On This Day
70 years ago
In 1951, President Harry Truman relieved Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command in Korea.
MacArthur received the news while at lunch in the American embassy at Tokyo. It came to him in the form of a terse, four-paragraph message captioned: "Order to General MacArthur From the President." As soon as MacArthur read it he automatically was stripped of the following titles:
"Supreme commander, Allied powers; commander in chief, United Nations command; commander in chief, Far East, and commanding general, U. S. army, Far East."
"Something apparently happened in the last 24 hours to cause Mr. Truman to take action at the unusual hour he did. A White House press conference was called at 1 a.m. today. The news was released and it broke like a bomb shell all around the world."
https://www.upi.com/Archives/0191/04/11/MacArthur-is-removed/8401554687152/