uman had already decided to relieve General MacArthur but he kept this decision to himself for the time being. He asked all four of his advisers to return again the next day for more discussion, and directed Secretary Marshall to restudy all messages exchanged with General MacArthur in the past two years. The next morning, 7 April, the same group met again in President Truman's office. Secretary Marshall told the President that after
reading all the messages he agreed with Harriman that MacArthur should have been relieved two years earlier. Before this brief meeting ended, President Truman directed General Bradley to obtain the views of the remaining Joint Chiefs of Staff and to be prepared to make a final recommendation on 9 April. 
General Bradley, General Collins, General Vandenberg, and Admiral Sherman met on the afternoon of 8 April in the Pentagon and discussed the military aspects of MacArthur's relief thoroughly. At the conclusion of this conference, these officers conferred briefly with Secretary Marshall. All of the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that from the military viewpoint the relief of General MacArthur should be carried out. General Collins, the Army Chief of Staff, later testified that he based his belief on two principal factors: first, he was convinced that General MacArthur was not in sympathy with the basic policies governing the operation of United Nations forces in Korea. "I felt," Collins stated, "that the President, as our Commander in Chief, was entitled to have as a commander in the field a man who was more in sympathy with the basic policies and more responsive to the will of the President as Commander in Chief." Collins felt, secondly, that MacArthur had failed to comply with the instructions given him directing him to clear any public statement that he made which involved matters of policy, particularly of foreign policy. 
After receiving the views of his principal advisers on 9 April, President Truman announced his decision to relieve General MacArthur of his commands in the Far East. General Ridgway was to replace MacArthur and Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet was to become the new commanding general of the Eighth Army.
The President originally intended to notify General MacArthur of his relief at 2000 Washington time on 11 April (1000 Tokyo time, 12 April). A message was sent to Secretary of the Army Pace, then visiting in Korea, telling him to deliver the relief message to MacArthur at his residence, the American Embassy in Tokyo, at the time indicated. But Secretary Pace failed to receive these instructions because of a breakdown in a
 Truman, Memoirs, II, 447-48.
 MacArthur Hearings, p. 1187.
communications power unit in Pusan.  In the meantime, late on 10 April, indications appeared that the action to be taken had become known publicly. It was then decided by President Truman to accelerate the transmission of the official notification to General MacArthur by approximately twenty hours. 
According to General MacArthur, his first inkling that he had been relieved came from his wife. One of MacArthur's aides had heard the news on a radio broadcast and told Mrs. MacArthur who then informed her husband. The official notification, MacArthur claimed, did not reach him until half an hour later.  MacArthur immediately ordered General Hickey to telephone General Ridgway in Korea and to notify him of the change in command. He turned over to Hickey the functions of command until General Ridgway could leave the front and fly to Tokyo to take over in person. 
 MacArthur called the communications failure "incredible.... He [Pace] was in Korea at the moment in immediate message contact with my headquarters, which had similar contact with Washington." See MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 395.
 MacArthur Hearings, p. 345.
 (1) Ibid., p. 155. (2) See also MacArthur, Reminiscences, p. 395.
 MacArthur Hearings, p. 155.