Truman Library - Frank Pace Jr. Oral History Interview, February 17, 1972

Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, Taxation Division, 1946; Executive Assistant to the U.S. Postmaster General, 1946-48; Assistant Director, Bureau of the Budget, 1948-49; Director, Bureau of the Budget, 1949-50; and Secretary of the Army, 1950-53.

New York, N. Y.
February 17, 1972
by Jerry N. Hess

NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

HESS: Mr. Secretary, to begin today, we have discussed the meeting at the Blair House on the night that Mr. Truman came back from Independence and they were discussing what to do about the situation in Korea; but at that time and in the meetings in the next couple of days, what was Mr. Truman's attitude?

PACE: Well, Mr. Truman was an excellent administrator, and as I said to you, he asked the opinion of everyone in the room without expressing any opinion himself at all. After it was over, he summed up what was the consensus of the group, asking if there was any disagreement with that consensus. We said, "No." He said that fortunately this coincided with his point of view, so there was no problem; but as I've said to you before, Mr. Truman has always been thought of as a great politician; but what few people understood was that he was a natural administrator. He was a natural user of staff; he selected them with care, and then he relied on them completely. This was again a perfect example of how Mr. Truman operated. Now, if we had all reached a conclusion that was contrary to his, he would have stated then his position and the reason why and asked us to challenge it. But since they coincided, there was no need for it

HESS: Do you think that one of the reasons that he did not present his views was that if he had done so, it might have inhibited others who felt contrary to those views?

PACE: Oh, very clearly. Anyone who has been a top administrator knows that if the boss speaks in advance…

PACE: Not necessarily, but it does put a very major damper on the enthusiasm with which you speak about a point.

HESS: During those meetings, do you recall if it was discussed whether or not the Soviets might come in if we did take this move, if we went into Korea?

PACE: Oh, yes, that was thoroughly discussed, and it was the conclusion of most people involved that the Soviets would not come in. It was the conclusion of all people involved that the Soviets would not come in, but there were different shadings of concern about it. However, it was agreed that if the Soviets did come in this really was something that had to be faced and dealt with, because otherwise the impression would be left with the Soviets that they could undertake any kind of initiative anywhere in the world and we'd be afraid to counter it.

HESS: Do you recall if it was discussed at this early date whether or not the Chinese Communists would come in?

PACE: No, that was not discussed. As a matter of fact, at least it was not in my mind, and it was not a matter that was raised at all.

HESS: Some historians are of the opinion that the Soviets instigated matters in Korea as a diversionary matter to get our attention away from events in Europe?

PACE: No, I don't believe that's true. I believe that the Soviets did not think that we would react to this action. They had come to the conclusion that this was an isolated part of the world, that our basic interests were not there, and that they were in a position, using North Koreans, to go ahead and take over that whole area. I think there's a tendency often to ascribe to your opponents either an intelligence or a quality of planning that often isn't there. I think this was a very simple mistake on their part as to how we would react.

HESS In your opinion, should the President have tried to get a joint - congressional resolution to support this decision, to share the load with Congress, in other words, such as was done in the Tonkin Gulf matter?

PACE: I said this to him not at this meeting, but at a later time. He said, "Frank, it's not necessary. They are all with me."

I said, "Yes, Mr. President, but we can't be sure that they'll be with you over any period of time."

The matter never was raised as a matter of discussion at this larger meeting. It just so happened that I had a very strong feeling that here was a chance to very clearly get the support of the Congress at a time when it was very necessary.

Jumping back just a little bit to Secretary Louis Johnson, what is your opinion of the manner in which Louis Johnson acted to meet the problems that arose at this time? How effective was he?

PACE: I did not feel that Louis Johnson was an effective Secretary of Defense. I don't believe he paid attention to

the details of the Defense operation. I don't believe he knew them deeply. I believe he overstated our capabilities and our strengths prior to this. I don't believe he had the breadth to grasp the totality of the problem that we faced.

HESS: He had been in the position since March of 1949, a little over a year. Why was he appointed to this high post?

