Evening star., 1951-04-13
Not Metieufous. but

AS his closest associate in Tokyo, Major Cen
eral Whitney has declared that General Mac
Arthur "feels that he has complied meticulously
with all directives" received from the White
House and the Joint Chiefs of STAFF, mot only
recently, but throughout his entire military
service" This may be regarded 'as one of the
outstanding overstatements of the year, and per-
haps even of the decade. But it nevertheless has
the virtue of being Iead-on challenge to those
who have been just bit too glib in asserting
that the dismissed commander-a genuinely great
soldier-has been guilty OF gross INSTRUMENTATION.
To say this is not to say that the President
did not do the unavoidable thing, in relieving
General Macarthur Of his commands. Consider
ing the Generals basic disagreement with the
Government on our lmited-war policy in Korea,
MIR. Truman-as Chief Executive and Com
rnander In Chief of the Nations armed forces
could hardly have done otherwise. Yet, however
much it may seem to gloss over certain facts, the
Whitney statement when read in connection
with the seven White House documents bearing
upon the dismissal action, takes considerable
wind out of the charge that the Macarthur in
dscretions have really been acts of shockingly
willful defiance and disobedience.
At any rate, when one studies the texts the
seven documents do not add up to evidence of
spectacular INSTRUMENTATION. Together with Gen.
eral Whitneys seven-point comment on them,
they lend themselves to all kinds of hair-splitting
and tortuous pro-and-con argument that could
fill volumes-and probably will if Congress de-
cides to stage fulldresS inquiry into the matter.
Details and technicalities to one side, however,
what the whole thing shows is that General
Macarthur, despite December directive to do
so failed to abide by presidential order to the
effect that no speech, press release or public
statement on foreign or military policy (routine
pronouncements excepted) was to be released
without prior clearance from the State and De-
fense Departments. 1t indicates, further, that
his March "a cease-fire proposal was injudicious
and out of line, not only because it thrust him
indirectly into a political sphere beyond Ais
authority, but also because he had been told
beforehand that the President was planning to
make an announcement on the Subject-a fact
that ought to have persuaded him to keep silent
pending that announcement. Finally as another
example, his letter to House Minority Leader Joe
Martina letter advocating the use of maximum
counterforce" against the Communist aggressor
and implying that it might be wise to let Chiangs
troops invade the Chinese mainland from For
moSa-gave the impression that he was helping
to build up partisan political fire against the
limited-war policy of his superors in command.
All this certainly suggests that General Mac
Arthur, prior to his dismissal was less than
meticulous in complying with directives from the
documents thus far released by the White House
do not support such charges as the one depicting
his cease-f1re statement as something made up
largely OF language "lif.ed" from confidential
ScS message to him. Moreover some OF the