The Course Ahead

"My proposals," said Douglas MacArthur, "stand the best chance that is possible of ending this war in the quickest time and with the least cost in blood." Under the Senators' questioning, he spelled it out in careful detail--the blockade and bombing of China, the "unleashing" of Chiang Kai-shek's forces, the conviction that a U.S. ground invasion of the China mainland would be unnecessary and wrong.

But, since other nations oppose your plan, wouldn't the U.S. have to act without United Nations support? asked Rhode Island's Democratic Senator Theodore Green.

MACARTHUR: "My hope would be of course that the United Nations would see the wisdom and utility of that course, but if they did not, I still believe that the interest of the U.S., being the predominant one in Korea, would require our action."

GREEN (in surprise) : "Alone?"

MACARTHUR: "Alone, if necessary."

MACMAHON: "I am sure, general, that you do not underrate the advantage of having our allies with us."

MACARTHUR: ". . . Indubitably it is advantageous for us ... we have plenty of allies, but the numbers of them do not contribute in the same generous and noble way in which we do . . ."

GREEN: "Why do you think that the Chinese now on Formosa . . . could achieve a victory when Chiang Kai-shek suffered such a severe defeat previously?"

MACARTHUR: "Using them in conjunction with [my other] recommendations ... I believe that we would achieve a victory within a reasonable period of time . . . The potential of China to wage modern war is limited. She is unable herself to turn out an air force or to turn out a navy ... I believe that the minute the pressure was placed upon her distributive system, the minute you stop the flow of strategic materials . . . that she would be unable to maintain in the field even the armies that she has now . . . We have no desire to destroy China, quite the contrary. [But] I believe under those conditions she would talk a reasonable cease-fire procedure."

GREEN: "You do not think then that [Chiang] would further call upon America for ground forces as well as air and sea forces?"

MACARTHUR: "It would be utterly reckless and foolish for the U.S. to even consider it."

SENATOR RUSSELL: "General, would you mind advising the committee and the Senate what you think is the real strength of the Generalissimo's forces on Formosa?"

MACARTHUR: "I can tell you with considerable responsibility, Senator ... I went down to Formosa . . . The Generalissimo has probably in the neighborhood of a half million troops. The personnel is excellent. They are just exactly the same as these Red troops I am fighting. They have a good morale. Their material equipment is spotty . . . My own estimate would be after the material was there, that those troops would be in very good shape . . . within four months."

Could Chiang's troops maintain themselves on the mainland once landed there by U.S. help? asked Russell.

MACARTHUR: "The possibility of a huge amphibious force landing all that crowd on the mainland might not be feasible . . . They could infiltrate into Indo-China. They could go in small forays and come back . . . Even as a threat they would have relieved the pressure on my command."

SENATOR LODGE OF MASSACHUSETTS: "What would happen with regard to Formosa if Chiang were to land on the mainland and then be wiped out?"

MACARTHUR: "Senator, that is a hypothesis that is very difficult to speculate upon. The basic concept . . . would be that Formosa should not be allowed to fall into Red hands ... I believe if it does, that you have not only lost every thing we gained in the Pacific war, but you have rolled our strategic frontier back from the little island groups that defend us now, all the way to the western coast of the U.S."

What if, while the U.S. was busy against China, Russia were to attack Japan? Russell asked.

MACARTHUR: "I do not believe that it would be within the capacity of the Soviet to mass any great additional increment of force to launch any predatory attack from the Asiatic continent ... All of the sustenance that goes in in such major quantity to support armed forces must pass over that railway line which runs from European Russia across Siberia. That line is strained to the very utmost now to maintain on a normal peace basis the forces which the Soviet maintains in Siberia ... I believe that the dispositions of the Soviet forces are largely defensive . . . The weakness of Red China ... is a corollary of the inability of the Soviet logistical system to send out those munitions to assist its ally."

RUSSELL: "How about the submarine strength of the Soviet in that area?"

MACARTHUR: "The Russian, over the centuries, has never been able to develop a navy . . . The majority of their submarines are of low radius and are largely for defense purposes."

