Behind the Door

The real story behind the famed Wake Island report came out. Senator Russell asked to see the complete transcript of the President's island conference with MacArthur, which Harry Truman had leaked to the New York Times to prove that MacArthur had been wrong about China's intervention in Korea, and to imply that he was likely to be wrong in his estimate of Russian intentions (TIME, April 30). The Department of Defense dutifully sent along the report, with a covering letter from General Omar Bradley.

Instead of a formal state document, what the Senate got turned out to be largely a casual collection of jottings by a State Department secretary who had overheard some of the talks. Nobody was present when the President and MacArthur talked privately at breakfast on Wake, and no stenographer was present officially at the full-scale conference later attended by both staffs. But at the big conference, Ambassador Philip Jessup's secretary, pretty Vernice Anderson, had been sitting quietly in a tiny cubbyhole off the conference room, waiting to type up the communique. Fresh pineapple was laid out for everybody's refreshment at the table where she sat. The talks began, voices carried through the slatted doors. Vernice Anderson told newsmen that she just "automatically" started writing. "It was under no one's instruction," she added. "I hadn't even gone there with a regular notebook. I happened to have a pad of lined paper and I just began notes. It seemed the thing to do."

After the conference broke up, she stepped out into the main room. "Where did this lovely lady come from?" MacArthur asked gallantly, she recalled. Later, when everyone was trying to remember what had been said, efficient Secretary Anderson proudly produced her notes. Not even the President knew she had taken them.

MacArthur brushed the report aside. The release of the Wake Island memo had "about as much bearing on the problem of Korea today," said his spokesman, General Courtney Whitney, "as would a report on the military operations on Bunker Hill." MacArthur hadn't even known that "surreptitious" notes were taken. He had wanted some taken himself, but had been specifically told "that there would be no stenographic reports taken of the conference." Had he received any copies of the transcript? asked New Hampshire's Senator Styles Bridges during the hearings next day. He had been sent copies, MacArthur admitted, but had filed them away without a second glance. "I have no doubt that in general they are an accurate report of what took place."

Oddly enough, the report made almost no mention of Formosa, the question that had stirred up all the fuss. The transcript simply quoted Harry Truman as saying to the assembled staffs that he and the general had "talked fully about Formosa," and were "in complete agreement." Was that true? asked Massachusetts' Senator Leverett Saltonstall. "The agreement," answered MacArthur, "was that both of us had dropped the question of discussing [Formosa] there at Wake Island, [or] at any other time."

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