Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (30 page)

Truman's executive decisions angered a few doubters, such as Taft, who had called for congressional consultation before the United States dispatched its ground forces. At the time, however, these doubters did not say much, and Taft did not press his case. Most people in the frightening, urgent days of late June believed that Truman had to act quickly. When the war went badly, however, Taft and others—mostly conservative Republicans—sharpened their attacks on Truman's display of presidential authority. The President's failure to consult Congress in 1950 added to his political difficulties over the next two and a half years, during which time his foes again and again branded the morass as "Truman's War."

Truman also erred in calling the war a "police action." When he held a press conference on June 29, he declared, "We are not at war." A reporter then asked if it would be accurate to call the fighting a police action under the United Nations. "Yes," Truman replied. "That is exactly what it amounts to."
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His response seemed harmless at the time. But he had already sent in air and naval help, and within twenty-four hours he had committed the first of what became many divisions of American ground forces. Moreover, the brunt of the "UN" effort was borne by South Korean and American men, who were commanded by MacArthur and subsequent American generals. It was therefore misleading to call the war a UN initiative. When the fighting became stalemated, costing many thousands of American lives, it was understandable that people tore into him for calling a "war" a "police action." Words can be big weapons in politics.

In June and July, however, Truman had little to worry about at home, for his decisions evoked widespread approval. Prominent public figures as otherwise different as Thomas Dewey, George Kennan, and Walter Reuther hailed his moves. Eisenhower, then president of Columbia, said, "We'll have a dozen Koreas soon if we don't take a firm stand." Taft, although upset at the bypassing of Congress, indicated he was for American intervention. Even Henry Wallace emerged from relative obscurity to take a hawkish stand. He declared, "I am on the side of my country and the United Nations." By August Wallace was in favor of using nuclear bombs if necessary, and by November he called for massive American rearmament.
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Going to war seemed equally agreeable to the American people. Polls indicated that nearly three-quarters of the public approved of Truman's actions.
Newsweek
questioned individuals, most of whom were delighted that the United States had taken a stand. "After China, the Russians thought they could get away with it," an auto worker in Detroit exclaimed. Another worker angrily replied, "It should have been done two years ago." A businessman agreed: "Truman was in a spot where he couldn't do anything else, but he did all right." A man on a street corner concluded, "I think it's one of the few things the President's done that I approve of, and that seems to be the general feeling among people."
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Opinions such as these revealed a profound truth about Americans in the post-World War II era: they were not only patriotic but also eager—in the short run—to back decisive presidential actions in the field of foreign affairs. Later Presidents, indeed, came to understand that "police actions" and "surgical strikes" could greatly (though briefly) revive sagging ratings in the polls. This was emphatically not Truman's motive for going to war, but his firm and "presidential" resolve helped temporarily to raise his popular standing in the summer of 1950.

Americans above all seemed pleased that the United States had taken—finally—a strong stand against Communism. When Truman's decision to send in troops was announced, members of both houses of Congress stood up and cheered, even though they had not been consulted. When he asked them in mid-July for an emergency defense appropriation of $10 billion (nearly as much as the $13 billion budgeted for the entire year), they stood up and cheered again. Both houses approved his request almost unanimously. Congress also authorized him to call up the reserves, extended the draft, and gave him war powers similar to those exercised by Roosevelt during World War II. Members of Congress were above all pleased that America was standing firm against Communism. Joseph Harsch, an experienced reporter for the
Christian Science Monitor
, summed up the feeling in Washington: "Never before have I felt such a sense of relief and unity pass through the city."
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I
N
K
OREA, HOWEVER
, the war went badly for the United States and its UN allies in the first few weeks. MacArthur had been optimistic; like many Americans he had a low opinion of Asian soldiers, and he thought the United States could clean things up quickly. But he had done a poor job of preparing his occupation forces in Japan.
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The troops who were rushed from Japan to Korea—most of them to the port of Pusan on the southeast corner of the peninsula—were poorly equipped and out of shape. Colonel John "Mike" Michaelis, a regimental commander, complained that many of the soldiers did not even know how to care for their weapons. "They'd spent a lot of time listening to lectures on the differences between communism and Americanism and not enough time crawling on their bellies on maneuvers with live ammunition singing over them. They'd been nursed and coddled, told to drive safely, to buy War Bonds, to give to the Red Cross, to avoid VD, to write home to mother—when someone ought to have been telling them how to clear a machine gun when it jams."
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If conditions had been better, the troops might have had a little time, once in Pusan, to train more intensely. But they were rushed to the front lines. There they were torn up by the well-planned North Korean advance. Ignorant of the terrain, UN forces also struggled against drenching rains, which turned roads into mud and created near-chaotic snarls for retreating vehicles. Temperatures hovered around 100 degrees during the day. Thirsty American soldiers drank standing water from rice fields that had been fertilized with human waste: many were wracked with dysentary. In the first two weeks of savagery, much of it in nighttime close combat, United Nations forces suffered 30 percent casualties and reeled back toward Pusan.
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During late July the North Koreans kept driving south, inflicting devastation on the UN forces, the vast majority of whom were Americans. But the UN was slowly evening the odds. Rapid dispatch of troops from Japan boosted manpower; UN troops outnumbered North Korean in the South by early August. Artillery and anti-tank weapons gradually neutralized the T-34 tanks. And the UN forces had overwhelming superiority in the air. This they used to full advantage, raising havoc with North Korean supply lines. UN air superiority remained vital throughout the war, enabling the dropping of 635,000 tons of bombs (and 32,557 tons of napalm)—more than the 503,000 tons dropped in the Pacific theater during all of World War II.
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The bombing followed a consciously devised "scorched earth" policy that wiped out thousands of villages and deliberately destroyed irrigation necessary for the all-important rice economy of the peninsula. Thousands of Koreans suffered from starvation and slow death; many survivors cowered in caves. The number of civilian deaths—estimated at around 2 million—approximated 10 percent of the prewar population of the peninsula. The ratio of civilian deaths to total deaths in the Korean conflict was considerably higher than in World War II or Vietnam.
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Firepower such as this inflicted especially heavy casualties on the North Korean forces, which (according to later estimates) suffered 58,000 dead or wounded by early August. They lost around 110 of their 150 tanks. Increasingly reliant on green conscripts, they also stretched their supply lines. At this point the UN forces stiffened within a small but defensible perimeter bounded in part by the Naktong River on the north and the Sea of Japan to the east. The perimeter protected Pusan, where supplies and troops were off-loaded at a furious pace. General Walton Walker, commander of the American Eighth Army, had the advantage of mobility within the perimeter. Having broken North Korean codes, his forces often knew where enemy would attack. By mid-August the UN no longer feared a Dunkirk-like evacuation.
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Disaster having been averted, MacArthur began pressing his superiors in Washington for approval of a retaliatory operation that he had conceived early in the war: a surprise amphibious landing at the port of Inchon, some thirty miles west of Seoul. Such an attack, he argued, would catch the enemy by surprise, outflank them, trap them between UN forces to the north and to the south, and obviate need for the alternative: a long and bloodier counter-offensive straight up the peninsula.

