Truman's Other War: The Battle for the American Homefront, 1950-1953Author(s): Paul G. Pierpaoli, Jr.Source: OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 14, No. 3, The Korean War (Spring, 2000), pp. 15-19Published by: Organization of American HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163359Accessed: 17/08/2010 10:09

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Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr.

Truman's Other War:

The Battle for the American

Homefront, 1950-1953

F' or decades after the guns fell silent, the Korean War remained a faindy distant conflict in popular memory. Even scholars

largely ignored the war until the 1980s rekindled interest in this

crucial episode in American and world history. Sandwiched as it was

between World War II (the "Good War") and the agony of Vietnam

(the "Bad War") Korea became known simply as the Forgotten War.

When the Korean conflict ended in an armistice in July 1953, most

Americans wanted nothing more than a return to normalcy. They

wanted to like Ike and focus on the American Dream. So they bought television sets, went to college in record numbers, ogled Detroit's big

finned behemoths, moved en masse to suburbia, and gyrated

themselves into the era of rock and roll. But they also forgot the

sacrifice and slaughter that had taken place on the Korean Peninsula,

and quickly pushed aside the scourge of McCarthyism, which the war

had unleashed.

To be sure, the Korean War was an unpopular war here at home.

It was the first war that the United States did not win; thus, our

nation's collective amnesia is not at all surprising. But the scholarship

of the war, generated mosdy since the early 1980s, paints a very

different picture. Korea was a pivotal turning point in modern

American history. Indeed, it unleashed far greater consequences than

its better-known successor of Vietnam, and in fact it laid much of the

groundwork for America's struggle in Indochina. Remembering

Korea, especially the changes it wrought on the homefront, is the

principle endeavor of this article (1). Prior to 25 June 1950, President Harry S. Truman had no notion

of fighting a major land war in Asia or, for that matter, engaging the

nation in a vast and exorbitant Cold War rearmament program. In

his January 1949 inaugural address, the president?always a rather

staunch fiscal conservative?had promised to balance the budget,

decrease the national debt, keep inflation at bay, and implement his

Fair Deal program, an ambitious social welfare plan that sought to

address an array of problems from public housing and health care to

civil rights. To accomplish this, Truman cast his lot with those who

sought to keep national security and defense spending to a bare

minimum. He also sought to provide America's allies with protection

from the perceived Russian threat by using the strength of the U.S.

economy as a bulwark against Communism. Thus, initiatives such

as the Marshall Plan, the International Monetary Fund, and the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) would emphasize economic?rather than military?containment of the Soviet Union.

In other words, Truman's hope was to focus on domestic

issues by building upon New Deal-style reform, focusing on

modest civil rights initiatives such as his 1948 order to desegregate the armed forces, and combating the growing perception o? a

Communist menace at home. However, beginning in 1949 a

convergence of domestic and international events conspired against

Truman's best intentions. Even before the sudden outbreak of war

in Korea, the president had begun to realize that more would have

to be done to defend against Communist advances abroad. Neverthe

less, it took the blunt force of Korea to push the Truman administra tion into action (2).

Between the winter of 1949 and 1950, the domestic and

international atmosphere changed dramatically, and not necessarily

for the better. Early in 1949 Dean Acheson replaced retiring

Secretary of State George C. Marshall. More hawkish and less willing to capitulate to Truman's domestic priorities than his predecessor,

Acheson began an almost immediate and sustained effort to build up

U.S. military forces at home and abroad, arguing that the United

States was incapable of defending itself and its allies against an all-out

OAH Magazine of History Spring 2000 15

Pierpaoli/Homefront

Throughout 1951 and

1952, Truman would

contend with growing

criticism of his handling of the economy and

homefront, some of

which went so far as to

accuse him of socialism

and outright despotism.

Soviet offensive. By mid 1949, in fact, Truman was coming under

increased pressure even from within his own administration to spend

more on defense.

