Office of the Historian

Editorial Note

Following receipt of General MacArthur’s statement in Washington, Mr. Rusk on March 24 drew up an outline of proposed actions which read as follows:

  • “1. Acheson, Lovett and Collins should meet with President at about 11:30 off-the-record.
  • “2. About noon, State Department spokesman should make attached statement. [Text printed below.]
  • “3. The State Department should insist that our foreign policy interests be fully protected by such action by the President and/or the Joint Chiefs of Staff as will insure that no further statements be made by MacArthur beyond operational military communiqués without full clearance with the U.S. Government.
  • “4. The disciplinary problem created by MacArthur’s statement should be left to the Commander-in-Chief, the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  • “5. Rusk should tell the Ambassadors of the 13 nations that MacArthur’s statement was unauthorized and unexpected and give them assurances that steps have been taken by the U.S. Government to prevent a repetition.” (795.00/3–2451)

Subsequent developments on March 24 were summarized by Mr. Rusk in a memorandum dated March 30 to Deputy Under Secretary of State Matthews (795.00/3–3051), which read in part as follows:

“On the evening of March 23 (Washington time) just prior to his departure on a trip to Korea, General MacArthur issued a statement to the press, a copy of which is attached [supra]. The first information on the statement was obtained from the radio and the full text was obtained by the Department and the Pentagon from the press ticker. On March 24 following a meeting with the President attended by the Secretary, Mr. Rusk, Mr. Lovett and General Collins, the Department issued the attached statement. The Departmental spokesman also indicated to the press, not for attribution, that General MacArthur’s statement was unexpected and not cleared with Washington.

“At the same time the JCS transmitted a message to General MacArthur to the effect that the President had directed that his attention be called to the President’s order of December 6, 1950, concerning statements by military officers on matters relating to foreign policy and that in view of the information given him in the JCS message of March 20, ‘any further statements by you must be coordinated as prescribed in the order of 6 December’. The message also stated that the President directed that if the Communist[s] requested an armistice in the field, the fact was to be reported immediately to the JCS for instructions.”

The statement issued to the press by the State Department on March 24 read: “General MacArthur is conducting UN military operations in Korea under military directives issued through the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff which, as the President stated in a recent press conference, are fully adequate to cover the present military situation in Korea. The political issues which General MacArthur has stated are beyond his responsibilities as a field commander are being dealt with in the United Nations and by inter-governmental consultations.” The text of the message transmitted by the Joint Chiefs to General MacArthur, also on March 24, is printed in Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, page 443.

In addition to the above quoted accounts by Mr. Rusk, other versions of the day’s events by participants are contained in Truman, ibid., pages 440–444; Acheson, Present at the Creation, pages 518–519; and Collins, War in Peacetime, pages 269–271.

General Collins in his account referred to two meetings on March 24, one involving Acheson and members of his staff, Lovett, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed by one involving the same group and President Truman. The other versions made no mention of a meeting [Page 268] preceding that with the President. No records of the meeting with the President have been found, presumably in view of Mr. Rusk’s suggestion that the talks be kept off the record.

Also on March 24, the Ambassador in Korea (Muccio) transmitted to the Department of State a statement issued on that day by President Rhee calling once again for the unification of Korea by having United Nations forces advance to the Yalu River (telegram 823, March 24, from Pusan; 795.00/3–2451).