MACARTHUR HEARING: Political Squall

After long days of earnest decorum the harsh, bitter squalls of politics rolled into the quiet chamber where 26 U.S. Senators were considering high policy and General MacArthur. The witness was General of the Army Omar Bradley, five-star chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley, senior Republican of the Foreign Relations Committee, was pressing him to remember who had called first to tell him that President Truman "was concerned about some of the public statements made by General MacArthur." Said Wiley, sarcastically: "This was an unusual occurrence in your little life, was it not, General—that you should find out that a fellow general was about to have something happen to him? Now, just what was this message that came?"

BRADLEY: "I told you that I did not remember where I first got this information . . . The first time I really came into this, and found out what it was all about, was on Friday morning, April 6, when I met with the President and the others [Defense Secretary Marshall, Secretary of State Acheson, Presidential Adviser W. Averell Harriman] in his office."

WILEY: "All right. Now tell us what was said then."

BRADLEY: "Senator, at that time I was in a position of a confidential adviser to the President. I do not feel at liberty to publicize what any of us said at that time."

Snapped Wiley: "I am asking for the chairman to rule that my question is pertinent and relevant and should be answered." With that, the sober and careful tone of the hearing was drowned out by the jangle of its first noisy dispute.

Chairman Russell ruled that Bradley, as a confidential adviser, did not have to reveal confidential conversations with the President. Wiley protested. The committee broke into angry wrangling. Democrats pointed out that precedents running back to George Washington had protected the right of Presidents to privacy in their communications with confidential advisers. As a matter of most recent precedent, when General MacArthur declined to reveal his private conversations with President Truman at Wake Island, no one had questioned his refusal. Texas' Tom Connally rumbled: "How could a President do anything at all if all you had to do was to station a man out in front of the White House and take down the name of anybody who went into the White House to see the President and then jerk him up before a committee and say: . . . 'Tell us what he said. Tell us what you said to him.' "

California's Republican William Knowland remarked darkly: "I am fearful if at this time an iron curtain is lowered . . . then it becomes a question as to whether ... or not we do not have a responsibility to go back [to the Senate] and report that under the conditions we face we may not be able to carry out [our] obligation." Arkansas' Democrat William Fulbright retorted: "I hope the Senator has not decided to sabotage or destroy this hearing simply because the evidence now being presented does not support General MacArthur."