Douglas MacArthur Wanted to Salve His Bruised Ego by Starting World War III
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the North Koreans swiftly routed the South Korean army and American forces in their path, en route to overrunning most of South Korea. Within a few months, all that was left in South Korean and American hands was a small sliver of territory around the port city of Pusan. US general Douglas MacArthur reversed the tide of the war by outflanking the North Koreans with an amphibious landing in September of 1950 at Inchon, near the South Korean capital city of Seoul.
That placed American forces north of the North Korean army trying to take Pusan, and severed their main supply line. That sudden turning of the tables led to the collapse of the North Korean invasion, and a panicked retreat of the invaders that swiftly turned into a rout. MacArthur vigorously pursued the routed enemy northward up the Korean Peninsula. As MacArthur’s forces drew closer the Chinese border, concerns grew about the Chinese reaction if American forces reached China’s borders. Despite mounting evidence that China would directly intervene in the war if his forces approached the Sino-Korean border, MacArthur blithely dismissed all warnings, and insisted that the Chinese would do nothing.
MacArthur turned out to be very, very, wrong. Soon after his forces reached the Yalu river marking the border with China, the Chinese began pouring across in the hundreds of thousands. The did so undetected, and in November of 1950, they struck, surprising MacArthur and catching him completely off guard. Within weeks, MacArthur’s gains had been lost, and his forces had been forced out of North Korea and back into South Korea.
MacArthur’s judgment and estimate of Chinese reaction having been proven catastrophically wrong. His forces had been chased back down the Korean Peninsula by the Chinese even faster than they had raced up the Peninsula in pursuit of the North Koreans. Humiliated, MacArthur reacted with histrionics, and insisted that atomic bombs be dropped on China. His plan was to drop up to 50 atomic bombs in Manchuria on Chinese cities, military concentrations, and communication centers. The result, as he envisioned it, would be to seal off the Korean Peninsula from China by creating a radioactive belt across Manchuria, stretching from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea.
President Truman, whom MacArthur had confidently assured only weeks earlier that China would do nothing if his forces marched up to the Chinese border, balked. He declined to put his faith in yet more confident assurances from MacArthur, who now asserted that the Soviets would do nothing if the US dropped dozens of atomic bombs on their Chinese ally. So MacArthur turned prima donna, and publicly contradicted Truman’s position. He was ordered to clear any further statements on the subject with the State Department first. When MacArthur violated those orders, and again challenged Truman publicly on the use of atomic weapons in the Korean war, Truman finally had enough and fired him.