wster; and Senator Ralph E. Flanders. Witnesses appearing before the committee included General MacArthur; Secretary of Defense Marshall; General Bradley; General Collins; General Vandenberg; Admiral Sherman; Secretary of State Acheson; General Wedemeyer; and former Secretary of Defense Johnson. Among its indefinite conclusions the committee reached the following: "The removal of General MacArthur was within the constitutional powers of the President but the circumstances were a shock to the national pride," and "There was no serious disagreement between General MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as to military strategy in Korea." See MacArthur Hearings, pp. 3601-02.
grave fears that his recommendations might lead to a general war, no evidence existed that any of these nations petitioned President Truman for MacArthur's dismissal.
For months prior to his relief, General MacArthur had, according to Washington officials, expressed opinions on matters beyond his purview in a manner not befitting a military commander. These opinions had not only embarrassed President Truman and his advisers, but threatened, these same officials claimed, to have a profound effect upon international public opinion and to jeopardize the relationships of the United States with its allies. Until President Truman's order forbidding expressions of personal opinion on political and military policy, such expressions were more acts of military impropriety than of misconduct. But after the order, any public expression of opinion contrary to established national policy violated a Presidential directive.
Although it may have been a contributing factor, General MacArthur's conduct of the campaign, from a purely military standpoint, did not bring about the President's decision. His inability to anticipate the Chinese attack in late November and the subsequent withdrawal of the United Nations forces in December apparently did not cause his dismissal from command. 
Immediately after MacArthur's relief; President Truman stated publicly that MacArthur was unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the U.S. Government in matters pertaining to his official duties. He pointed out that while full debate on matters of national policy was a vital element of any true democracy, military commanders had to be governed by the policies and directives issued to them in the manner provided by U.S. laws and the Constitution.  Hence, General MacArthur's removal from command seems to have stemmed from his official protestations and public expressions of dissatisfaction with United States Far Eastern military and political policies made by him between August 1950 and April 1951.
The first occasion after the outbreak of the Korean War on which General MacArthur ran afoul of President Truman developed not over Korea, but over the general issue of American policy toward Formosa. This problem had been under discussion by officials of the Department of Defense and the Department of State for some time before the Korean situation developed. 
 President Truman later stated that he did not blame General MacArthur for the failure of his November offensive. The President felt that MacArthur was no more to be blamed for the fact that he was outnumbered than was General Eisenhower for his heavy losses in the Battle of the Bulge. The difference, as the President saw it, between Eisenhower in 1944 and MacArthur in 1950 was the manner in which MacArthur tried to excuse his failure. See Truman, Memoirs, II, 381-82.
 During conversations with the author in June 1961, former President Truman declined to elaborate on statements already made in his memoirs as to his reasons for dismissing General MacArthur. He stated that General MacArthur had been, and remained, a "great American and a great general" and that he had no desire to tarnish MacArthur's public image. Truman did, however, assert emphatically that his course of action had been the only one open to him and that, faced again with the same situation, he would do the same thing. To do otherwise would have been to abdic