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TIME MACHINE
50 YEARS AGO
TRUMAN DISMISSES MACARTHUR
BY FREDERIC D.SCHWARZ
On April 10 in Washington (April 11 in Asia), President Harry S. Truman removed Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the Army’s supreme Asian commander, replacing him with Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway. The move, announced at a hastily summoned news conference at 1:00 A.M., after word had begun to leak, was no routine personnel change, for after spending 52 of his 70 years in the Army, MacArthur was as feared as he was revered. In World War I, MacArthur had commanded a brigade, been wounded twice, and received seven Silver Stars. Between 1942 and 1945, his “island-hopping” campaign had brought the Japanese to their knees. Since then, he had ruled Japan as its military governor, adding the command of United Nations forces in Korea when war broke out there.
After the Chinese counterattack in November 1950, MacArthur had bluntly and repeatedly criticized Truman’s conduct of the war. In early April, a letter in which MacArthur complained of not being allowed to pursue the Chinese aggressively enough was read in the House of Representatives. For months, Truman had been growing increasingly annoyed at MacArthur’s undermining of his policy, and that letter was the last straw.
MacArthur, still a hero to many, was given a triumphal welcome on his return to America. Addressing a joint session of Congress on April 19, he quoted an Army song: “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” MacArthur promised to do exactly that, but instead he busied himself making speeches and granting interviews in what many saw as a campaign for the 1952 presidential nomination. Unfortunately for him, no groundswell of support materialized.
Truman, meanwhile, found himself bogged down in Korea, unable to win the war or craft a peace. He decided not to run for a third term, though he was eligible to do so, and in the 1952 presidential election America chose Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general and World War II hero like MacArthur, but one who had managed to stay out of public politics while in uniform.
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25 YEARS AGO
April 5, 1976 The reclusive and very eccentric mogul Howard Hughes dies in Houston.
50 YEARS AGO
April 5,1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and sentenced to death. They will be electrocuted in 1953.
75 YEARS AGO
April 16, 1926 The Book-of-the-Month Club sends its first selection, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, to 4,700 members.
100 YEARS AGO
April 19, 1901 Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippine rebel leader recently captured by U.S. troops, issues a proclamation urging his fellow insurgents to lay down their weapons and accept American rule.
April 25,1901 New York becomes the first state to require automobiles to be equipped with license plates.
April 28, 1901 Charlie Tokohama, a hard-hitting second baseman said to be of Cherokee descent, joins the Baltimore Orioles of baseball’s fledgling American League. A few days later, before he plays a game, Tokohama is exposed as Charlie Grant, a light-skinned black man. Under pressure from the league, the Orioles release Grant, who rejoins his Negro League club.
125 YEARS AGO
April 22, 1876 In the first major-league baseball game ever played, the visiting Boston Braves defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6—5. The two teams’ barehanded fielders combine to commit 20 errors.
150 YEARS AGO
April 25, 1851 President Millard Fillmore issues a proclamation barring “filibustering” expeditions to Cuba, where Southerners hoped to incite a revolt against Spanish rule and cause the island’s annexation as slave territory by the United States.
225 YEARS AGO
April 12, 1776 North Carolina’s provincial assembly instructs its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote in favor of independence for the colonies.
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