PACE: Well, Mr. Johnson was a top political figure in the Democratic Party. He was a very persuasive man. I liked him personally.

HESS: He accepted the position as chairman of the finance committee in 1948 also.

PACE: That's right. I'm sure that in this regard Mr. Truman would never give that important a position to a man just because he served in the Democratic Party. I think he probably was personally over-impressed with Mr. Johnson's capabilities.

HESS: Moving on to a dual subject of the landing at Inchon. This took place on September 15. As you know, much has been

written about this. There was a breakout of the Pusan perimeter from the column moving up to the north, took a little while to break out. There were good, valid reasons why good military men thought that an invasion at Inchon was ill advised: The mud flats, the island that's out in front of Inchon, the fact that there were other cities or other places where an invasion could have been made; but nevertheless, General Mac Arthur's position did win out, and it won out in glorious fashion. It's well-known that that's one of the things he will be known for, the success at Inchon. What were your views on that? Did you think that movement was a good idea?

PACE: Well, remember I came to the Defense Department in April of 1950. The Korean war broke out in June and this was quite early on. I was not a military expert in that sense, and therefore my views were really not important on that phase of it. I do recall that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, uniformly, thought it was a bad idea, and I think that they advised General MacArthur of that feeling. I think that all I can say is that after it was achieved, it made a very deep impression on me as to General Mac Arthur's capability as a commanding general.

PACE: Well, again, I knew nothing of him other than through what I had read. His reputation, of course, was unique, and I accepted that. I must say that whatever I thought about him was enhanced by Inchon.

HESS: One thing had come up about General MacArthur the previous month: That deals with the letter that he wrote to the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August. The letter really states his views of why Formosa was so important, and as he called it, "the unsinkable aircraft tender," but it was in disagreement with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman wanted the people on Formosa to stay there. He sent the 7th Fleet down and said, you know, "You fellows don't come over here; and you fellows don't go over there." But at that time, the letter was contradictory to what Mr. Truman had wanted to do for Formosa, and he said later that he should have fired MacArthur then. He said that he was talked out of firing MacArthur at that time. Do you recall anything--this is in August, this is before Inchon--do you recall anything about Mr. Truman being talked out of firing MacArthur during the month of August over a VFW letter?

PACE: No, no, I don't, although I would assume that if Mr. Truman was talking about firing MacArthur, that people he probably talked to would be General Marshall and Dean Acheson.

I don't think he would have called us in. Certainly the matter was never one that I was aware of even.

HESS: In what I have read about it, he did not identify who he spoke with. He said, "They talked me out of it." So, I didn't know who "they" were.

HESS: About this same time, Secretary Johnson resigned. He submitted his resignation on September 12th. It was made effective on the 19th. I understand that he had an address that he wanted to make, and so he was left in the position until the 19th, the invasion coming on the 15th. What is your opinion about the resignation of Louis Johnson? Why did that come about?

PACE: Well, remember Mr. Johnson was under considerable attack for some of the statements he had made about our readiness. The Korean war had not moved...

war had not moved to the satisfaction of the public or the press or the Congress at that particular juncture. And I believe--my own assumption, and this I do not know, I'm giving you purely my assumption--is that Mr. Truman felt he had to have somebody heavier in there running it, and I think he sat down with Mr. Johnson and said that he felt with the war on he needed someone who had had experience in this matter, and that he was going to undertake to get General Marshall to take this over.

HESS: In your opinion, do you think Secretary Johnson had ambitions for higher office? In other words, would he have liked to run for President?

HESS: Did you hear talk like that around the Pentagon, was it fairly common knowledge?

PACE: No, no, no, I wouldn't say that. I rather doubt that Mr. Johnson talked about it, and I think that if anybody asked him about it, he would have denied it. I knew Louis Johnson reasonably well. He was a proud man. He was a West Virginian. A high-level political type. His background had been law and politics and it would not be unusual that he might have thought one day the lightning might strike. I don't think he thought

HESS: How good an administrator was he? If you had something to take up with him, was he difficult to see, would things move if you went into see him with a plan?

