MR TRUMAN NOT WORRIED

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26398, 17 April 1951, Page 7

MR TRUMAN NOT WORRIED

Political Reactions On

Far East Policy

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) NEW YORK. April IS.

One of the calmest men this weekend in a wrangling nation was one of the two central figures—President Truman. His friends in Washington said he had plenty of reason to be calm and confident. The people supported his bold decision. Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent said that Mr Truman was author.tatively reported to have told I. 1« friends that the Republicans would live to regret the impassioned onslaught which a b.g section of their party was making on his dismissal of General MacArthur.

The correspondent described this violent criticism of the President as involving more Republicans than followers of General MacArthur and said that they were hitching the r waggon to the MacArthur star for the sake of temporarily favourable publicity.

The correspondent attached considerable importance to Mr Truman's calmness because he had proved himself an incomparable prophet ol political and public opinion trends. Hu listed these factors as justifying the President's assessment of the political situation:

The indignant public reaction against General MacArthur’s dismissal hrd centred almost exclusively on General MacArthur's military glory ,and personality, and not his policies. Public debate in the next few weeks must turn on policies as soon as the newspapers, radio, and television h~d exhausted the physical personality aspects of General MacArthur's march on Washington. General MacArthur and his supporters in Congress would thert have to talk about policies. This would involve the constitutional aspects of General MacArthur’s chalfen"’# , to his Commander-in-Chief and the war-like aspects of his Far East proposals.

The persons now cheering General MacArthur and jeering at Mr Truman had not shown in the past any enthusiasm for en aggressive war against Communist China. The Republican Party, though unified in admiration of General MacArthur's personality, is deeply split on his proposals. A power, ul section opposed extending the Asian war, using Chin*se National, ist troops, and including Formosa in the United States Pacific defence line. As the potential Republican Presidential candidate in 1952, General MacArthur’s present boom is not favourably regarded by other potential candidates. The Republican leaders realised that General MacArthur is not likely to- take directives from them any more readily than he took miliary directives from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. British Influence Ranking with indignation for General MacArthur’s personal sake is the bitter allegation that Mr Truman’s mind was made up for him bv the British. There are many references in the Hearst, McCormick and Scripps Howard newspaper chains—all antiBritish in sentiment—to this alleged influence. It ranged through all degrees of criticism from the calmly analytical to the insultingly vehement, an example of the latter being this classical editorial snakebite: “Serving General MacArthur’s head up on a platter may temporarily appease the yapping yahoos of the British Socialist Government.”

Whatever the extent of British influence on the reaffirmation of the United States Asian policy represented by General MacArthur's dismissal, there is no doubt that the feelings of his country’s allies prompted Mr Truman to make his irrevocable decision. He bluntly said that his reason was to prevent a third world war. That could easily be translated into meaning prevent a third major war in which the United States might havi to fight the Soviet Union and China alone. The United Stetes might eventually be able to rally most of the free world to its side, but she could suffer grievous harm before the Allies joined her in such a war. Importance of Allies

Therefore, deep down below the many complex layers of the TrumanMacArthur controversy was the issue of the importance of the United States system of alliances.

Joseph C. Hgrsch, Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” says: “In the baldset terms General MacArthur proposed a course of Far East action which was Incompatible with the grand alliance forged so slowly and painfully in the last six years.”

Harsch said that the general was, perhaps, theoretically, right on the proposition that what happened in Europe would be decided in Asia. It was conceivable that if all the grand alliance members shared this estimate of the situation the struggle against Communism could be won on such a line of strategy, but in practice the European members did not believe that Asia was more valuable strategically than Europe. This was Harsch's conclusion: “When Mr Truman had to choose between General MacArthur and the security of our alliance and of a launchint base for atomic weapons he was forced to decide in favour of the security nt alliances."