Then, coming in rapid and relendess procession beginning in

September 1949 was a series of events that shook the nation and the

Truman administration. In September the Soviets surprised the

world and obliterated the U.S. atomic monopoly by exploding their

first A-bomb. Then came the October Communist victory in the

Chinese Civil War, which was quickly followed by the permanent division of Germany.

January 1950 brought more setbacks. First, the Soviet Union

began a boycott of the United Nations to protest its nonrecognition

of the new People's Republic of China (PRC). Next came the

February 1950 alliance of friendship and mutual assistance between

the Soviet Union and China. At about the same time, Alger Hiss was

convicted of perjury in the infamous Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss

Spy Case; Ethel and Julius Rosenberg awaited execution for

espionage; and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy began his four-year

long anti-Communist witch hunt at a speaking engagement in

Wheeling, West Virginia. Thus, by early spring 1950 two things had become clear. First,

President Truman's Fair Deal was on the ropes, for the deteriorating

international and domestic political scenes were going to require a

further de-emphasis of domestic imperatives. Second, Senator

McCarthy's groundless and vituperative accusations of internal

Communist subversion were about to poison the well of foreign

policy bipartisanship and, in the process, make Truman's job of

governing ever more difficult.

In April 1950 President Truman first viewed the seminal

blueprint for waging the Cold War: NSC-68, a joint effort of the

Departments of State and Defense, as well as the National Security

Council. Using particularly baleful and alarming language, NSC-68

argued that the United States was losing the initiative in the Cold

War, that the nation was woefully ill-prepared to defend itself and its

allies against Communist advances, and that the administration must

embark upon and complete a massive conventional and nuclear

build-up by 1954, which it described as the year of maximum danger. Taken aback by its conclusions and prescriptions?not to mention its

likely astronomical costs?Truman demurred and insisted that the

actual costs of the plan be calculated before he took any action on it.

In the meantime NSC-68 was shelved, until hell broke loose on the

Korean peninsula that June (3). When North Korea unexpectedly lashed out and attacked South

Korea on 25 June 1950, the Truman administration wasted little time

in deciding to respond, with force, to the Communist aggression.

Fearing a larger Communist conspiracy, which might have included a simultaneous attack against Western Europe, Japan, or other U.S.

strongholds, and determined that there would be "no more Munichs,"

Truman committed American troops to the Korean struggle. He also

began, quite fatefully perhaps, to rearm the nation along the lines

prescribed in NSC-68. Thus, America's new military rearmament

program would be targeted not so much at Korea, but at the long haul

and massive build-up envisioned in NSC-68. What America was to

witness during the three years of the war was actually a mobilization

within a mobilization: rearmament for the immediate needs of the

Korean War and, more critically, a long-term rearmament earmarked

to contain Communism in every corner of the world. The United

States was now on its way to constructing a permanent national

security state and defense economy, if not an incipient "garrison

state." With this construction, of course, came the destruction of

Truman's Fair Deal.

The monetary and psychological costs of this massive military

defense effort would prove to be enormous. By the end of 1951, the

annual defense budget had nearly quadrupled to $50 billion from a

pre-war low of $13.5 billion. As a result, the economy began to

overheat, and Americans began to chafe under mounting govern

ment controls on everything from prices and wages to raw materials.

During the first five months of the war, high inflation and growing

shortages periodically lashed at the United States economy. Budget deficits began to pile up ominously, and the Truman administration

tried its best to provide for the troops and allay Americans' concerns

by encouraging voluntary controls on prices, wages, production, and

hoarding. The administration also raised corporate and income taxes

and tightened credit. For a time these methods worked, and Truman

enjoyed the support of a majority of Americans?including many

Republicans?until disaster struck in late November 1950 (4). The unexpected and vicious Chinese intervention in Korea

