Evening star., 1950-08-29
Too Many Cooks

discussion of foreign policy and allied subjects
by men high in Government that led President
Roosevelt, in World War II, to take positive
action.
Because of the number and often conflicting
statements to the public emanating from mem
bers OF his own official family, MIR. Roosevelt
finally approved machinery through which such
statements were cleared before they were de-
livered. Such clearances became one of the func-
tions of the once of War Information.
The Macarthur episode, coming on the heels
OF Navy Secretary Matthews private adventure
in the public discussion of foreign policy poses
the same sort of question to Mr. Truman He
was represented yesterday as saying that both
incidents are now closed. He was also repre-
sented as believing that there can be but one
voice on American foreign policy and that voice
must be the Presidents
He is right of course. The conduct of our
foreign policy is assigned to the President by the
Constitution. In its discussion by men highly
placed in Government, he must either approve
in advance what is to be said or run the risk of
finding himself and his State Department en-
barrasSed in the development of foreign policy
by various versions of what it is, some of them
lending themselves to the ready Interpretation
of hostile propaganda. If Mr.. Truman does not
insist now on the same sort of procedure that
his predecessor in Office found necessary he may
be forced to do so eventually
General MacArthurs undelivered statement
to the Veterans of Foreign Wars which had been
too thoroughly distributed in advance to be killed
by the Presidents request that it be withheld,
should have been submitted to the President. if
only as matter of official courtesy In this case
the President may have objected to General
MacArthur'S own overSimplified version of the
"fallacious" and "threadbare" arguments of those
who oppose defending Formosa for fear of alien
ating Continental Asia. That is not the whole
story, of course. But whatever may have been
the soundness OF the arguments against interces-
sion in Formosa before the beginning of aggres-
sion by the North Koreans the arguments were
abandoned by the President from that date
onward.
For the most part, however, General Mac
Arthur's explanation of the strategic importance
of Korea undoubtedly expressed the same cold,
hard and entirely logical reasoning which
prompted President Truman on June 27 to an
nounce that he had ordered the 7th Fleet to
prevent any attack on Formosa.' Nor is there
any substantial difference between the Presi-
dents letter to Ambassador Austin underScoring
by repetition Mr.. Austin's recent statement to the
Security Council outlining our Formosan policy
and General MacArthur's statement on the same
subject. What difference there is springs from
General MacArthur's blunt emphasis on the
interests OF Cne united states as cOntraSted with
Ambassador Austin'S more diplomatic references
to the United Nations and his use of such terms
as "neutralizing action" to describe the use of
our armed forces.
The Presidents objection to both the Mac
Arthur and the Matthews statements is based
on other considerations than the substance of
what they had to say
In the case of Mr.. Matthews suggestion that
we might be forced into war of aggression in
order to compel cooperation for peace" the
Navy Secretary was not advocating any such
step. He was merely presenting the point of
view, frequently discussed in Washington and
other parts of the country of preventive war"
in which we would seize the advantages of the
initiative, in the belief that war is inevitable
instead of leaving such advantages to known
aggresSor Mr.. Matthews tried to make it plain
that he spoke as an individual As long as he is
Secretary of the Navy, he cannot speak as an
individual. What he says assumes Importance
not because Mr. Matthews said it but because
the Secretary of the Navy said it. And when the
Secretary of the Navy discusses, no matter how
effectively, the theory of preventive war he tends
to nullify the Secretary of States discussion of
the same subject, in which the theory was ruled
out as contradicting the principles which support
our foreign policy.
General MacArthur's role as military COM
mander is to execute but not to promulgate
foreign policy. 1t would be more becoming for
a man who has won such distinction in his own
field to stick to it.