PACE: Well, no, I had no problem ever seeing Louis Johnson. He was very kind where I was concerned. I don't think he had the confidence of the military, and I think he was inclined to be a little erratic in his decision making, and therefore I don't think the system worked very well. I don't think he was a good administrator. A good administrator first wins the confidence of the people who've got to administer for him. He did quite the contrary. He was inclined to be arbitrary.

HESS: I also understand there was a good deal of conflict between him and the Secretary of State, Mr. Acheson?

HESS: Now, Secretary Johnson's Deputy Secretary of Defense had been Stephen Early.

HESS: He had been Press Secretary, as we all know, for Mr. Roosevelt. Did you work with Mr. Early and just what seemed to be his duties? What was he doing then?

PACE: I did work with Steve Early. No one could know him and not like him. He was a wonderful human being. Again, his capabilities in this field and experience in this field was quite limited.

PACE: He was a good public relations man. I think this was his role, and picking up some of the pieces that Mr. Johnson let fall around, seemed to be his primary responsibility. People would go to him when things might be going the wrong way, and he'd be in a position to go in; and then he was very persuasive with Mr. Johnson, and who put a lot of store by him.

HESS: Why was General Marshall selected as the next Secretary of Defense, or persuaded to come into the Government?

PACE: I think Mr. Truman always just had an inordinately high opinion of General Marshall, and faced with this really major crisis, he had to have somebody he could lean on.

HESS: He was there for one year. He came in September '50, and he left in September of '51. Now, a heck of .a lot took place within that length of time.

HESS: Looking back on that time and all the events that took place in there, what is your general evaluation of General Marshall's handling of the job?

PACE: Well, in the first place, I think of all the men that I knew in that period, I regarded General Marshall most highly. He was a man of great incisiveness; he had a keen sense of human nature, and particularly with General Marshall, I always had the feeling I was in the presence of history.

I never felt that General Marshall made a decision on a contemporary basis. I think his mind was always functioning in terms of how this would fit into the historical perspective of the United States. I don't believe any man could have done for Mr. Truman or for the Nation, the things that General Marshall did during that period. I have to say that that one year of association with him was probably the most satisfying period of my life. So, you shouldn't ask me any more because I'm obviously prejudiced.

On October 7th of 1950 a resolution was passed within the United Nations authorizing the U .N . forces to move north of the 38th parallel to "insure conditions of stability throughout Korea." This was with General MacArthur moving in from Inchon and the forces that had broken out of the Pusan perimeter had moved north, retaken Seoul and now they had U. N. sanction to move north of the 38th parallel. .As you will recall, the resolution of June 27, 1950, spoke only of repelling the invaders from the region south of the 38th parallel, South Korea, so the decision had now been made to move into

North Korea. Did you attend any meetings in which it was decided to change the scope of the war, which was very obviously done, and what were your views and recommendations?

PACE: Yes, there were a great many discussions on this. Again I don't remember any contrary opinions. If there were, I just don't recall. It seemed a very natural thing that in order to bring some sort of order to that area, it would .be necessary to consolidate the successes that had been achieved at Inchon and to really try to restore some universality to Korea rather than leaving it as a divided land. The opinion of almost everybody that if you did that, there was going to be constant trouble, an inability to grow and develop. I'm quite sure that I favored going north of the Han River, which as I recall, was the boundary line.

HESS: Reading just an excerpt from The Korean War, Matthew B. Ridgway' s book. This is on page 44:

So now we have definite threats on the radio from the Communists, the Red Chinese, saying "If you do come north of the 38th parallel we will attack." Now, was this seriously

PACE: Not really, no. You've got to remember that the Red Chinese had been threatening throughout the period. General Ridgway merely emphasizes that they threatened at that time, but this was not something that started at that time. Quite frankly, I guess it's a case of crying "wolf" that often. I do not believe that at that time anybody seriously believed that the Red Chinese were going to enter the war. Certainly General MacArthur had very clear ideas that they would not, and I have to say that after Inchon I was very impressed with General Mac Arthur's capability to assess problems out there on the ground.