MacArthur's plan at first seemed too risky for Bradley and other top-ranking military officials in Washington. Admirals were especially nervous about it, for Inchon had no natural beach—only seawalls that protected the city. Worse, the tides at Inchon were enormous, up to thirty-two feet. An amphibious assault would have to be timed to coincide with the highest of high tides, either September 15, September 27, or October 11. If anything went wrong, such as a sunken ship blocking the harbor, the assault could be stalled and the landing ships left grounded on an open expanse of mud. It was rumored, moreover, that the Russians were mining the harbors. "Make up a list of amphibious don'ts," one naval officer grumbled, "and you have an exact description of the Inchon operation."
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In considering the Inchon option, Truman, Bradley, and others also had to consider its source: MacArthur himself. MacArthur, then seventy years old, was one of the most distinguished soldiers in American history. Graduating number one in his class from West Point in 1903, he served in the Philippines, East Asia, and Mexico and reached the rank of major by the time of America's entrance into World War I in 1917. As commander of the famed 42d Infantry (Rainbow) Division during the war, he proved a brave and dashing leader. Twice wounded, he was decorated thirteen times and emerged from the war a brigadier general. He then became superintendent of West Point, held various other high-ranking posts in the Philippines and the United States, and was elevated to chief of staff of the army in 1930. At age fifty he was the youngest man ever to hold that post.
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When his term as chief of staff ended in 1935, MacArthur was named military adviser to the newly created Philippine Commonwealth. Though he retired from the United States Army in 1937, he stayed on in the Philippines with the rank of field marshal. Famed for his gold-braided hats, aviation-style sunglasses, and corncob pipes, he was a fabled figure even before World War II. When war broke out, he returned to active duty to become commander of United States Army forces in Asia. Though driven out of the Philippines after the bloody battles of Bataan and Corregidor in 1942, he escaped to Australia and commanded American soldiers in the successful island-hopping assaults that battered Japan in the Pacific. By war's end he had returned to the Philippines and become a five-star general. Thereafter he served as commander of American occupation forces in Japan, where he developed a hugely favorable reputation as a firm but benevolent destroyer of Japanese militarism. By 1950, when the Korean War broke out, he had been in Asia, never returning to the United States, for more than thirteen years.

This impressive record of achievement gave MacArthur an almost legendary reputation. Many observers of his work in postwar Japan hailed him as an American Caesar. But Bradley and others who knew him recognized that MacArthur was also vain, arrogant, and domineering. Having spent much of his life in Asia, MacArthur was certain that it was crucial to the long-run security of the United States. He was equally sure that he understood the "mind of the Oriental," as he called it, better than anyone in Washington. He was surrounded by sycophants and reveled in publicity, much of it provided by photographers who took pictures of him that flatteringly emphasized the jut of his jaw and by journalists who turned out copy that highlighted his personal achievements without saying much about the contributions of others. Eisenhower, asked if he knew MacArthur, later said, "Not only have I met him. . . . I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four in the Philippines."
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Truman, too, had his doubts about MacArthur. In 1945 he had referred to him in his journal as "Mr. Prima Donna, Brass Hat" and as a "play actor and bunco man."
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When MacArthur issued an unauthorized statement in August 1950 on the need for American defense of Taiwan—a sensitive foreign policy question—Truman was so livid that he personally dictated a message calling on MacArthur to withdraw his statement. As Truman conceded later, by which time MacArthur had many times overstepped his position as a military commander, he would have done well to have removed the general then and there.

Instead, Truman not only kept MacArthur on but also—following approval by the Joint Chiefs—authorized the Inchon operation. Given the go-ahead, MacArthur moved quickly, and the assault took place on September 15. Protected by American air power, some 13,000 marines poured ashore and overwhelmed the small, inexperienced garrison of troops who were defending the area. Only twenty-one Americans lost their lives in the landing. Inchon fell within a day, and additional UN forces stormed east into Seoul. At the same time, American and ROK troops broke through the Pusan perimeter and chased the now retreating North Koreans northward. By September 26 the devastated city of Seoul was again in UN hands; by September 27 half of the North Korean army was trapped; by October 1 UN forces were back at the 38th parallel. Although 40,000 or so North Korean troops escaped into the North—a severe disappointment to the United States—the Inchon assault had turned the war around. MacArthur had organized a remarkably successful military operation.
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