Monday, Oct. 30, 1950
Question Period
Despite the amiable pictures, the black headlines and the yards of published speculation, only two men knew what had been done or undone at the private, one-hour meeting on Wake Island. One had flown briskly back to Tokyo and gone about his war. The other had flown back to San Francisco to make a speech. A performance of The Barber of Seville had been canceled to give him a platform in the War Memorial Opera House. By the time Harry Truman strode on stage, he had provoked the U.S. into rapt curiosity. But the President did little to satisfy it.
He had talked over "the Far Eastern situation" with General MacArthur, he said, and he thought the general a "very great soldier." Beyond that, most of what he had to say, and the best of it, was aimed, not at his U.S. hearers, but at Asia itself. Though it was highly generalized and gave no added outline to the Administration's haze-bound Asia policy, it was Harry Truman's most articulate statement to date of what--after Korea--the U.S. had to offer the unhappy continent across the Pacific.
"We seek full partnership with the peoples of Asia, as with all other peoples," he said. "What we want is a partnership for peace . . . We know that the peoples of Asia . . . want their farmers to own their land and to enjoy the fruits of their toil. That's one of our great national principles also. We believe in the family-size farm ... we know that the peoples of Asia want their industrial workers to have their full measure of freedom and rising standards of living. So do we . . ." Communism was a seductive "false revolution," said Harry Truman, which would leave Asians "colonial slaves of a new imperialism."
Wrong Airport. But what about MacArthur and what about Formosa? The question flapped along like the albatross as the Independence stuck her blue nose into the thick haze over Washington the next morning, passed over the fog-shrouded National Airport and landed instead at Andrews Air Force Base, twelve miles away (thus forcing Bess Truman, Secretaries Acheson and Snyder and the rest of the welcoming delegation to streak across town behind sirens). No one who knew Douglas MacArthur suspected that Harry Truman had talked him out of his conviction that Chiang Kai-shek should be shored up and Formosa defended against the Chinese Communists. No one who knew Harry Truman had any idea whether the eloquent MacArthur had persuaded his Commander in Chief, in their tete-`a-tete on Wake, that he had better face the fact: Formosa must be kept out of the hands of China's Red masters.
Army Secretary Frank Pace, who had sat in on the open portion of the council of Wake, told newsmen "for guidance only" that the President and the general were in agreement on Formosa. From Tokyo's "informed sources" came word that the general "holds unalterably to the view that Formosa should not be allowed to fall into the hands of a potential enemy of the free nations of the Pacific."
Angry Sunset. This was too much for Harry Truman. Asked at his press conference, "Are you now in complete agreement with General MacArthur on Formosa?" he turned the color of an angry sunset and began chopping at the air with his hands.
He wanted to tell the reporter something that would be good for his soul, he sputtered. It is a pity that you columnists and reporters can't understand the ideas of two intellectually honest men when they meet. The President told reporters that General MacArthur is loyal to the nation's foreign policy, and the President wished a lot of your papers were. There was no disagreement between General MacArthur and himself. There was noth ing to be settled about Formosa.
Amid this shattering burst of shot & shell the question disintegrated. But as the feathers gently drifted down, so did the glamor of Harry Truman's trip to Wake Island.
The President also:
P: Gave the Coast Guard sweeping authority to search vessels, restrict the waterfront and otherwise safeguard U.S. ports because "the security of the United States is endangered by reason of subversive activity."
P: Proclaimed Nov. 23 as Thanksgiving Day, entreating "all my countrymen to appeal to the Most High" to "grant to all nations that peace which the world cannot give."
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