HESS: That's October the 7th. October the 15th was a very interesting day, the day of the meeting at Wake Island. Let's just start back at the beginning since you attended that meeting, perhaps with when you first heard there was to be a meeting.

PACE: Well, I first heard about it from General Marshall who said that the President had discussed with him who should go to Wake Island and this historic meeting with General MacArthur, and he told me that he had recommended that I go. I was Secretary of the Army; the Army had the main responsibility

in that area, and that he felt that as the civilian head of the Army I should go to Wake Island with President Truman. I believe that General Bradley and Admiral [Arthur William] Radford and Averell Harriman, Phil Jessup, and Charlie Ross, the Press Secretary, have I got most of the principal participants?

HESS: I think so. I have a list here. (See Appendix I) One question, did General Marshall at that time say anything about whether or not Secretary of State Dean Acheson had been considered to go?

HESS: Dean Rusk, who was Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs. He was the head man from the State Department...

PACE: I assumed for the same reason that General Marshall didn't go. They felt that there was enough prominence to the operation by President Truman going. Also, General Marshall didn't think very much of General MacArthur, as you know, and vice

versa. I have an offhand guess that Dean Acheson didn't think very much of General MacArthur. They just felt that there was no reason on something that historic to get into personalities.

HESS: There was some discussion about where the meeting was to be held. Some people advised that General MacArthur be called all the way back to Washington.

PACE: Right. This was the President's decision. He felt that under the circumstances that it was fitting that he should go out into the area where General MacArthur had the responsibility for the discussion. There's no lack of sense that he had the right to order General MacArthur back; it was just that General MacArthur had the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the war, to bring him back with the period of time that would elapse just didn't seem appropriate to the President.

PACE: Well, you know that the President awarded a medal to General MacArthur. General MacArthur was down to meet us

when we came in. Of course, the thing that really stands out in my mind about it was the fact that General MacArthur said that the war would be over by Thanksgiving and that the men would be home by Christmas. It made a very deep and abiding impression on me.

HESS: Here we have what later was drawn up and entitled, "Substance of Statements Made at Wake Island Conference on October 15, 1950." (See Appendix II) That was compiled from notes taken by various persons at the conference, and by Miss Vernice Anderson. As you recall, she was Ambassador Philip Jessup' s secretary, and had been asked to go along to work on the communique, the joint communique, that would be issued at the end of the meeting. So just glancing through--I have several questions on it--but just glancing through, does that seem to be a fairly accurate presentation, rendition, of what you recall took place?

HESS: I noticed on page 3 you asked the General if there was anything in terms of ECA or Army cooperation that you could do to help him and he replied: "No commander in the history

of war has ever had more complete and adequate support from all agencies in Washington than I have."

HESS: Was that more or less his way of speaking or did you actually feel that you did have this great cooperation and liaison...

HESS: Yes, and did you feel the same way, too? Were things going pretty smoothly?

PACE: As far as our relationship, the relationship between General MacArthur and the Army, our relationship was excellent. I think that, well, my own chief of staff felt that General MacArthur proceeded in too arbitrary a fashion from time to time, and I'm sure that's true, but you've got to remember that General MacArthur was a very senior man with a high success ratio and a high level of ego, and I never thought that was particularly unusual. I did think it was important that General MacArthur thought he was going fully supported.

HESS: On page 2 you say, "When the Army's responsibility ends, could the Army provide aid in psychological rehabilitation? Should KMAG continue?" That's the Korean Military Advisory Group, of which I understand, at the time of the invasion,

HESS: This brings up a little side thing that I want to talk about before we go on with the meeting, but the Army had been cut back, had been moved out of Korea one year before the invasion. In June of 1949, the Armed Forces, the Army, had been moved out, and all that was there for that year was KMAG. Was that a mistake, was that an error, a cutback like this?

