Key Question

The New Dealing anti-Communist New York Post and Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker both seized happily on the Gallup poll this week to bolster their anti-MacArthur positions. The poll, they trumpeted, proved that while most of the U.S. (62%) disapproved of MacArthur's firing, Americans certainly did not buy Mac-Arthur's policies of toughening the war against the Chinese Reds. They cited the fact that three out of every five who were interviewed, according to Gallup, thought that the U.S. should try harder to make peace with the Reds.

"It seems perfectly plain," said the Post, "that in the immediate aftermath of the upheaval, MacArthur had more personal fans than the President. It is equally clear, however, that the course of action recommended by the general--and opposed by Mr. Truman--was rejected with even greater vehemence."

But both papers had reached their conclusions by leaving out a key question in the same Gallup poll taken before Mac-Arthur's congressional speech.* The pollsters had asked: "If the U.N. bombed Chinese cities and supply bases do you think it would bring the war in Korea to an end?" On this point 46% of the answers were "yes," 40% "no" (although 75% were against full-scale war with Red China). Despite the Post and Worker, the poll actually indicated that the majority of those who had given their opinion sided with MacArthur, not the Administration.

* For news of a later Gallup poll, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

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