Harry Truman’s decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn’t realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn’t realize Truman had the nerve.
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The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War
From the drama of Stalin's blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur's forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.
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But Truman did fire MacArthur, whose complaints against the commander in chief had grown louder and more public. MacArthur wanted to expand the war against China, which had entered the Korean fighting in late 1950. MacArthur complained that the president was tying his hands by forbidding the bombing of China, thereby sacrificing American lives and endangering American freedom.
Truman suffered the complaints for a time, out of respect for MacArthur and wariness of MacArthur’s allies in Congress. But the complaints began to confuse America’s allies and enemies as to what American policy was and who made it. The last thing Truman wanted was a wider war in Asia, which would weaken the American position in Europe. And Europe, not Asia, was where the Cold War would be won or lost, Truman judged.
