Acheson, Hon. Dean G., Under Secretary of State before House Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 20, 1947, on the difference MILITARY SITUATION IN THE FAR EAST THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1951 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES AND THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, UNITED STATES SENATE, The committees met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:05 a. m. in room 212, Senate Office Building, Senator Richard B. Russell (chairman, Committee on Armed Services) presiding. Present: Senators Russell (chairman, Committee on Armed Services), Connally (chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations), Bridges, Byrd, Saltonstall, Johnson of Texas, Morse, Kefauver, Knowland, Cain, Stennis, Long, Wiley, George, Smith of New Jersey, Green, Hickenlooper, McMahon, Tobey, Sparkman, and Brewster. Also present: William H. Darden, clerk, Committee on Armed Services; Verne D. Mudge and Mark H. Galusha of the committee staff of the Armed Services Committee; Francis O. Wilcox, chief of staff; and Thorsten V. Kalijarvi, staff associate, Committee on Foreign Relations. Chairman RUSSELL. The committees will come to order. Gentlemen of the committees, the witness before us today is former Secretary of Defense, Louis A. Johnson. It is a pleasure personally to me to greet Colonel Johnson before these committees. I have known him personally for many years, and, in my opinion, he is an able public servant, and I know him to be a man who speaks candidly and forthrightly on any subject. He has served his country in time of war, and he has served it well in time of peace. As a citizen, soldier, as the head of the American Legion, and Assistant Secretary of War and as the Secretary of Defense, he has played a part in the protection of this country and developing and promoting its interests. He has served at a time when critical decisions were made. He has information that is very pertinent to the matters that are under investigation, and I know that he is willing to give us the facts that are within his possession. Mr. Johnson, the committees have instructed me to administer the oath to all witnesses. Please rise and raise your right hand and be sworn. You do solemnly swear that the evidence which you will give these committees upon the matters that are now under investigation will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. JOHNSON. I do. TESTIMONY OF LOUIS A. JOHNSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Chairman RUSSELL. Do you have any prepared statement that you desire to make? Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committees, first, may I thank the chairman for his opening remarks. He is very kind. I am appreciative. Some years ago in a great Catholic hospital in the city of Chi cago Senator WILEY. A little louder, if you please. Mr. JOHNSON. Some years ago in a great Catholic hospital in the city of Chicago, I was impressed as I went in by an overly large sign and later by smaller signs in the corridors I visited, all reading the same: "Please go quietly." With the sole exception of the speech to the National Convention of the American Legion on October 9, last year--copy of which I have with me if you want it-from the time I left the Defense Department until these hearings I have not talked publicly or privately about my departure from the Department of Defense, about the Department of Defense, about the removal of MacArthur, or any allied subject. I would prefer not to be here today. I am here because of the letter of June the fourth from your chairman inviting me to be here, which letter from this distinguished group of Senators of the two committees is to me a summons. I shall not indulge in personalities; I shall not violate the confidences of the President of the United States obtained while I was a member of his cabinet. Within that framework, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, to the best of recollection and ability I shall be glad to answer any questions asked me. I have no prepared statement. BACKGROUND OF WITNESS Chairman RUSSELL. Mr. Johnson, outline briefly the positions you have held with the Government and the years, dates in which you served in each capacity. Mr. JOHNSON. Not mentioning the boards to which President Roosevelt from time to time appointed me, which are not important here, I became Assistant Secretary of War in the middle of 1937 and resigned therefrom in 1940 in July, I believe. In 1941 or 1942—I can think that out for you as to the exact date, if you want-March 1942, President Roosevelt appointed me his special representative in the Far East with senior authority in that part of the world, and I represented the Government there, carried, I believe, on the rolls of the State Department for about a year. Senator WILEY. How long? Mr. JOHNSON. On the rolls of the State Department for about a year. Senator SALTONSTALL. What year, please? Mr. JOHNSON. 