secretary Francis] Matthews last night [at the Boston Navy Yard raising the specter of a preventive war with the Soviet Union, "instituting a war to compel cooperation for peace,"] brought queries from newspaper men during the day. The State Department issued a statement disavowing it and we merely said we had no comment but, in answer to questions, said that the speech had not been cleared at the White House.
Assistant Press Secretary to the President Eben Ayers
President Harry S. Truman
I tell this long story [of the events of August 26] here because . . . whenever an issue comes up with MacArthur . . . there is great difficulty in getting a firm attitude in dealing with MacArthur in the Pentagon. Well, after several talks back and forth, I think I got a call from the President who said he’d had a call from Louis and there was a long lot of stuff that he couldn’t understand and what did I make out of it. “Well,” I said, “I make out of it that MacArthur was trying to get out of doing what the President had told him to do, but had sent a message complying with the President’s order, and he’d better go ahead and do it.” The President said he thought this was right, but couldn’t make any head or tail out of what Louis Johnson was saying. At any rate, that was then withdrawn [on August 27] and there was quite a hullabaloo in the press, because they all printed the letter and they all printed the fact that the letter was withdrawn. But there was one good effect of it, which was that the President had stood up to MacArthur and had taken no nonsense within the limits of what you could do in this rather difficult situation.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins
President Harry S. Truman
Administrative Assistant to the President George Elsey
[Press Secretary] Charlie Ross came in and we arranged for a 10 a.m. press conference. At that time it was learned that the U. S News [and World Report] . . . had the text of the MacArthur message [to the Veterans of Foreign Wars] in type and copies of the magazine were in the mail. Also the Chicago Tribune had printed it in a late edition this morning. Ross informed the newspapermen that the President had ordered MacArthur to withdraw the message. He said, for quotation and attribution: “In order to avoid confusion as to the United States position with respect to Formosa, the President directed that the statement prepared by General MacArthur on this subject be withdrawn.” He also gave out copies of a letter by Warren Austin, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, to Trygvie Lie, secretary general, on August 25, and previously made public, and a letter dated yesterday, from the President to Austin. He also talked at length, not for attribution to him, on the U.S. policy. He permitted quotation, but not attribution to him, of this statement: “In the field of foreign relations there can be but one voice. The President’s policy must stand as the official policy of the United States.” . . . The President held his usual Monday morning meeting, at 10 o’clock, with the Congressional leaders and [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] General [Omar] Bradley was in then for his regular briefing on the Korean situation. Our staff meeting was at 11 o’clock. There was little discussion of the MacArthur episode. Questions were asked about any further developments in the case of Secretary of the Navy [Francis] Matthews and his ill-advised speech in Boston last week [raising the possibility of a preemptive war with the Soviet Union]. Ross said the President had talked with Matthews this morning and that the incident was closed. I was told, however, that in the telephone conversation Matthews expressed a willingness if it was embarrassing to the President, to tender his resignation. The President told him to forget it. Matthews, Charlie told me, said he wrote the speech aboard a plane, finishing about 3 o’clock in the morning. He sent a copy to the defense establishment for clearance but did not follow it up. Instead he went on to Boston and delivered it without any further word and apparently the speech reached the Defense department too late to be cleared.
Assistant Press Secretary to the President Eben Ayers
The Joint Chiefs of Staff |
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