Cheers & Second Looks

In the first heady aftermath of MacArthur's speech, many a Republican chorused praise ("magnificent," "tremendous") without apparently realizing all that MacArthur had said. Indiana's irascible isolationist Senator William Jenner seemed to think that MacArthur had opposed military aid to Europe: "Ex-President Hoover and the Republicans in Congress bought us 85 precious days in their fight on troops to Europe. MacArthur has bought us another, perhaps a final chance, to destroy the Administration's proCommunist, pro-Socialist foreign policy." Ohio's Senator Robert Taft, who had understood what he heard, announced that "I have long approved of General MacArthur's program," though Taft had fought to weaken the draft, to restrict troops for Europe, to scuttle the North Atlantic pact on the ground that it might be provocative to Russia.

Plain Talk. The fact was that Soldier MacArthur was speaking his convictions, and they were tailored to no political wind. His charge that the J.C.S. approved many of his views embarrassed Democrats, as did his insistence that Formosa was vital to U.S. defense. They squirmed as he declared that he had asked for new diplomatic decisions and gotten none, and when he said: "Why, my soldiers asked of me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field? I could not answer." Neither could the Democrats.

But he thoroughly discomfited some of his noisiest Republican supporters who had been assailing Truman for sending troops to Korea. Nebraska's Kenneth Wherry had pointedly called it "Truman's war," and Pennsylvania's Ed Martin had declared that the U.S. people "have no confidence in the hasty midnight decision which ordered our soldiers into the so-called police action in Korea." MacArthur said: "That decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one."

And MacArthur lent no support to those who, with ex-President Hoover, would make the U.S. a Gibraltar, or to Taft's thesis, reiterated last week, that "We must not overcommit this country . . . There is a definite limit to what we can do." MacArthur said: "There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts. I can think of no greater expression of defeatism."

Internationalists in both parties were concerned at MacArthur's omission of any mention of the United Nations, to which, as the first U.N. commander in history, he last week delivered a progress report. Many were also sobered by MacArthur's guess that if his proposals were carried out, Russia "will not necessarily" enter the war. Though Republicans in Congress considered MacArthur a godsend to the party, there were few who publicly endorsed all of his proposals.

Acclaim. In the press, the pattern was the same. The Scripps-Howard newspapers could and did give MacArthur's speech full approval; it was, in fact, an eloquent summation of their editorial position. The Hearst papers and McCormick's Chicago Tribune, determinedly isolationist, forgot it all, and cheered as though they had been in MacArthur's position all the time. But for most of the nation's press, editorial writers contented themselves with acclaiming the speech in general terms, cheering MacArthur the Soldier, berating the Administration--for its lack of policy --and demanding answers.

The Democrats lay low. The night before MacArthur's speech. Harry Truman had sent Secretary of State Dean Acheson out to brave the emotional storm and to insist that the Administration still wanted the Reds to bear the onus of any extension of hostilities." J.C.S. Chairman Omar Bradley (who presides but has no vote in J.C.S. deliberations) also got in a lick before MacArthur spoke. In a speech cleared with State, Bradley insisted that "our best chance for survival . . . is to continue negotiation in this worldwide conflict as long as possible."

Sober heads in both parties pleaded for calm judgment. Said Pennsylvania's big Jim Duff: "The country is on a tremendous emotional binge." In a radio debate, Indiana's Senator Homer Capehart declared angrily that anyone who opposed using Chiang's forces was fundamentally "sympathetic with Communist China." Shouted Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey: "The Senator is a prevaricator . . ." The broadcast ended as the two Senators fell into an ineffectual but angry battle of shoves, which another Senator present described as "a cream-puffy business."

In Congress, the Republicans pressed for an all-out investigation of Administration foreign policy by a special committee, with the membership split equally between the two parties. The Democrats, led by Georgia's astute Senator Richard Russell, held out for a hearing before the combined Senate Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee, where the Democrats' normal majority would give them control. Not only MacArthur but all the Joint Chiefs would be called to testify.

By week's end, Russell had won his point. And the country, a little breathless but sobering up, was discussing the fateful issues of foreign policy with more intelligence, information and interest than it had in years. If Douglas MacArthur could force an effective foreign policy on both the isolationist Wherrys and the hesitant Achesons, he would indeed have served his country as "an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty."

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