1942, as I recall. That is deceptive, however, I was in India about 3 or 4 months-and I can look up the dates for youwhen I was taken seriously ill and spent the next year getting well. On January 28, 1949, Mr. Forrestal, with the approval of the President of the United States, later confirmed on that date by the President, asked me to succeed him as Secretary of Defense. I served in that capacity until September 18, 1950. Chairman RUSSELL. What was your service during World War I, Mr. Johnson? Mr. JOHNSON. When World War I broke out, I was chairman of the judiciary committee and majority floor leader in the West Virginia Legislature, and I attempted to resign forthwith, and was asked by the then Gov. John J. Cornwall to remain until we had put through the work-or-fight law; so I missed the first training camp contingent and went in with the second, and became a captain of the Infantry; went overseas and was overseas about 13 months, as I recall, returned and was discharged. I went overseas in May. Chairman RUSSELL. Will you state briefly your connections with the American Legion? Mr. JOHNSON. In my own State of West Virginia, I believe the record will show that I served the American Legion in almost every capacity, up until the time I was elected department commander. In 1932, at Portland, Oreg., I was elected national commander and served 13 months. I am a member of the national executive committee of the American Legion, for life; vice chairman of its national endowment foundation; and have served on many of its most important committees, and probably am a member of some others now that I do not recall at the moment. VISITS TO JAPAN Chairman RUSSELL. During your service as Secretary of Defense, did you pay any visits to Japan, or the Far East? Mr. JOHNSON. With General Bradley, in June of last year, 1950, we visited installations in the Pacific en route to Japan, where General Bradley and I together had long conferences with General MacArthur, were briefed by his staff and later, rather, on the same visit, briefed by the representatives of each of the three services. On that visit I meticulously stayed away from getting into the political situation in Japan in the sense of visiting with Japanese officials, largely limiting our visit to the military situation which was our responsibility. Chairman RUSSELL. Do you recall when you returned to the States in June of last year? Mr. JOHNSON. General Bradley and I arrived at National Airport, Washington, in the neighborhood of noon on June 25. That is the day the night of which the Korean offensive was started. CONDITIONS OF OUR FORCES IN THE FAR EAST IN JUNE 1950 Chairman RUSSELL. What did you observe and hear as to the condition of our military forces in the Far East during the time that you were there? Mr. JOHNSON. Within the limits of the forces we had, we found them in good shape, with the forces in Japan being occupation forces, so designed and so set up. Chairman RUSSELL. How do you distinguish occupation forces from other armed forces? Mr. JOHNSON. They were not equipped with the things that you would need if you were going to fight a hostile enemy. They were staffed and equipped for occupation; not for war or an offensive. Chairman RUSSELL. Why were they in that condition? Why were they not equipped for any eventuality? Mr. JOHNSON. So far as we in the Military Establishment were advised, we had no establishment for Korea. It was under the State Department at that time, and the forces were designed as recommended by General MacArthur and as agreed to by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the light of the obligations imposed upon the military in that part of the world. Chairman RUSSELL. Did you receive any information while you were visiting various military units in the Far East that would have served to put this country on notice that an aggressor was about to move into South Korea? Mr. JOHNSON. In the briefing of my intelligence covering all that part of the world, nothing was said about any immediacy of trouble in Korea, nor did anyone else on that trip give to me or to General Bradley, in my presence and we were together in all these conferences any indication of such. [Deleted.] Chairman RUSSELL. You discovered no feeling whatever anywhere in your visits throughout the Far East that an attack was imminent in Korea upon the South Korean Republic? Mr. JOHNSON. I did not. Chairman RUSSELL. What was the situation with respect to the numbers of troops in Japan? Did we have as many forces there as had been requested by the commanding officer of that territory? Mr. JOHNSON. If there had been any request for more troops than we had in Japan, any such request would have antedated my connection with the Defense Department. To the best of my knowledge, there was no such request during the period I first went to Defense, until Korea, the Korean incident. am not dodging; I just cannot answer as to what happened before I went over there in Defense. Chairman RUSSELL. I certainly should not expect you to. DECISION TO INTERVENE MILITARILY IN KOREA Can you give us a résumé of the development of the events and decisions which led to the final decision to intervene militarily for the protection of South Korea? Mr. JOHNSON. You will recall—and I believe I have said here before today—that the Defense Department did not have responsibility for Korea. Hence the first advices from Korea came from the representatives there of the State Department, except such as may have come in from the wire services. The first knowledge I had of trouble in Korea was some time, an hour or two before midnight, when one of the wire services passed on to me what they had. There were many conferences on the telephone that night, but we really had very little to go on. I finally went back to bed. The next morning General Bradley and I debated whether we should go to Norfolk I believe where the joint orientation course was being held, the program for which had been |