caused military as well as economic havoc. Just as inflation and

shortages had begun to ease in the mid fall of 1950, a new round of

16 OAH Magazine of History Spring 2000

PlERPAOLl/HOMEFRONT

panic-buying and hoarding stoked the flames of inflation after the

military reversals in the Korean theater. The Truman administration,

fearing a far wider war, dramatically accelerated the rearmament

effort, which further fanned the inflation firestorm. Republicans and even some Democrats began to question and publicly criticize the

president's handling of the war and the homefront. Americans began

to panic and as Christmas 1950 approached a pall of defeatism and

doom descended. An editorial in Life magazine, surrounded by a

giddy blitz of Christmas ads, warned darkly that "the news is of

disaster; World War III moves ever closer...our leaders are fright

ened, befuddled, and caught in a great and inexcusable failure to

marshal the strength of America" (5). The Chinese intervention resulted in Truman's decision to

augment significantly U.S. military aid to NATO countries, includ

ing the placement of large troop deployments in Europe. This move

raised the eyebrows and ire of his political and ideological foes, most

notably the conservative and isolationist wings of the Republican

party. It also provided Senator McCarthy with more cannon fodder,

which he aimed with deadly accuracy at the Truman administration.

McCarthyism was now fully unleashed on an American populace

that felt quantifiably more vulnerable and frightened than ever

before. Quite naturally, as

McCarthy's star rose,

Truman's popularity sank (6).

Yet Truman's political af

flictions were perhaps the

least of his problems in De

cember 1950. He now faced

the dangerous prospect of a

full-scale war with China and,

perhaps, a confrontation with

the Soviet Union. In addi

tion, he had to search for a

way to rally the American

people around an unpopu

lar, undeclared, and limited

war; stabilize an economy

poised at a meltdown; and

mobilize even faster an indus

trial and defense establishment

that was already near the break

ing point. Such were the

challenges and vicissitudes of

limited war in the nuclear age.

By December, the Korean War

had become "Truman's War,"

and he alone would come to

shoulder the enormous bur

den of governing a people

and political process that

had become breathless with

fear and rife with criticism

and chicanery.

On 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a state of

national emergency and began to set in place a series of powerful

mobilization agencies. Using the presidential war powers granted to

him by Congress in the Defense Production Act of September 1950, Truman sought to mobilize the nation for war and control the

economy in a fashion not seen since World War II. To help him in

this herculean task, he named Charles E. Wilson, president of

General Electric and former World War II mobilization executive, to

head the new Office of Defense Mobilization, a "super mobilization

agency" to oversee every aspect of civilian and military mobilization

during the Korean War. In these circumstances, Wilson's authority

was powerful indeed; he became a virtual mobilization czar, and the

press was quick to dub his position as a "co-presidency" (7).

By late January 1951, with American-led United Nations troops still fighting desperately to wrest away the military gains made by the

Chinese and North Koreans, the Truman administration had created

some nineteen separate mobilization agencies to control virtually

every aspect of the economy. Included among these were the Office

of Price Stabilization, which administered prices for almost all consumer products, and the Wage Stabilization Board, which

controlled wages for all hourly employees and which some months

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Only minutes after declaring a national emergency on 16 December 1950, President Harry S. Truman established

the powerful Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM), charged with mobil ?zing the U.S. economy for war. With the

president is Charles E. Wilson, the head of the ODM. (Courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.)

OAH Magazine of History Spring 2000 17

PlERPAOLl/HOMEFRONT

later would create a Salary Stabilization Board to control all salaries

as well. This level of economic control, designed principally to lower

inflation and spur industrial production, was an unprecedented foray

into government regulation of the economy at a time in which no war

had been officially declared. The Korean mobilization thus chal

lenged America's age-old devotion to antimilitarism and antistatism.

Throughout the remainder of his term in office, Truman would

contend with growing criticism of his handling of the economy and

homefront, some of which went so far as to accuse him of socialism

and outright despotism.

