want to happen and ordered MacArthur to not provoke the Chinese. However, MacArthur’s views differed from that of Truman’s and the general ignored his command. Unable to keep the General under his control, the president fired MacArthur on April 11, 1951 for insubordination. Nonetheless, MacArthur received a hero’s welcome home parade in San Francisco on his return. Many criticized Truman for firing the most respected general and created a huge uproar in the American public. The two men had differing opinions regarding the Korean War such as in military, political, and foreign policies. Despite the public criticism Truman received after firing the General, I argue that Truman’s decision was best in preserving the national and international peace. …show more content…
President Truman’s number one goal in the Korean War was to prevent a wide scale war. He did not want to involve other countries into this war and wanted to resolve the communist conflict in Korea. He was afraid that any more involvement of the countries would result in a third world war. It was simply a problem of containment in Korea and the intervention of the Soviet Union or other European countries would be fatal. If America was successful in taken down the power of the communist forces in Korea, the countries would naturally find peace again. Overall, Truman wanted Korean War to be a limited war, with the sole purpose to protect South Korea from communist attacks. On the other hand, General MacArthur believed that the Korean War was the chance to eradicate all communist roots and prevent it from spreading to other Asian countries. To him, this was more efficient because then there would be no need to be involved in other aggressions in relation to communism. He saw the origin of the problem lied in the Pacific Hemisphere and the European countries should not be taken into consideration in this war. Instead of a limited war, MacArthur wanted to pursue a full scale war to take all means possible to reach his