PACE: Well, I'll have to say to you that any reduction in the Armed Forces that's followed by any military activity is automatically a mistake. The demands and requirements of the civilian are paramount in times of peace; and the demands to cut the military are universal; you have them now. Everyone wants less military; they assume peace will be automatic. If you ran into any form of war in the next six months whoever is running Defense and whoever is President would receive ultimate blame for not keeping the Armed Forces high enough. So when you say to me, "Was it a mistake?" In the light of events it was a mistake, but in the light of the times, I guess that the answer that I should honestly give you is that if you're going to get out of a country you ought to

get out of it entirely. You ought not to leave some remnants there, and if you get out of it you ought to make up your mind that you're not going to go back in and defend it. We weren't that sophisticated at that point; we hadn't lived long enough; we hadn't seen the consequences of involvement. Withdrawal was probably sound, but when we made it we should have coupled it with a decision to totally withdraw and a decision that if somebody wanted to take that part of the world over we were prepared to let them do it.

HESS: That brings up the subject of Dean Acheson's speech at the National Press Club almost a year later, I think it was January 12, 1950, when he drew the line of our defense perimeter and there sat Korea outside of the defense perimeter.

HESS: Was that an invitation--you know, that's been called an invitation to the Communists, "We're not going to defend it; we've taken our troops out; we've drawn a line excluding this country."

PACE: Who knows? I mean, it was universally believed that that particular step did encourage the Russians to move. I would say it was probably a factor. I can't believe it was compelling. I don't believe the Russians make decisions on the

basis of what the Secretary of State tells the National Press Club. But I would assume it was a factor.

HESS: A couple of more items from the "Substance of Statements Made at Wake Island." On page 8, the President said,

In here that is all it gives. Of course, it shows the stars indicating that other things were left out, one or more paragraphs or a great deal, was left out, both before and after that statement. But do you recall during the main meeting--now, as I understand, when the President and General MacArthur first got together they went off together for an hour or so and then they came in for the main meeting.

HESS: During the main meeting at which you were present was Formosa, the Nationalist Chinese, Chang-Kai-Shek , was there anything discussed other than what the President said here?

PACE: No, whatever the stars were they were unrelated to that. No, that was not really a matter pertinent to our discussions. Our meeting was primarily on the total military situation. The President wanted to be very sure that General Mac Arthur was being properly supported. I think that he could see that

if there were some problem that would arise, the allegation could arise, "It happened because we hadn't done our job back in Washington." I believe the President wanted to nail down the fact that our support was adequate. You'll notice that the thrust of all my remarks and questions really addressed themselves to insuring that General MacArthur had whatever he wanted or needed to do the job.

HESS: And at the bottom of page 8, the President asked you, "I believe this covers the main topics. Secretary Pace, did you have anything else to take up?"

And you said, "Yes, sir, but I can take them up separately with General MacArthur, and I imagine General Bradley has some also."

So you recall what you discussed with the General after the meeting was over? What types of subjects?

PACE: Well, basically, we talked specifically again about the nature of supplies. I again raised the question with him about the end of the war, because, see, that had a great many implications as far as I was concerned, because if General MacArthur was right, and quite frankly, I was thoroughly prepared to believe he was right, (because everything I had seen had led me to believe that he was indeed a military genius), then there were a great many steps that ought to be

HESS: All right, did you know that Miss Vernice Anderson was seated in the next room taking shorthand notes?

HESS: Did you think that was generally known among the participants of the conference?

HESS: But you did think from looking it over for a few moments that it is accurate for what is here?

PACE: I do. Oh, yes. When we came back it was decided that General Bradley and I would have an off-the-record conference with the press about Wake Island, which we did, which was promptly leaked the next day. The general trend of the discussion became public in almost no time at all.

PACE: I can't tell you. I really don't know. It was a very disappointing process from my point of view. I mean, I realize a lot of off-the-record things are treated casually, but I felt that this one was really one that should not have been.

HESS: All right, on the subject of Formosa and Nationalist China and Chiang Kai-shek, how did you think they should have been handled? Should Chiang's armies have been used in one way or another? Should he have been isolated on Formosa?