That brought up the question foremost in many a Senator's mind: MacArthur's statement to Congress that Russia "would not necessarily mesh her actions to ours." Explained MacArthur: "My own belief is that the Soviet has two great choices--this perhaps oversimplifies, but it will illustrate my thought. Those two great choices are: first, whether he, at some time or other, is going to attack or not. The second choice is the reverse of that: whether he is not going to attack. He knows, just as well as you and I know, that we are not going to attack him. If he has determined that he is not going to attack, that he is doing well enough in the present atmosphere, that he is acquiring and expanding as rapidly as he can digest it; and that he is not going to attack and that is his basic policy. I do not believe that anything that happens in Korea, or Asia, for that matter, would affect his basic decision."

In his own theater, General MacArthur was decisive in all his answers. But Connecticut's Democrat Brien McMahon reminded him that he had said the problem was global in nature. "If we go into all-out war," said McMahon, "I want to find out how you propose in your own mind to defend the American nation against that war?" Said MacArthur: "That doesn't happen to be my responsibility, Senator. My responsibilities were in the Pacific." Global solutions were the J.C.S.'s business, he declared. Did he know the number of atomic bombs the U.S. had? That Russia had? He did not.

MCMAHON: "Do you think that we are ready to withstand the Russian attack in Western Europe today?"

MACARTHUR: "Senator, I have asked you several times not to involve me in anything except my own area."

Doesn't it make sense not to provoke Russia until the U.S. is readier to fight her? asked McMahon. _ MACARTHUR : "You assume that relatively your strength is going up much more than the enemy's. That is a doubtful assumption, Senator."

MCMAHON: "Well, general, if that is not true on the short-term basis, then it will come, I am sure, as news to everybody in the U.S. Senate . . . Our mobilizer in chief said the other day that [if we can get by] until 1953 without an attack, we will be so strong that they can't attack us, because by that time we will have the planes, we will have the bombs ... we will have the men in uniform."

MACARTHUR: "And in two years what will be your casualty rate of American boys in Korea?"

MCMAHON: "And general, I ask you what our casualty rate will be in Washington, D.C. if they put on an atomic attack. . . ?"

MACARTHUR: "All those risks, I repeat, were inherent in the decision of the U.S. to go into Korea."

McMahon tried another tack. "Who is overwhelmingly the main enemy, in your opinion?"

MACARTHUR: "Communism."

MCMAHON : "Where is the source and brains of this conspiracy?"

MACARTHUR: "How would I know?"

MCMAHON : "Would you think that theKremlin was the place that might be the loci?"

MACARTHUR: "I might say that it is one of the loci."

MCMAHON: "It is obvious that we agree . . . that (the Soviet Union) is our main enemy."

MACARTHUR: "I didn't agree to it."

MCMAHON: "You do not agree?"'

MACARTHUR: "I said that Communism throughout the world was our main enemy."

MacArthur argued that in Korea, "the control is exercised, in my belief, completely by the Red Chinese ... It has been quite apparent to me that the linking of the Soviet to this Korean war has paled out as the events have progressed." In fact, the Soviet might welcome having Red China cut down a bit. "Just what would be beneficial to the Soviet, from their point of view, in the increasing strength of this new Frankenstein that is being gradually congealed and coalesced in China?"

"Don't you think your program would materially affect [U.S.] commitments in [Europe]?" asked Texas' Lyndon Johnson. "No, sir," said MacArthur.

JOHNSON : "Because you think the program that you recommended would require very little additional trained men?"

MACARTHUR: "Very few additional units ... I believe that the major thing is to take off the inhibitions and let us use the maximum of force we have . . . Our strength is the Air and the Navy, as compared to the Chinese. That is where we should apply the pressure."

JOHNSON: "In the light of this program . . . would you favor increasing the limitation on the ceiling now on our armed forces ... of 3,462,000 men?"

MACARTHUR: "Oh, Senator, you are far afield from me ... I have been a theater commander ... I wouldn't know."

And when Senator Fulbright of Arkansas asked whether he approved the Taft proposal to cut the ceiling by 500,000 men, MacArthur diplomatically pleaded that it was a partisan political question he would not tangle with.

On the third day of the hearing, MacArthur seemed more prepared than on the second to regard Russia as the center of the Communist world.

"I believe this," he told McMahon, "that the initiatory action of your potential enemy is already under way. I believe if you don't meet it in Korea, you are doomed to destruction ... I believe that the best way to stop any predatory or surprise attack by the Soviet Union or any other potential enemy is to bring this war in Korea to a successful end, to impress upon the potential enemy that the power we possess is sufficient if he goes to war to overpower him."

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