Homeward Bound

On the surface, the news that shook the world was just as clear and final as the headlines: TRUMAN FIRES MAC ARTHUR. But for the U.S. and the rest of the West, the importance of the act lay not in the rights & wrongs of military discipline or executive authority; it lay in the issue on which two men had split.

The question was and is: Who is right about Far Eastern policy, MacArthur or the Administration? The question itself pointed the true poles of the argument, MacArthur and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. It was Secretary Acheson's view which prevailed with the President: do nothing to widen the war; let the Communists keep the initiative. The General MacArthur view--a limited extension of the war against China, a full recognition of the proposition that Communism was already making its big bid for world domination in Asia--had not yet been heard in full (see page 31).

In Tokyo's grey, early-morning dampness, the general's five-starred Chrysler swung down the highway through the lanes of Japanese police and some 200,000 citizens who had been waiting since dawn to pay a farewell to the conqueror who had won their admiration. The car rolled to a stop on the broad apron of Tokyo's Haneda airport. Douglas MacArthur stepped out, his face drawn and grey beneath the battered, gold-laced cap. He shook hands with Matt Ridgway, the man Harry Truman had sent to relieve him, then stood at attention to receive a 19-gun salute. The farewells were brief and brisk, and, when MacArthur had gripped the last hand, he climbed slowly up the steps to his Constellation, the Bataan. His wife and 13-year-old son Arthur were already aboard. At 7:23 a.m., while the band played Auld Lang Syne, the Bataan roared off into the murky overcast, bound for home.

The public-address system was blaring Aloha when the big plane pulled up in the glare of newsreel lights at Hickam Air Force Base at Honolulu, twelve hours and six minutes later. There were fast handshakes in the confusion of the midnight welcome, and next day, on a forty mile parade, the city of Honolulu gave General MacArthur a preview of the civic receptions to come--including more applause and cheers than had greeted Harry Truman on the way to his Wake Island meeting with MacArthur six months before.

The Bataan's next stop was San Francisco--and Douglas MacArthur's first view of the U.S. mainland in nearly 14 years. It was the strangest soldier's homecoming in history. He was a General of the Army, stripped of his commands and without assignment, yet the U.S. was waiting to sweep him up in tumultuous greeting all the way to Manhattan's ticker-taped Broadway. His words had brought public dismissal and rebuke from his Commander in Chief, yet the Congress of the U.S. honored him by arranging a special joint meeting this week to hear them, and the entire nation would be listening.

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