The eight weeks of MacArthur hearings produced 2,045,000 words of testimony, bales of supplementary documents and plenty of contradictions. Last week Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, who had presided over the long sessions of the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee, announced that the committee had voted to leave things just that way. The committee would issue no formal report, said Russell, although individual members could present their own views. His reason: "To renew a bitter discussion of methods for waging war as advocated by General MacArthur would not help successful conclusion of a cease-fire or the signing of a Japanese peace treaty at San Francisco."
Eight Republicans, who had asked Administration witnesses some thorny questions during the hearings, this week released a 52-page report giving their conclusions. The signers were New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley, New Jersey's Alexander Smith, Iowa's Bourke B. Hickenlooper, California's William Knowland, Washington's Harry P. Cain, Maine's Owen Brewster and Vermont's Ralph Flanders. Their findings:
¶ General MacArthur never violated military directives, was always substantially in agreement with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His removal was legal, but Harry Truman's method was "ill advised," and the reasons given were "utterly inadequate to justify the act."
¶ Secretary of State Acheson "did not always frankly and fully reveal the information requested of him." The record indicates that "under his guidance, the objective of American foreign policy has been primarily to conciliate certain of our associates in the United Nations, rather than to advance the security of the U.S."
¶ Defense Secretary Marshall "defended the many administration policies, in the formulation of which he had presumably played a part." He seemed peculiarly "uninformed" and inclined to shunt many of the questions to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sometimes seemed embarrassed by the chore of supporting him.
¶ "The Administration's Far East policy has been a catastrophic failure . . . the most desolate ... in the history of our foreign policy . . ." Notable exception: Japan, where General MacArthur was in charge. The Administration has been "unduly preoccupied with the defense of America in Europe, to the neglect of the defense of America in Asia ... It is unfortunate, but true, that the State Department has been affected by a group who have interpreted Asiatic problems to the advantage of Russia rather than that of the United States . . . The truth about the pro-Communist State Department group has not yet been revealed."
¶ Suppression of the 1947 Wedemeyer Report (advocating support for the Chinese Nationalists, a U.N. trusteeship to keep Manchuria out of Communist control) was a "tragic error"—particularly the section predicting an attack in Korea.