Although mobilizing people and resources for this unpopular war

with vague and changing goals was never simple or easy, two periods

stand out as true tests of Truman's resolve and ability as a leader: the

winter and spring of 1951, and the spring and summer of 1952. In

February 1951 organized labor precipitated a long-running feud with

Truman's chief mobilizer Charles E. Wilson. Angered at what they believed to be their exclusion from the decision-making process on

mobilization issues, and dissatisfied with the controls placed upon workers' wages, labor leaders walked out of wage negotiation

sessions, resigned their positions on the Wage Stabilization Board,

and effectively boycotted the entire mobilization program until late

April. Labor's boycott frustrated and angered the Truman adminis

tration, heretofore considered labor's

ally, and threatened to disrupt de

fense production and economic sta

bilization just as mobilization efforts were moving into high gear. After

weeks of tense negotiation and bit

ter repudiation and criticism from

its critics, the Truman administra

tion finally resolved the crisis in

late April, but not before the presi

dent had lost even more support

for his handling of the war effort.

Then, of course, came what was

surely one of the biggest crises of the

entire war: Truman's decision to fire

General Douglas MacArthur on 11

April 1951. Although MacArthur

had clearly undermined his com

mander-in-chief, had engaged in es

sentially insubordinate behavior, and

had made repeated strategic and tac

tical blunders in prosecuting the war,

Truman was mercilessly lambasted

by the press and excoriated by his

opponents for dismissing the vain

glorious war hero. McCarthyites, con

servative Republicans, and other foes

of Truman used the MacArthur dis

missal to launch a fresh barrage of

abuse at the president, who nonethe

less stood firm by his decision. Be

that as it may, the crisis further crippled Truman's ability to respond

to changing circumstances on and off the battlefield and, of course,

his approval ratings were by then in a virtual free-fall.

The Korean War engendered yet another major crisis in the

spring of 1952, when some 600,000 steel workers threatened to

strike. In an attempt to avert a work stoppage, which he believed

would imperil the nation's war and rearmament effort, Truman

ordered a government take-over of the affected steel companies.

Amidst cries of dictatorship from Truman's detractors, and a stony

silence even from many of his supporters, the Supreme Court

deliberated on the constitutionality of the president's seizure order.

In June, the Court dealt Truman a crippling blow by ruling his action

unconstitutional. Truman then reversed his order, which marked the

beginning of a fifty-three-day steel strike. Although the strike was

not as devastating as Truman had feared, the entire incident led

many to believe that the exigencies of the war were damaging the

American system, empowering the executive branch with too

much authority, and leading to the imposition of a spartan

garrison state. The steel crisis also resulted in the resignation of

head mobilizer Charles E. Wilson. From that point on, the best

Truman could do was to fight a rearguard battle on the mobiliza

tion and stabilization fronts.

?><f

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President Harry S. Truman discussing the Korean situation with Secretary of Defense George C.

Marshall in September 1950. Marshall had just been called out of retirement, again, to lend his

leadership to the war effort. (Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Library.)

18 OAH Magazine of History Spring 2000

PlERPAOLl/HOMEFRONT

Clearly, America's homefront during the Korean War reflected a

house divided. It engendered bitter rhetoric and partisan infighting,

encouraged the continued antics of Senator McCarthy and his minions,

fostered a poisonous atmosphere of paranoia and fear, and created two

separate constitutional crises: the MacArthur Affair and the Steel Crisis.

Despite the turbulence of these three years, however, it must be said that

the Truman administration did an admirable job of keeping the ship of

state on a relatively straight course, especially when one considers that the

ship was navigating in completely uncharted waters.

So what, then, were the important legacies of this ferocious and

bloody war.7 Why is it important to study this period.7 First, the

Korean War provided the foundation upon which the entire Cold

War military and defense apparatus was built. The nation girded

itself to fight a protracted?perhaps indefinite?war to contain Com

munism around the world, an effort that would last for forty years.