PACE: Frankly, I did not think Chiang's armies should be used. There was first the problem of how you integrated Chiang's armies into the whole Korean effort. I did also feel that the one thing that would bring the Chinese Communists in without any shadow of a doubt was to bring Chang Kai-shek over to the point where he had a toehold on the mainland. While I said to you I did not believe the Chinese Communists were going to come in when we went north of the Han River, I did feel very strongly that they would clearly come in if any of Chiang Kai-shek' s forces were brought there. I believe General MacArthur just had a very clear belief that the Chinese Communists weren't going to interfere in this operation at all.

HESS: Now I mentioned a little while ago about the 7th Fleet being brought into the Formosa Straits quite early on in the Korean conflict, the President was quarantining Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa and saying that the Red Chinese should not attack the other way. That has been pointed out by some as perhaps an error, because even if not one shot had been fired, if

we had not put the 7th Fleet in there, Chiang's forces would have remained as a threat, even if they never got one foot wet or fired one bullet toward the south China coast, the Red Chinese would have had to keep soldiers there, but when we said to the world that "Chiang is not going to be allowed to attack the mainland," even if he could not have done so successfully, that freed Red Chinese to move north and down into Korea.

PACE: I don't buy that theory at all. One thing the Red Chinese had plenty of was manpower. They could double the number of men that Chiang could ever get across onto the mainland, assuming he could, and still have carried out the same effort they carried on without any difficulty at all.

HESS: In your opinion, was there a political motive behind President Truman's trip to Wake? The Congressional elections were coming up in November and there was some speculation that the President wanted to meet with a successful commander in the field after the Inchon landings, and gain some glory before the midterm elections.

PACE: No, he never would have said anything, and I would not say it was his primary purpose, but Mr. Truman recognized that to manage the country you had to remain its effective political leader. Anything that justifiably bolstered the position of the Commander in Chief was a proper act, both in his judgment and, frankly, in mine.

HESS: One person who has set that down in print was Courtney Whitney, in his book, MacArthur: Rendezvous with Destiny, I believe it is. That is his opinion of why Mr. Truman wanted to have the meeting at Wake.

HESS: It's not surprising, is it? All right, not too long after these events, the Communist Chinese did come into the fighting. What was the feeling around the Pentagon at that time?

PACE: It was really a great shocker, just no question about it. Nobody had expected this at all. It was really a reflection on our total military planning. Much of the blame for it, I think, was properly placed on General MacArthur who was on the ground, and his intelligence very clearly indicated that they would not participate, but it was a shocking thing, and we had troops trapped up there. There was both a shock and a pall of gloom in the Pentagon.

HESS: This was in November and then in December, our troops got pushed back down into the south. During that time General Mac Arthur was making various statements about wanting to bomb north of the Han river...

HESS: ...the Yalu River, to move north of there. He had several different proposals to bomb industrial plants in China, to bomb military staging bases. What was your view of that? Should we have permitted General MacArthur to do more of what he wanted to do, to widen the war?

PACE: On this, the joint chiefs of staff were unanimous. They believed it was a bad idea. First, they didn't think it would stop what was being done; and second, another point was the high degree to which we were vulnerable. We had a port at Pusan without any anti-aircraft protection. Their troops had been used to fighting with air interception; ours marched right down the middle of every road. And if in the process of doing this you also brought the Russians in, which was a possibility, we were infinitely more vulnerable--our whole supply line, our people--we were very, very vulnerable. General MacArthur had made an original mistake in judgment about whether they would come in. I think he compounded that or would have if he'd carried out his proposition of bombing

HESS: What do you recall about the background, what are your views on that? Was it necessary?

PACE: Well, I was on a trip to the Far East. It was what one refers to as a routine inspection trip, and I arrived in Tokyo and was greeted thereby General MacArthur. I remember that as Secretary of the Army I was very interested in whether General MacArthur would seat me on his right, because, although I was his superior, I had to remember that when he was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, I was at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. But that's facetious, because he did seat me on his right; he did have a dinner in my honor that was a very extensive one. I did have some three hours with him at the Dai-Ichi Building, in which we had really very long and intimate discussions about both the Army and the war. Then I received a cable from General Marshall, which read:

to General MacArthur and flew to Korea where Matt Ridgway was in command, and we visited a number of hospitals, decorated some soldiers on the ground. One day we flew over the Chinese lines, and there was a hailstorm immediately after we landed. If it had come about twenty minutes earlier, I would have been the first Secretary captured by the Chinese.

