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Show Page SATURDAY, MAY 5, THE JOURNAL 2 THE GREAT CONTROVERSY , tr . , f i ".' y v. .... ... There's a Little of General MacArlhur in All of Os, And History Shows Symptoms Behind His Dismissal Have Existed in Various Forms for Many Centuries By W. P. SCIIOENTGEN WNU Managing Editor There is a kind of universality about Douglas MacArthur that communicates itself to many men, something of the same stuff that leads nearly everyone to believe in his own heart that he can run a newspaper and play Hamlet with a deathless genius. Was MacArthur right or wrong in his belief in the strategic priority of Asia, the bombing of Manchuria, the ultilization of Chinese Nationalist forces? Did he, in his public and private and rejection of administration United Nations policies in the Far East, express a subconscious desire to achieve martyrdom for his principles? Did President Truman take the right action but at the wrong time in relieving MacArthur of his multiple command? It doesnt make any difference who you are you undoubtedly have your own strong, definite and perhaps impassioned answer to each of those questions. And according to your answers, you align yourself on one side or the other Thus he has become a political symbol, having stood at the spearhead of Americas often inept and fumbling but always intense desire for peace that patently will not be had for the asking but which may come If we fight hard enough for it. Whether the principles he has advocated are right or wrong, it is MacArthur the symbol, not MacArthur the man, around which the very real, very basic foreign policy quarrel has gathered. From that point of view, the MacArthur controversy is an old and elemental form of domestic strife that has occurred and recurred within this or that national Mitchell for defying orders. Mr. Coolidge made it clear, however, that he was in sympathy with the cause of aviation which Mitchell of General Mitchell is anybodys guess. One of the abiding characteristics of many powerful and successful military leaders in the past has been their capacity to capture the imagination and sympathy of the people and carry them along a chosen course to a point, at least. This makes for power and authority. And the possession of broad authority is like having a permit to carry a pistol. Keep it in the holster and depend upon its presence there to control circumstances, and chances are you wont The danger of get Into trouble. a in the possibillies gun carrying or sooner that later ity you might start firing it indiscriminately and a lot of people will get hurt, including yourself. Julius Caesar, an overwhelming military and political genius, amassed for Rome and for himself a great reservoir of power which he was able to And when Grant took command in March, 1864, he found he had to fight not only the enemy but the torpor and passivity of his own generals in the field. The mili- pretty mistrusted they feared that it, Caesar might No single man or group of men were strong enough to fire or depose the ruler by legal means. So Brutus and Cassius plotted, and on a day in March, Caesar, powerful and unsuspecting, walked up the steps of the Capitol to meet the knives of his assassins Controversy, Then, Too That stirred up a great civil conTRUMAN AND MACARTHUR TALKED AT WAKE ISLAND troversy in Rome, too. Was Caesar . . . but the result was only an uneasy truce . . , right in his principles and policies the Roman empire, or of the MacArthur controversy the community ever since man has concerning were the men who deposed him by was personifying. But he also made great American schism of 1951. him right? It might be It is a basic division, a schism it plain that, sympathy or no sym- liquidating that Rome, under Caesar, of the soul and spirit; and the rock pathy, he could not overlook the argued reached its peak of dynamic exupon which the split has occurred insubordination of which General pansion and that its decline began is a military man, a soldier, yea, Mitchell was found guilty. after Caesars death in 44 B.C. But even a general An Assist to Air Power regardless of the truth of that poMens Drama Military The violent closing of Billy sition, the split over the aims and Caesar marked That in itself is not unusual. It Mitchells career, we know now, policies is, in point of fact, a fairly sound marked the turning point of the historical tradition that controversy over the future of military aviation, and the pioneering general did much to advance U.S. air power to the mighty peak it reached in time to help win World War II. Whether time and events will vindicate General MacArthurs ideas as fully as they have those ben able to formulate and defend an opinion. s great pj&j 4ili v V ft b' v GENERAL MACARTHUR he went his own way epochs of mans development are likely to turn upon the personality of a military