New SCAP

Matt Ridgway got the news of his new command while he was inspecting a forward artillery position on the Korean front. His succession to all the titles of MacArthur was as sudden and startling as his appointment to the Eighth Army's command 3 1/2 months ago on the death of Lieut. General Walton Walker. "Oh my gosh," he stammered as he read the orders from Washington. Next day, Ridgway and his VIP visitor, Army Secretary Frank Pace, flew to Tokyo.

At 4:30 Thursday afternoon, in neat but well-worn combat fatigues, his celebrated hand grenade dangling from his paratrooper's harness, Ridgway drove toward the Dai Ichi headquarters of SCAP. A block away he saw a waiting crowd of 3,000; impulsively he turned back to pay his respects to MacArthur first. The new SCAP and the old spent an hour together at the American Embassy. "A delightful talk," said Ridgway later. That evening he went back to Korea.

On Saturday, at his little-used office in the Eighth Army's rear headquarters, Ridgway prepared to relinquish his old command. "This is not goodbye in any sense of the word," he told correspondents, "because I am still very much a part of this team." Before his final departure for Tokyo, he turned reassuringly to his successor, Lieut. General James Van Fleet. "I won't get in your hair, Van," he said.

Once more in Tokyo, Ridgway checked in at a newly refurbished four-room suite in the Imperial Hotel. He started doing business from the hotel. He demurred at using the Dai Ichi building until after MacArthur had left.

On Sunday morning, Japanese newspapers carried his first public statement to the Japanese, stressing the continuance of MacArthur's occupation policy in phrases that were Ridgway's, yet still bore a strong resemblance to MacArthur's old-fashioned prose.

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