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 votes for the Democratic Party. In July 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt had traveled to Hawaii to meet with MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz. At this meeting, Roosevelt made the decision to attack the Philippines in the final year of the Pacific war. It was a political triumph in an election year, refuting Republican claims that Roosevelt fixated on Europe at the expense of the Pacific. Truman emulated this by flying to the Pacific to meet MacArthur. Initially, Truman was unenthusiastic about the idea, as he disliked publicity stunts, but in October 1950, in the wake of the victories at Pusan