On April 11, 1951, President Harry S. Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur as Commander of United Nations forces in Korea. Since the dismissal, contemporaries of the Truman-MacArthur era and historians have tried to make sense of Truman's momentous decision to relieve one of America's greatest military heroes. While a great number of studies have devoted attention to the controversy, few if any have placed the Truman-MacArthur conflict within the context of the unprecedented militarization of American foreign policy that took place during the early cold war. This study departs from the traditional "blame-casting" that has dominated Truman-MacArthur scholarship in the past and concludes that General MacArthur was a casualty who was dismissed because he failed to grasp the global nature of the post-World War II American foreign policy agenda.Chapter One analyzes the literature dealing with the Truman-Macarthur controversy and illustrates why historical scholarship has failed to grasp the larger forces at work in American foreign policy while MacArthur was UN Commander in Korea. Chapter Two traces the tumultuous events of the controversy from the outbreak of war in Korea to MacArthur's April 11 dismissal. Finally, Chapter Three analyzes the Senate hearings that followed MacArthur's dismissal, illustrates the importance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's testimony, and explores the broader, global issues the Truman Administration faced in transforming its foreign policy while General MacArthur failed to grasp the nature of this transformation. / Department of History
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/185907 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Clemens, George S. |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of History., Glen, John M. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | i, 144 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- a-kr--- |
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