MacArthur and Intelligence

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

At 03:02 PM 9/16/01 -1000, DONALD KILMER wrote:
>Nice thought, but MacArthur seems to have been his
>own expert who did not   Maybe he had a little help from Willoughby on this
>  Can anyone offer a good source on the MacArthur-Willoughby dialogue on
>the potential for a Chinese intervention for the period July-November 1950?

Well, yes and no.  MacArthur WAS his own chief intelligence officer in most
respects, which led to some absolute disasters -- the Japanese attack on
the Philippines and the failure to anticipate CCA intervention in Korea
being the most outstanding -- and some brilliant successes in all three of
his major wars.  But it is important to remember that MacArthur was not
given the strategic intelligence mission in Korea:  that was reserved to
the CIA, who continued to advise the US government, the UN, and FEC that
there was no threat of CCA intervention and even claimed that the Chinese
captured in November, 1950, were simply "observers" despite all claims to
the contrary.

MacArthur detested having an agency operating within his command which was
not under his direction;  for that reason alone, he had banned the OSS in
the Second World War from SOWESPAC (though he and the Director of the OSS,
Donovan, were grand friends who had fought together in the First World War
in the 42nd Division and had been drawn together politically in the 1930's)
and had similarly declined to have the CIA in Japan during the Occupation
-- they only got into Korea because Korea had been removed from MacArthur's
area of interest in 1949.  Had Korea remained in the FEC's area, there
possibly would have been no CIA activity in Korea but, then, there might
not have been a Korean War, either.

Willoughby was incapable of handling the intelligence demands of Korea and
MacArthur certainly knew this:  Willoughby had a dismal record in the
Second World War as an intelligence analyst and, for that reason, MacArthur
ignored his work-up of opposing forces after 1943, though he cited them
when political requirements called for this -- and then privately ordered
his Operations people to ignore them when developing plans for forthcoming
operations.

MacArthur was an immensely complex man and it is difficult to reduce him to
a one-liner.  The best discussions of his reaction to intelligence in Korea
can be found in the standard MacArthur biographies (III Clayton James,
Manchester, Perret);  Blair is helpful, as well.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
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