XII. MacArthur Hearings, 1951-1953

Scope and content:

On 11 April 1951 President Harry Truman announced his removal of General Douglas MacArthur as commander of the United Nations and United States troops in the Far East. The dismissal of a popular military hero in the midst of an unpopular war brought a flood of criticism against Truman; emotions ran high.

It was in this atmosphere that Senator Russell chaired the Joint Senate Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations which investigated the dismissal of General MacArthur. The hearings earned Russell kudos in the nation's headlines for his skill in defusing the MacArthur firing and gained the senator the reputation as one of the most powerful men in the Senate.

The MacArthur Hearings series documents the work of this joint committee from Russell's perspective. The four subseries are correspondence file, subject file, hearings materials, and committee prints. This series includes correspondence, reports, memoranda, briefs, newspaper clippings, speeches, press statements, and printed materials. The hearings materials consist of an accordion folder and a black notebook, which was carried by Senator Russell to the hearings. Both contain notes written by Russell during the hearings, speeches and statements by Russell, analyses of testimony for purposes of strategy, hearing summaries, and printed reports.

Contents

Access and use restrictions

Parent restrictions:
Case mail, cross-reference copies, and military academies are closed. Additional files are restricted throughout the collection, as noted in the container listing.
Parent terms of access:
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