Mr. Trohan states that these are disillusioning words, and imply that “free men must not be told the truth; they indicate that the speaker is in a mental purgatory for hidden sins which he has either observed or committed; and they emphasize the graver tragedy: that an old man who must conceal past errors from his countrymen is still exercising powers of decision.”
Trohan asks, and so do I: “Should free men trust a leader who will not trust them with the truth? By what right does a public servant say to free men: ‘You trusted me with leadership, but I will not give a true accounting because the truth might do irreparable harm’?”
Marshall has ever been quick to blame the people for the ills that may beset them—never the leaders, as warrant a remark he made following the debacle of the Korean war: “The basic error has always been with the American people”—these same American people who cannot be trusted with the truth, lest “irreparable harm” be done.
Other indications as to the stature of the man reveal themselves as isolated vignettes. When Marshall arrived in China and was met by General Albert C. Wedemeyer, even after he had read and suppressed the Wedemeyer Report, he told his junior officer of his intention with regard to forcing Communists on the Generalissimo. Wedemeyer commented in all calmness:
“General, you can’t do it. It is impossible!”
To which Marshall replied in white heat: “I am going to do it, and you are going to help me!”
Marshall’s double-cross of Wedemeyer in appointing the latter Ambassador to China in 1947 is another instance. Secretary of State James Byrnes had told Wedemeyer to go ahead and buy his civilian clothing, which he did, and as Wedemeyer was on the point of severing his last connections from the Army, Marshall learned that the Communists strongly opposed the Wedemeyer appointment and recommended instead, J. Leighton Stuart, President of Yenching University. Without consulting with or informing General Wedemeyer, Marshall immediately appointed Stuart, leaving Wedemeyer to find out through second-hand sources that he was no longer Ambassador-elect to China.
A parallel action of this nature in which Marshall had a direct hand was the midnight dismissal of General MacArthur, who learned of the order when an aide heard it on a radio news broadcast and relayed it to Mrs. MacArthur.
Again, with reference to Marshall’s so-called ignorance of the China policy situation, Jonathan Daniels, in his authorized biography of Truman, quotes Admiral William D. Leahy as saying: “I was present when Marshall was going to China. He said he was going to tell Chiang that he had to get along with the Communists, or get no help from us.”
Before the removal, by Truman, of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from all of his commands in the Far East—one of the greatest acts of perfidy to go down in American history—few people realized that Marshall was not a West Pointer. This, of course, is in no way to be held against Marshall, but, during World War I, as General Pershing’s aide-de-camp, when Pershing was Chief of Staff, a promotion of Marshall to a Generalship was requested of MacArthur by Pershing.