Why did President Truman dismiss General MacArthur?
In 1951, President Truman and his advisors were preparing to engage North Korea and China in peace negotiations, in an attempt to resolve the ongoing conflict. General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the war into China if the Communist side refused to come to terms. When MacArthur continued to support an expansion of the war, communicating directly with a like-minded Republican congressman, Truman, with the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Secretaries of State and Defense, felt they had no alternative but to replace MacArthur with a military commander who would act in concert with the administrations foreign policy. On April 11, 1951, President Truman relieved MacArthur of his command. The members of the Joint Committee on Armed Services and Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, who conducted an inquiry in the spring of 1951 into the dismissal of MacArthur an
