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But now, in these вЂњweeks of slaughter and heartbreak,вЂќ that was to change dramatically and with immense, far-reaching consequences. For all its vaunted nuclear supremacy, the nation was quite unprepared for war. Years of slashing defense expenditures, as a means to balance the budget, had taken a heavy toll. The NATO allies were exceedingly concerned lest the United States become too involved in distant Korea.

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In Western Europe there was but one, and as former British prime minister Winston Churchill noted in a speech in London, the full allied force of 12В divisions in Western Europe faced a Soviet threat of eighty divisions. The hard reality was that the army had only 10В divisions. Four more divisions were urgently needed, he said in a cable that jolted Washington. Just days later, on July 9, the situation had become so вЂњcriticalвЂќ that he called for a doubling of his forces. In the first week of July, MacArthur requested 30,000 American ground troops, to bring the four divisions of his Eighth Army to full strength. They had held back the landslide, said Truman, who would rightly call it one of the most heroic rearguard actions on record. Despite their suffering and humiliation, the brutal odds against them, the American and Republic of Korea units had done what they were supposed to, almost miraculously. forces, was trading space for time-time to pour in men and supplies at the port of Pusan-and the wonder was the North Koreans had been kept from overrunning South Korea straightaway. But MacArthur, now in overall command of the U.N. IT WAS, IN MANY RESPECTS, one of the darkest chapters in American military history. What follows is excerpted from a book that is already being recognized as one of the signal American biographies of recent years, David McCulloughвЂ™s Truman, just published by Simon & Schuster. Meanwhile, the outnumbered and outgunned South Korean forces, along with contingents of American troops airlifted from Japan, tried vainly to delay the onslaught of the North Korean вЂњPeopleвЂ™s Army.вЂќ In the next months, as disaster changed to triumph and then disaster again, and a third world war loomed, Truman would come to one of the most difficult decisions of his presidency. The United States had persuaded the United Nations to intervene, and MacArthur was given overall command. On June 24, 1950, North Korean tanks had crossed the 38th parallel into the Republic of South Korea, in a blitzkrieg-like attack. It was the crisis of the Korean War that brought on the confrontation.

Pershing, Eisenhower, and Bradley and at the same time produce Custers, Pattons, and MacArthurs.вЂќ The feeling was mutual.

вЂњDonвЂ™t see how a country can produce such men as Robert E. Prima Donna, Brass Hat, Five Star MacArthur,вЂќ Truman had once noted in his diary. The two men distrusted each other at long distance-they would meet only once. This American Kitchener was a genuine hero but then (although people did not recognize it at the time), so was Truman. On the other, there was MacArthur, a Medal of Honor recipient, the supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific during World War II, the sometimes brilliant strategist turned benevolent autocrat who had presided over the reconstruction-and democratization-of Japan. How often do two such major figures find themselves on a collision course, from which neither is willing to veer? On the one hand, there was Truman, the artillery captain of World War I, the accidental president, the surprise election victor of 1948, whose decisions at the start of the Cold War would define the WestвЂ™s diplomatic and military policies for for years. IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN ARMS, few personal showdowns have been quite so freighted with consequence as the confrontation between Harry S. TrumanвЂ™s distinguished biographer recounts events surrounding the headline that stunned the world. Truman Fires MacArthur | HistoryNet Close