Second, the Korea conflict institutionalized permanently large de

fense budgets, which had been hitherto anathema. In the process, the

federal government was granted sweeping power as it controlled

more and more of the nation's resources and as its bureaucracies

ballooned ever larger. At the same time, cyclical and growing budget

deficits and mounting debt became the norm rather than the

exception. Third, as a result of all of this government-sponsored

economic activity, America's industrial base became badly skewed.

The older industrial areas of the Northeast and Midwest suffered a

decades-long decline as new areas of industrialization sprang up in

the South and West, which came to be dominated by defense-related

firms. The nation's population and economic power bases thus

began to shift: further south and west, which in turn resulted in a

realignment of political power. Finally, the Korean War unseated the

Democratic party's nearly uninterrupted hold on power in Washing

ton, one that went all the way back to 1932. In 1952 Americans

elected a Republican president for the first time since 1928, and

turned over control of the House and Senate to the Republicans as

well. In an important, if ironic way, Korea helped to rehabilitate a

Republican party that had been forced to carry the heavy cross of the

Great Depression on its back for nearly a generation (8).

To be sure, the Korean War was devastating for the Korean

people, both in the North and the South. Both nations' villages, cities, infrastructure, and agriculture were left in utter ruin. Casualties

for all Koreans were estimated at 3 million. The United States lost

upwards o? 34,000 of its soldiers in the struggle in just three years?

a fatality rate far greater in relative terms than that oi the Vietnam

War. Moreover and tragically, Korea set the stage for another bloody war on another artificially divided Asian peninsula, this time in

Indochina. Remembering this conflict is important, not only because

of the many lives it cut short, but because our nation today, fifty years

after the war began, still bears the deep scars of the Korean War.

Endnotes 1. The literature on the Korean War is rather extensive, and the

military aspects of the war have gained the most attention from

historians and writers. Much of the work in this regard is

excellent, but as in so many instances, the quality is disparate.

For our purposes here, I recommend the following overviews of

the non-military aspects of the Korean War: Michael J. Hogan,

A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the

National Security State, 19454954 (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1998); Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War:

Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1997); Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., Truman and Korea:

The Political Culture of the Early Cold War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999); and Gary W. Reichard, Politics as Usual:

The Age of Truman and Eisenhower (Arlington Heights, IL

Harlan Davidson, 1988). 2. Much of the information contained herein and throughout this article

comes from my recently published book, Truman and Korea, the

first in-depth, scholarly treatment of the homefront and political

culture of the Korean War era (see above for full citation).

3. See "NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National

Security," Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 1 (Wash

ington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1977), 237-92; Ernest

R. May, ed., American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC-68

(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1993); Samuel F. Wells

Jr., "Sounding the Tocsin: NSC-68 and the Soviet Threat," International Security 4 (Fall 1979): 116-58; and Pierpaoli,

Truman and Korea, 25-27.

4. See Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., "Mobilizing for the Cold War: The

Korean Conflict and the Birth of the National Security State,

June-December 1950," Essays in Economic and Business His

tory 12 (June 1994): 106-17.

5. Life{\\ December 1950): 46. 6. For the corrosive effects of McCarthyism at this time, see Thomas

C. Reeves, 77ie Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1997); Stephen J. Whitfield,

The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1991); and Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in

Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1990).

7. Business Week (23 December 1950): 19. 8. For an extended analysis of these important shifts and trends, see

my Truman and Korea. See also Ann Markusen, et al., The Rise

of the Gunbelt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), which provides an

excellent study of the shifting of America's industrial and

population centers after World War II.

Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. is the assistant to the president and a

professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute. He is the author

of numerous scholarly articles and has recently published Truman

and Korea: The Political Culture of the Early Cold War (1999), a

book that analyzes the American homefront during the war. He is

also an assistant editor of the Journal of Military History and is an

associate editor of The Encyclopedia of the Korean War, to be

released in June 2000 by ABC-CLIO.

OAH Magazine of History Spring 2000 19