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The Clash. The man he fired was a military hero, idolized by many. MacArthur had done a superb job as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in the occupation and reconstruction of Japan. He was the strongest bulwark against the Far East's Communists, who had long cried for his head. If Douglas MacArthur had an admirer in the White House set, it was Truman himself, an ex-artilleryman with an innate respect for soldiering.
But strong-minded General Douglas MacArthur had set himself firmly against the policy of Truman, of his Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and of the U.N. itself. Despite repeated efforts to silence him, he had spoken up defiantly and deliberately. As a soldier, Douglas MacArthur well knew that he was risking his military career. His bold pronouncements had alarmed U.S. allies, especially Britain. In Truman's view, this threatened the solidarity of the North Atlantic countries, and embarrassed Secretary Acheson in his own plans. Douglas MacArthur could not (and would not) compromise his views of what was right and necessary, refused to accept the acquiescence of silence. The clash was slow in building, but the end was inevitable. Taking his political future in his hands, Truman made his decision.
Letters & Meetings. On the record, there was little doubt that Douglas MacArthur had ignored the wishes, intent, and specific orders of his Commander in Chief on policy pronouncements, though he carried out his directives in the military field. But his forceful pronouncements had moved into a vacuum left by the Administration's own uncertainties.
Within a month after the President's announcement neutralizing Formosa, he had flown there to call on Chiang Kai-shek and had been pictured kissing the hand of Madame Chiang Kaishek; he made numerous statements to visitors of the course he deemed necessary in Asia, and he fired off his famed letter to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, declaring Formosa essential to U.S. defense.
Unable to suppress the letter or to silence MacArthur by teletype, Harry Truman staged the dramatic Wake Island meeting, from which emerged public White House statements of agreement (and MacArthur's private assurance to Truman that the Chinese Communists would not come into Korea). Harry Truman returned triumphantly to proclaim that he and his general had settled their differences—only to have a Tokyo "informed source" announce that Supreme Commander MacArthur "holds unalterably to the view that Formosa should not be allowed to fall into the hands of a potential enemy."
Last Warning. Then the Chinese surged across the Yalu. They forced a bruising defeat on MacArthur's ill-deployed forces, shaking the J.C.S.'s confidence in his military judgment. MacArthur was for bold and forceful retaliation. But the State Department laid down the line: U.S. policy would be to fight China only in Korea. MacArthur, unable to accept the logic of fighting a war he could not win, launched a fresh barrage of dissent. He loosed a flood of announcements, interviews, and answers to magazine queries, complaining of the enemy's "privileged sanctuary," calling such limitations "an enormous handicap without precedent in military history," declaring that "never before has the patience of man been more sorely tried."