The most charitable interpretation

Late November 1950: United Nations forces commanded by the legendary General Douglas MacArthur are approaching the North Korean frontier when Chinese forces suddenly strike, an overwhelming onslaught precipitating a devastating retreat. At a presidential press conference held on 30 November, Harry Truman is pressed by journalists whether the atomic bomb might now be used to stem the tide. He rules nothing out: ‘That includes every weapon we have … The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of weapons, as he always has.’

But has he? According to conventional wisdom, Truman and MacArthur fell out on the use of atomic weapons against the Chinese in Korea, with the result that MacArthur was famously recalled as Far Eastern supremo. But what really happened, John Lewis Gaddis now reveals for the first time, was rather different. MacArthur ordered the US Air Force to drop two Hiroshima-type atomic bombs on Chinese divisions advancing down the Korean peninsula, leaving an estimated 150,000 Chinese dead.