Present Handicaps

The heart of General MacArthur's argument was that, under its self-imposed limitations, the West cannot win in Korea.

"All you can do is to go up & down like an accordion to an indecisive campaign and to an approximation of a stalemate," said he. "I shrink--I shrink with a horror that I cannot express in words--at this continuous slaughter of men.

"The battle casualties in Korea today probably have passed the million-man mark. Our own casualties, American casualties, have passed 65,000. The Koreans have lost about 140,000 . . . The enemy probably has lost 750,000 casualties . . . A million men in less than eleven months of fighting! And it grows more savage every day. I just cannot brush that off as a Korean skirmish."

The Great Question. The war already has nearly destroyed the Korean nation. "I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited. Now, are you going to let that go on, by any sophistry of reasoning?

". . . This conflict in Korea has already lasted almost as long as General Eisenhower's decisive campaign which brought the European war to an end. And yet the only program that I have been able to hear is that we shall indecisively go on resisting aggression, whatever that may mean. And if you do, you are going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of American lives that will fall . . . and then the great question is--where does the responsibility of that blood rest?

"This I am quite sure--it is not going to rest on my shoulders."

Was his difficulty in not having enough troops to win in Korea?

No, it was not that. "The air and naval forces that were at my disposal out there were only operating at a fraction of their efficiency. They are, in effect, by being confined to the narrow area of the battleground of Korea . . . merely performing that function which would be regarded as tactical support of the infantry line. The great strategic concept of stopping the supplies to troops, of preventing the buildup of troops . . . the disorganization of transportation lines--all of the uses which . . . Navy and air are supposed to do--are not permitted over there."

CHAIRMAN RUSSELL: "The very vital question about this whole tragic controversy is the employment of the Nationalist troops, the position of a naval blockade and the bombing of the bases and lines of supply and communications of the Communist Chinese. Now, every member of the committee wishes to develop just how the controversy arose . . ."

MACARTHUR: "The position of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and my own, so far as I know, were practically identical. On January 12, the J.C.S. presented a study to the Secretary of Defense embodying these conditions:

" 'That we were to continue and intensify now an economic blockade of trade with China.

" 'That we were to prepare now to impose a naval blockade of China and place it into effect as soon as our position in Korea is stabilized, or when we have evacuated Korea, and depending upon circumstances then obtaining.

" 'Remove now the restrictions on air reconnaissance of China coastal areas and of Manchuria.

" 'Remove now the restrictions on operations of the Chinese Nationalist forces and give such logistical support to those forces as will contribute to effective operations against the Communists.' "

The Veto. "I was in full agreement with them and am now. As far as I know, the J.C.S. have never changed those recommendations. If they have, I have never been informed of it. I want to say that the relationships between the J.C.S. and myself have been admirable. All members are personal friends of mine. If there has been any friction between us, I am not aware of it."

RUSSELL: "Do you know what happened to those recommendations?"

MACARTHUR: "No sir, I do not."

RUSSELL: "So if that was a recommendation of the Joint Chiefs, it encountered a veto somewhere along the line, either from the Secretary of Defense or from the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States."

MACARTHUR: "I would assume so, sir."

Senator Russell spotted a discrepancy between the J.C.S. proposal and the general's own program. "There is quite a difference between [air] reconnaissance and attack, is there not?" he asked.

MACARTHUR: "Yes, sir."

RUSSELL: "Did the Joint Chiefs ever suggest in addition to reconnaissance that these bases be attacked?"

MACARTHUR: "Not that I know of. The only order I had was not to attack."

The Unbombed Base. Other "inhibitions" were applied by Washington, MacArthur testified. The ban against bombing Chinese bases also applied to one Communist base 35 miles inside the Korean border.* That order apparently still stands. There was another. "As soon as we realized that the Chinese were moving across the Yalu in force," said MacArthur, "... I ordered the bridges across the Yalu bombed from the Korean side . . . That order was countermanded from Washington, and it was only when I protested violently that I was allowed to."

RUSSELL : "I did not understand exactly what you would have done about the Nationalist troops."

MACARTHUR: "There was a concentration of Red Chinese troops on the mainland which threatened Formosa seriously. Those troops were the Fourth and the Third Field Armies, which afterward showed up in North Korea ... As soon as it became known that these troops had moved up north and were attacking me ... I recommended to Washington that the wraps be taken off the Generalissimo . . . The slightest use that was made of those troops would have taken the pressure off my troops."

A New Concept. Massachusetts' Leverett Saltonstall wondered just what present U.S. policy in Korea was. He quoted a speech by Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk which said that the U.S. was trying to resist aggression and yet prevent a general war. What did the general think of it?

MACARTHUR: "That policy . . . seems to me to introduce a new concept into military operations--the concept of appeasement, the concept that when you use force you can limit that force ... If you practice appeasement in the use of force, you are doomed to disaster."

SENATOR MORSE of Oregon: "[But is not the U.S. buying] time long enough to get our own defenses to the point where we could meet an all-out war with Russia if it should come?"

MACARTHUR: "The great trouble, Senator, is when you try to buy time in Korea, you are doing it at the tremendous expense of American blood. That does not seem to be buying time . . . That is too expensive. There is no certainty that Russia will come in. There is no certainty that she will not come in. There is no certainty that anything that happens in Korea will influence her.

"If you could just say that this line stops aggression and we didn't lose the men, that would be a different thing . . .

''The inertia that exists! There is no policy--there is nothing, I tell you--no plan, or anything!"

* The base, according to Defense Secretary Marshall, was Rashin. It is only 35 miles from the Russian border, 100 miles southwest of Vladivostok, and World War II maps show that it was a Japanese naval base.

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