President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur purposes is [just temporarily] allied with Soviet Russia." If MacArthur's thesis was accepted, then it followed that expanding the war with China would not provoke a conflict with the Soviet Union. The Joint Chiefs emphatically disagreed, although this contradicted their position that it was Europe and not Asia that was the prime concern of the Soviet Union. Even among Republicans, there was little support for MacArthur's position. On 5 April, Martin read the text of a letter he had received from MacArthur, dated 20 March, criticizing the Truman administration's priorities on the floor of the House. In it, MacArthur had
President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur insisted, "MacArthur had stretched but not legally violated any JCS directives. He had violated the President's 6 December directive, relayed to him by the JCS, but this did not constitute violation of a JCS order." The intention was that MacArthur would be personally notified of his relief by Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, who was touring the front in Korea, at 20:00 on 11 April (Washington, D.C. time), which was 10:00 on 12 April (Tokyo time). However, Pace did not receive the message due to a signals failure in Korea. Meanwhile, reporters began asking if rumors of MacArthur's relief