I went to the headquarters of Colonel John Throckmorton, whom I knew, and he said there was a call for me from Seoul, and I took it and it was from General Lev [Leven C.] Allen. He said, "I have a cable for you, Mr. Secretary, which reads:

Well, I said, "Read that to me once more, Lev,, I don't want to relieve General MacArthur on one reading."

So he read it once more and I took General Ridgway out in the hail. General Ridgway used to wear those live grenades and I thought if that hailstone hits one of those live grenades, they're going to need a new Supreme Commander and a new Secretary. And then I took General Ridgway, as I say, out into the hail, and I said, "General Ridgway, it's my duty to advise you that you're now the Supreme Commander of the

I said, "I can't either, so I'll repeat it. You're now the Supreme Commander of the South Pacific; Vice General MacArthur relieved."

I said, "I don't think, Matt, that we ought to go now to Tokyo, because General Mac Arthur's got a great many things to do. I think tomorrow it might be useful to communicate and find out if it's convenient for General MacArthur for you to come tomorrow. Now," I said, "let's get that cablegram I was to disregard."

So I remember General Ridgway and I walked in one of those beautiful Korean graveyards, and about midnight we got the message, which read: "You will proceed to Tokyo where you will advise General Douglas MacArthur that he is relieved of his command." The message had been sent through the port of Pusan, because they were afraid to send it through Tokyo where it would have been intercepted by [General Charles A.] Willoughby. There was a power failure at Pusan, and I never got the message.

So the reporter had heard something on this nature before it had reached the two of you on your tour in Korea.

PACE: This is correct, because, you see, the President had assumed that I received the prior cablegram, which I had not done. I remember that General Ridgway had an Arkansas flag on his jeep. As we went by the soldiers I heard one soldier say, "What is that flag?"

PACE: To be perfectly frank, I knew none of the events that led up to it. Most of them had occurred while I was on

this trip out to the Pacific, and so if you're asking me whether in the light of after events I thought it was wise; I thought it was not only wise but necessary. But at the time I knew nothing about it.

PACE: Actually, I saw General MacArthur in Hawaii. He had stopped off there, and as I went back...

PACE: We did not really have an occasion to talk. The story had grown up that I had been sent out there to fire him, and General MacArthur said he didn't believe that that was true, that he had talked to Secretary Pace just before that, and he really didn't believe it was true.

I have always--this is just purely a Pace thought--I believe that General MacArthur really created the basis for his firing. I felt that the crowds around the Dai-Ichi Building were getting to be very small; I felt that his period of glory there had passed; he was a great student of history; I felt he felt Mr. Truman would be easily defeated and that if he could be fired under dramatic circumstances he could return and get the Republican nomination for President and run for President against Mr. Truman. I felt he engineered

his own dismissal. The kind of letters that he wrote, a man steeped in military and national tradition knew very well was out of order. I can't believe that he would undertake such an action without realizing what the consequences would have to be.

PACE: That was my feeling. I never heard anyone else advance that theory, but I always felt that way. Interestingly enough, at the time that I was coming back from Tokyo, John Foster Dulles was coming out to Tokyo, and he had with him Earl Johnson, who was my Assistant Secretary, and they contacted us by radio and we met in Wake Island, which was never known to the press or the public at all. I discussed all of the details of what I knew about this with John Foster Dulles. We met in a small chapel there, and spent about two and a half hours, and then he went on to Tokyo and I went on to Hawaii. But the fact that there was a meeting was never known at all. It's one of the few things that I ever did of significance that the press didn't know about.

HESS: They probably didn't have as many press men that time as they did on October 15th.

HESS: I had heard that on the flight across the Pacific that John Foster Dulles, when his airplane was fairly close to General Mac Arthur's, they had communicated by radio. I knew that one was flying one way and one was flying the other, but I had never heard anything about John Foster Dulles stopping at Wake to talk with you. You just mainly brought him up to date on what had transpired?

