President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur On 11 April 1951, U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands after MacArthur made public statements which contradicted the administration's policies. MacArthur was a popular hero of World War II who was then the commander of United Nations forces fighting in the Korean War, and his relief remains a controversial topic in the field of civil–military relations. MacArthur led the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, and after the war was in charge of the occupation of Japan. When North Korea
President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur Stanley A. McChrystal was sacked by President Barack Obama in 2009 after McChrystal and his staff made disparaging remarks about senior civilian government officials in an article published in "Rolling Stone" magazine. This elicited comparisons with MacArthur, as the war in Afghanistan was not going well. On the other hand, Major General James N. Post III was relieved and issued a letter of reprimand in 2015 for discouraging personnel under his command from communicating with the Congress, which he described as "treason". MacArthur's relief "left a lasting current of popular sentiment that in matters of war and peace, the military