Political Squall

After long days of earnest decorum the harsh, bitter squalls of politics rolled into the quiet chamber where 26 U.S. Senators were considering high policy and General MacArthur. The witness was General of the Army Omar Bradley, five-star chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley, senior Republican of the Foreign Relations Committee, was pressing him to remember who had called first to tell him that President Truman "was concerned about some of the public statements made by General MacArthur." Said Wiley, sarcastically: "This was an unusual occurrence in your little life, was it not, General--that you should find out that a fellow general was about to have something happen to him? Now, just what was this message that came?"

BRADLEY: "I told you that I did not remember where I first got this information . . . The first time I really came into this, and found out what it was all about, was on Friday morning, April 6, when I met with the President and the others [Defense Secretary Marshall, Secretary of State Acheson, Presidential Adviser W. Averell Harriman] in his office."

WILEY: "All right. Now tell us what was said then."

BRADLEY: "Senator, at that time I was in a position of a confidential adviser to the President. I do not feel at liberty to publicize what any of us said at that time."

Snapped Wiley: "I am asking for the chairman to rule that my question is pertinent and relevant and should be answered." With that, the sober and careful tone of the hearing was drowned out by the jangle of its first noisy dispute.

Chairman Russell ruled that Bradley, as a confidential adviser, did not have to reveal confidential conversations with the President. Wiley protested. The committee broke into angry wrangling. Democrats pointed out that precedents running back to George Washington had protected the right of Presidents to privacy in their communications with confidential advisers. As a matter of most recent precedent, when General MacArthur declined to reveal his private conversations with President Truman at Wake Island, no one had questioned his refusal. Texas' Tom Connally rumbled: "How could a President do anything at all if all you had to do was to station a man out in front of the White House and take down the name of anybody who went into the White House to see the President and then jerk him up before a committee and say: . . . 'Tell us what he said. Tell us what you said to him.' "

California's Republican William Knowland remarked darkly: "I am fearful if at this time an iron curtain is lowered . . . then it becomes a question as to whether ... or not we do not have a responsibility to go back [to the Senate] and report that under the conditions we face we may not be able to carry out [our] obligation." Arkansas' Democrat William Fulbright retorted: "I hope the Senator has not decided to sabotage or destroy this hearing simply because the evidence now being presented does not support General MacArthur."

Sprung Trap. Some of Wiley's fellow Republicans privately accused him of blundering; he had, they told favored newsmen, triggered a trap which they had set for Secretary of State Dean Acheson. The plan had been to make unpopular Dean Acheson the chief G.O.P. target, ask him pointed questions about his discussions with the President, then try to cite him for contempt if he refused to answer. Even if they couldn't make the charge stick, Republicans hoped to keep the case in the courts and before the public until 1952.

Wiley had spoiled the strategy by trying it on Omar Bradley, a man as widely respected as Acheson is disliked. Even among his Republican colleagues, Wiley got only partial support.

Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge deplored the effect on the "whole normal development of information." Oregon's maverick Wayne Morse supported Russell's ruling stoutly, and New Jersey's Republican Alexander Smith complimented the chairman on conducting the hearings "on the highest possible plane of fairness." From the White House, Harry Truman issued a statement: "The President made the decision [to fire MacArthur]. Conversations that led up to it are his business."

When the vote was taken, the committee backed Russell's ruling 18-8. The Republicans themselves split 6-6. Unabashed, Wiley cried: "It is the committee majority which has been partisan in its frantic desire to cover up and whitewash." While his colleagues kept a pained silence, Wiley declared that the committee should subpoena Harry Truman himself. This was too much for Chief Republican Strategist Robert A. Taft, who disowned it as something that "constitutionally couldn't be done."

Point of Agreement. Before the investigation fell into procedural futility, it had already cleared away underbrush and established some points on which Democrats and Republicans generally agreed. Among them:

P:I President Truman had a right to fire Douglas MacArthur (MacArthur himself freely conceded it).

P:The firing was botched (Marshall and Bradley admitted it). P:MacArthur had meticulously carried out all military directives (no one disputed this).

P:MacArthur had disagreed with the restrictions imposed on him to limit the war, and had worked in public & private for nine months to get those limitations changed.

P:The Administration, handling MacArthur gingerly because of his popularity, had sent him two orders to be quiet--one, generally worded, in December; the other, a sharp reminder of the December directive, only 18 days before he was dismissed.

If the investigation could get back to fact-finding again, it could establish a good deal else that the U.S. public wanted to know.

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