President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur creation of a professional military. This made civilian control increasingly problematic when coupled with the constitutional division of powers between the President as commander-in-chief, and the Congress with its power to raise armies, maintain a navy, and wage wars. In relieving MacArthur for failing to "respect the authority of the President" by privately communicating with Congress, Truman upheld the President's role as pre-eminent. Harry S. Truman became President of the United States on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, and won an unexpected victory in the 1948 presidential election. He was the only president who served after 1897
President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur 20 March, and he warned the new commander of the Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway, that political constraints might soon impose limits on his proposed operations. On 23 March, MacArthur issued a communiqué about offering a ceasefire to the Chinese: The next day, MacArthur authorized Ridgway to advance up to north of the 38th Parallel. Truman would later report that "I was ready to kick him into the North China Sea...I was never so put out in my life." Truman felt that MacArthur's communiqué, which had not been cleared in accordance with the December directive, had pre-empted his