leader, probably because it is easy for the public to focus its attention upon a man who can be identified writh the drama of danger and physical action, and with the glamour of military triumphs. General MacArthur follows vigorously in that tradition. It has been his peculiar destiny to help lead this nation in smiting tyranny both right and left within the past decade, striking to the right at Japanese imperialism in World War II and to the left at Communist efforts at domination in Korea and the Far East. Without attempting to make any invidious comparisons, a number of historic parallels to the MacArthur case become apparent from a quick glance at the records. There is a superficial resemblance, for instance, between the firing of MacArthur by President Truman and Calvin Coolidges dismissal of the late General Billy A . ' . V PRESIDENT TRUMAN he lowered the boom an epochal turning point in the tory of the Roman empire. Scotlands S .Xv'N ,w ' ..j immortal issue at stake that time was whether or not Meade, Hooker, McClellan and the othersof inUnion string were generals right in fighting a defensive war, battles . avoiding wherever possible, more often to retreat than to fight. Grant favored action and offensive contact with the Confederate armies. Over the protestations of his subordinates, he decided to attack wherever possible and carry the war to the enemy. The ultimate surrender of General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox proved the rightness of Grant strategy. But Grant, who went on to become President of the United States, albeit not an especially popular one, remained the center of a maelstrom of violent opinions all tary it. e Bruce was the storm center of a raging controversy much of his life, while he held to and fought for his ideal of a free and independent nation. He settled that issue himself, however, by decisively defeating the English forces under Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn in June, 1314, and assuring the continuance of Scotland as an independent kingdom. Every student of American history knows of the quarrels and differences of opinion that flared after President Abraham Lincoln put General Grant in charge of the Union armies. Some members of Lincolns own cabinet not only refused to support but actively opposed Grants appointment. It was, in a sense, a MacArthur situation in reverse. lurking behind our thinking and our attitude on the question of how best to fight the monstrosity of world communism has been brought plainly into the open and is clearly defined. There is no longer an., reason for anyone be he statesman, military man, farmer, storekeeper or factory worker to deny the existence of that doubt. Now it can be talked about and it can be eliminated. That is the great service that President Truman and General MacArthur have unwittingly per- formed for the nation and the free world. They have managed to get all the cards on the table. The answer, still to be found, Is there somewhere. Grants Problem exercise much at will. But there were those who felt he had too much power; mis-us- RED ARMY SPEARHEADS THE MENACE OF COMMUNISM . . . would MacArthurs policies have brought total war ? . , . his- Robert MacArthur's Father Had Troubles, Too Gen. Douglas MacArthurs father, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, embroiled himself in a bitter dispute with civilian authorities 50 years ago when he was military governor of the Philippine Islands, which the U.S. had just acquired from Spain. William Howard Taft arrived in the islands as head of a presidential commission charged with establishing a civilian government in the Philippines. Although President William McKinley was under heavy pressure in Washington to establish a civilian government as soon as possible, Arthur MacArthurs command took the point of view that only the army could do a proper job of restoring order and control. When Taft arrived, MacArthur coldly refused to see him. his life. So the MacArthur story is by no means a new one. Call his actions and utterances in Korea insubordination, or call them an honorable defense of his own principles, they have basic meaning for us as a dramatic illustration of the grim fact that the United States has to choose between two basic and different courses in this battle against the evils of communism. One way is going to be right, the other wrong. We say that the nation, in its collective mind, has split over the issue of which is the best way to deal with Communist aggression in the Far East. But it is not, it cannot be, a fatal The doubt that has been split. ' ft V - V' - ' A A Uf ' ' X rX"s ' V' KOREAN NATIVE HELP . . . nX-- In the United States everyone had an opinion and didnt hesitate to express it. Native laborer struggles up slope to very high frequency relay station of Americans In Korea with drum of diesel fuel strapped to his back. i |