PACE: On what had transpired there, what had happened and what my own reactions were about it.

HESS: What was the reaction of John Foster Dulles, a leading Republican? Did he exhibit any reactions?

PACE: No, he really didn't. We didn't talk about the wisdom or the lack of wisdom of the firing. I think he accepted it as a fact. As a statesman he had to almost accept that President Truman had no option. He was going out on President Truman's behalf.

an American, just like Dean Acheson was less a partisan than he was a supporter of the Nation.

HESS: Some revisionist historians in the last few years have been attempting to find in the Truman years the roots of today's ills and disasters. It has been said that Mr. Truman reversed the Roosevelt philosophy of tolerant accommodation towards the Communist world and setting a hard anti-Communist line, counter-revolutionary course, which resulted in the hot and cold wars. Mr. Nixon's trip to China, a trip that began only this morning, will probably be pointed to by some as an attempt to correct the wrongs that went back into Mr. Truman's times. Did you see these as wrongs? What are your views on this?

PACE: Well, I didn't see them at the time as wrongs; I don't see them now. I don't believe that it was possible to accommodate with the Communist world at that time, and I believe that Russia had to mature. Many of my associations were with people like Mark Clark, who had had to deal with the Russians in Italy and in Vienna, and who had found them to be completely untrustworthy in any dealings at all. All of the military who had had some association with them had found them unreliable.

in which you undertook to maintain a useful status quo until maturity came. I don't believe that four years ago Mr. Nixon or anybody else's suggestion that a President should go to China would have meant anything. I don't think they would have entertained the thought. President Nixon's trip to China is only because China's worried about Russia. If they didn't have those Russians on the border, I doubt very seriously if Mr. Nixon would be setting foot in China. So, I just don't buy the idea. I think at the time this was the only course that could be followed. In all frankness, I'm not sure we wouldn't have been better off if we had followed a harder line. As the sole possessors of the atom bomb I think the Russians got away with a great deal that...

PACE: Well, I believe that basically our whole effort with the Russians was a conciliatory one. I remember flying back from Brussels from the NATO meeting, and I remember flying over Spain, the Pyrenees, with General CJ. Lawton] Collins and General [Alfred M.] Gruenther, and discussing whether that would be natural defense if the Russians moved across Europe, as they very well could. I personally think we overestimated the intentions and the capabilities of the Russians. I just believe that a firmer and possibly a tougher stand with the

HESS: As you know, a good deal of our actions at that time have been classified, placed under the one word, "containment," which was made very popular by George Kennan in his article by "X." Do you recall, thinking back on those days, if Kennan's writings, if Kennan's article and his statement of the doctrine of containment had any effect on your views?

PACE: No, no. Really, my views were affected much more by Dean Acheson. Remember, I went to Brussels as Chairman of the Defense Ministers, where I worked very intimately with Dean Acheson. Then I went as General Marshall's representative to represent the Secretary of Defense both at Rome and at Ottawa. So I dealt very intimately with Dean Acheson at all those times. The State Department policy and thinking really emanated from Dean Acheson, who was a clear, incisive, and in fact, brilliant thinker. The views of Kennan, the views of [Charles E.] Bohlen, all these formed part of it, but the essential pattern of that period in that area was basically laid by Dean Acheson.

HESS: One of the problems that the Army had to deal with in Korea were the prison camps on Koje-do Island.

PACE: Oh, well, you had a problem--as I recall it--there was a revolt among the prisoners. Who was the General in charge there?

HESS: There was a General who was captured there for a while...(General Frank T. Dodd)

PACE: Yes, the General who was in charge was a very able man, but there was a lack of discipline in that operation, which is very rare in the Army, very rare. Joe Collins went over. We straightened it out. We had to replace the man who headed it, because he was trying to solve the problem in too conciliatory a fashion. It just didn't work out.

HESS: All right, I think that brings us pretty well down on our list of questions. We are paring them down. Shall we cut it off for the day?

Oral History Interview with Frank Pace Jr.

Oral History Interview with
Frank Pace Jr.