Being a Good Boy

Big, bald Louis Johnson was genial, relaxed and spruce in a brown summer suit and white shoes. The Senators, in the seventh week of the MacArthur hearing, obviously cottoned to ex-Secretary of Defense Johnson. Inquisitors and witness amiably exchanged anecdotes, often dropped into informal use of first names. Johnson ducked questions with easy bluffness that politicians understand. "Do you still beat your wife?" he countered to one loaded question. At times, he talked about himself in the third person with the air of a man watching himself from the wings of history, a faint, fond smile on his lips.

Day In & Day Out. Johnson declared firmly, "I shall not indulge in personalities," and he didn't. "I am trying to be a good boy," he said. But he left no doubt that the two top men in Harry Truman's Cabinet--he and Dean Acheson--had differed sharply. Military policy, said Johnson, was "being influenced by the State Department prior to a simon-pure decision by Defense." Their chief differences were over Formosa. "The Defense Department battled day in & day out to keep Formosa out of hostile hands."

Johnson had noted in Foggy Bottom "a seeming hostility" to Chiang's government. On military aid programs, "without being able to give you details, the definite feeling I had, there was a dragging of feet, an effort to delay . . .

"Generally speaking, it seemed to me that the State Department was critical of and did not support the government we recognized. Personally, I was extremely fearful that we were going to recognize Communist China in the indirect way of permitting it to become a member of the United Nations."

Johnson seized the opportunity to justify his own record, and to reproach the Administration. Going into one session, with two Republican Senators, he said: "Ask me why I was fired." Someone did. Said Johnson: "My answer is truthfully, under oath, I don't know. I don't know to this day."

Nights of Decision. In passing, Johnson gave the Senators a fascinating glimpse into the tense meetings where the decision was made to send U.S. forces to meet the Korean invaders. On a Sunday night, after the first shock of the invasion, the nation's highest officials met at dinner in Blair House. "I felt that Formosa entered into our security more than Korea . . . General MacArthur had prepared a memorandum on Formosa which I thought was brilliant and I [asked] General Bradley to read that memorandum . . . During dessert, maybe before the dessert plates were taken out, the Secretary of State again brought up the Korean question ... I interrupted to say that before we got into that too deeply I wanted to discuss Formosa further. The only really violent discussion Secretary Acheson and myself ever had took place for a moment.

"When the President took over the meeting, Secretary Acheson stated the picture, as he saw it, on Korea. The President then turned to me and asked the views of Defense ... A major portion of the evening was taken in the individual, unrehearsed, and unprepared and uncoordinated statements of the several Chiefs and Secretaries ... I was rather proud of them that night."

No Quibble. Before the meeting adjourned, Johnson told the President that he wanted to start the fleet moving from the Philippines toward Japan. "The President said, 'That is a good idea, do it.' I turned to Admiral Sherman and said, 'If you will excuse yourself, you get it started right away.' " The meeting adjourned and the following night the conferees met again at Blair House. "The Secretary of State moved, reading from a prepared statement, that we send the Navy and Air Force in ... The military neither recommended nor opposed it. We had on the previous evening pointed out the difficulties and the limitations . . . The President then made the decision to go into Korea with the two. I thought the decision was right then, and I think so now."

Asked New Hampshire's Styles Bridges: "You concurred . . ."

JOHNSON: "I am not going to quibble with words today, but concurred is a little too strong ... If we wanted to oppose it, then was our time to oppose it. Not a single one of us did."

On that Monday night, Dean Acheson also made the motion to send the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa, "to my great surprise and my relief," said Johnson.

Johnson also wanted the Senators to know that the famed $13 billion muscle-without-fat budget for 1949-50 was imposed on him by the President. "I was sick about it. My choice was to try to make that thing work or resign." But looking back, he refused to admit that the $13 billion budget was a mistake, though the services had originally asked for $30 billion. In fact, Johnson lectured the Senators, they should worry even now that the services "will ask you for more stuff than is necessary for the safety of America ... I am concerned still that we can spend ourselves into a climate that will be what Stalin wants ... If you do, you will wreck America."

Johnson had given a solid basis to Republican charges that the State Department had been willing, if not anxious, to see Chiang go under. But even Republicans were anxious to finish up the apparently endless and repetitious testimony into which the hearing was degenerating. Over the weekend, a subcommittee pared down the list of witnesses to four, announced that MacArthur would be invited to testify in rebuttal, and hoped wanly that the hearing could be concluded by the end of the month. So did just about everybody.

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