Word: macarthurs
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...already, behind the threnody was heard the thunder of controversy that had accompanied MacArthur throughout so much of his lifetime. Appearing in print were the reports of two decade-old, off-the-record interviews with MacArthur. One, by Scripps-Howard Reporter Jim Lucas, was published in the form of a memo sent by Lucas to his bosses at the time. The other appeared as a reminiscence by Hearst's Bob Considine. Both portrayed MacArthur as an embittered man who had held the Communists "in the palm of my hand," only to be "betrayed" by "those fools in Washington...
...were "relayed by the British, either through India or through the Russian Embassy in London, to the Chinese Communists." Thus, said Lucas, the Chinese Communists "knew in advance every step he proposed to take," and, in fact, entered the Korean conflict only "after being assured by the British that MacArthur would be ham strung and could not effectively oppose them." MacArthur had long since made similar charges. In 1956, he publicly charged that British Spies Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, who had defected to Moscow five years earlier, had been part of the pipeline to the Communists...
Both Lucas and Considine reported that MacArthur was disappointed in Dwight Eisenhower, whom he described as "once a man of integrity." General George Marshall, who was Secretary of Defense during the Korean War, was "the errand boy of the State Department." General Matthew Ridgway, who took over command of United Nations forces after MacArthur's dismissal, was a "chameleon," who "did a complete flip-flop in 24 hours" when he discovered that Washington opposed Mac-Arthur's war strategy. General Maxwell Taylor was "an ambitious man who will never do anything to jeopardize his career...
...Lucas account, MacArthur had a grudging respect for Harry Truman. The President had been in Inde pendence, Mo., when the Korean War started, recalled MacArthur. Truman "reacted instinctively, like the gutter fighter he is-and you've got to admire him." But once Truman got back to Washington, "Dean Acheson brought him back under control." All in all, MacArthur said, Truman was "a man of raw courage and guts-the little bastard honestly believes he is a patriot...
Plan for Victory. To both Lucas and Considine, MacArthur disclosed a plan for winning the Korean War-a plan that the "Anglo-Saxonphiles" stubbornly and successfully opposed. "I could have won the war in Korea in a maxi mum of ten days," he told Considine, "with considerably fewer casualties than were suffered during the so-called truce period, and it would have altered the course of history." The plan called for an air strike with "between 30 and 50" atomic bombs just north of the Yalu River (sec map). This would have wiped out the enemy's air capability...