1068. MACARTHUR AND TRUMAN TRADE ATTACKS ON KOREA A historic and most revealing archive consisting of approximately 18 retained copies, photocopies, transcripts and carbon copies of a correspondence MacArthur, journalist Edward R. Murrow and MacArthur's aide Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, concerning a heated exchange of barbs, if not outright attacks, between MacArthur and Truman surrounding a series of interviews proposed by Murrow. The grouping begins with Murrow's Jan. 28, 1958 letter to MacArthur on CBS letterhead, 1p. 4to, in which he invites MacArthur to participate in an interview, in part: "...we have experimented with this kind of electronic time capsule by recording some ten hours of the reflections of former President Truman...for use some twenty-five or fifty years from now...We are sharing one hour of this film with our contemporaries this Sunday [when it will be broadcast]. I should like to invite you to look at it...we should also like to ask the privilege of...General MacArthur sitting down with us 'on camera' to discuss some of the vast area of history of which you are such a vital part...nothing would ever be used without your express permission...". Five days later, CBS aired one hour of their interview with former President Truman. MacArthur was supplied with three pages of the program's transcript which featured Truman's comments on his firing of the general. Murrow steered Truman toward the question of MacArthur's dismissal, and the fiery ex-president replied in part: "...when the Commanding General of the Far East was insubordinate he got relieved, the same as any general would under the same circumstances...foreign policy of the United States is made entirely by the President...he had acted that way in several instances, not only with me but with President Roosevelt. And I stood it as long as I could...General Bradley said he ought to be fired...General Marshall...[said] 'Mr. President, you ought to have fired him two years ago'...I never had anything personal against the General...he's a great military man...But he brought it on himself and it had to be done..." Two days after the interview with Truman, on Feb. 4, 1958, MacArthur drew his pen (rather than his sword), and wrote a blistering reply to Murrow. According to MacArthur's secretary from whom these copies were obtained, the original of this letter was sent on to Murrow, this copy is the only other one that exists. It reads in part: "...One who has filled a public position but does so no longer can best serve the Republic by maintaining silence. What he says whether wise or not can but add to the general confusion and bewilderment...[Mr. Truman] made statements entirely incompatible with the incidents as reported at the time of occurrence. So incomprehensible with the truth were some of his comments that at times he seemed to me almost like a clown rather than as one who had been Chief Magistrate of this country. It was entertainment but not history...[It was] an apparently desperate effort to relieve his conscience of the dreadful aftermath resulting from his Korean mishandlement...he claims I misled him about the entrance into the Korean War of Red China...It was he who misled me. As a field commander my intelligence was limited to my own front...He insists that I was insubordinate. But every witness from the Pentagon swore...to the contrary...such an allegation was made only years after the incident. He states I disobeyed his order. This is false. I do not even know to what he refers...I have never knowingly disobeyed, either in letter or spirit, any order given me...He justifies his action by recounting the approval of General Bradley and General Marshall, both sworn enemies of mine...I question the errors [Bradley] committed in Europe especially the debacle of the so called 'Battle of the Bulge'...The real reason for my own relief is that I believe victory to be essential. Truman did not. He failed to comprehend the most basic principle of statesmanship – that a big country that enters upon war and does not see it through but accepts a stalemate must ultimately suffer all the consequences of defeat. The truth is he lost his nerve just when victory was in his grasp. At that time we had the bomb they did not. We would not have had to fight globally – the threat of the bomb would have been sufficient to force the enemy to yield...We realized the dreadful sacrifice in life which our half-hearted effort in Korea produced. For to recklessly enter upon war and then to even more recklessly stop makes the sacrificed dead look like something resembling murder...". Three days later, on Feb. 7, 1958 MacArthur's aide, Gen. COURTNEY WHITNEY writes a draft A.L.S. "C.W." 3pp. 4to., [n.p.], to former President Herbert Hoover, sending him a copy of the Morrow television transcript along with an earlier MacArthur rebuttal to Truman's justification of his firing which had been printed in 1956 further stating that he found it "dangerous" that Murrow had steered Truman into making these comments. Finally there are five retained copies of Whitney's letter to Hoover that were forwarded to prominent newspaper publishers in the United States. With a 5" x 7" photograph of Murrow. Overall very good to fine condition. $600 - 800