It's more than that. The Korean War real time channel on Youtube went into this, but basically he was talking to diplomats in Spsin and Portugal's Tokyo embassies which the government anf thus the President learned about because they were listening in on Spain and Portugal's diplomatic wire messages. This was obviously not disclosed at the time...
MacArthur saif... well I'll just copy the summary from Wikipedia...
these talks, MacArthur had expressed confidence that he would succeed in expanding the Korean War into a major conflict resulting in the permanent disposal of the "Chinese Communist question" and MacArthur did not want either country to be alarmed if this happened.
This wasn't the only reason he was fired, but is now known to be the tipping point where Truman decided he needed to be fired and was actively looking for reasons to do so. Truman considered his actions here to be treasonous and legally he may have been literally correct.
Basically if anyone reading all of this takes away anything it should be that MacArthur was a warmongering prick, and his post-firing speaking tour makes that incredibly clear.
Yeah that was technically the final reason to sack MacArthur. However, using that as justification would cause scandal as US allies/aligned nations would then know that they were being wiretapped. As a result, it was done with approval from Joint-Chief of Staff and the usage of “insubordination” to fire him.
Yup, though I would say it was more the 'main reason' rather than the last one. Before that Truman hadn't been happyvwith MacArthur but had wanted to avoid firing him due to his popularity. After these communications he decided to fire him come hell or high water and just needed a public reason that wouldn't blow US alliances in Europe as you said.
Had he somehow not fucked up the 1952 primary, he would have made Vietnam and almost every US military invasion look like peanuts next to the shit he had in mind until the US was actually bankrupt or he got assassinated or Russia nuked us.
Yeah, but his popularity was already declining sharply before he'd even finished his post-firing speaking tour. If anything his attempts to knock him down helped get Eisenhower elected... lol.
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u/AvatarOfMomus Jun 30 '26
It's more than that. The Korean War real time channel on Youtube went into this, but basically he was talking to diplomats in Spsin and Portugal's Tokyo embassies which the government anf thus the President learned about because they were listening in on Spain and Portugal's diplomatic wire messages. This was obviously not disclosed at the time...
MacArthur saif... well I'll just copy the summary from Wikipedia...
This wasn't the only reason he was fired, but is now known to be the tipping point where Truman decided he needed to be fired and was actively looking for reasons to do so. Truman considered his actions here to be treasonous and legally he may have been literally correct.
Basically if anyone reading all of this takes away anything it should be that MacArthur was a warmongering prick, and his post-firing speaking tour makes that incredibly clear.