1951 - Political Events
Political Events
Seoul falls again to communist forces January 4, but UN forces retake it March 14 as superior UN air power knocks Russian-piloted MiG-15s out of the skies and uses bombs, rockets, strafing, and napalm to destroy enemy ground forces (see 1950). While Seoul has been 80 percent destroyed, North Korea's supply lines remain intact and she builds underground factories, dormitories, and schools to carry on the war.
Gen. MacArthur offers to discuss a truce, Beijing (Peking) rejects his bid March 29, President Truman calls for a "limited war," MacArthur makes public his call for air attacks on Chinese cities, repeating his insistence that there is "no substitute for victory," and President Truman relieves him of his command April 11 (Gen. Ridgway takes over). Some Republicans in Congress threaten to impeach the president, but Sen. Richard M. Nixon (R. Cal.) proposes instead that the Senate pass a resolution of censure, saying that Truman "has not acted in the best interests of the American people." MacArthur, now 71, returns to America, is hailed as a hero and urged to run for president, but makes a farewell address to a joint session of Congress, ending with words from a World War I British Army song: "Old soldiers never die; they simply fade away" (the line draws tears, but nobody knows quite what it means). The Senate votes unanimous approval April 25 of a resolution calling for its Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees to "conduct an inquiry into the military situation in the Far East and the facts surrounding the relief of Gen. MacArthur." Chaired by Richard B. (Brevard) Russell (Jr.), 53, (D. Ga.), the highly politicized hearings begin May 3, MacArthur testifies for 3 days, he admits no mistakes, insists that "infiltrative" operations across the Formosa Strait would have brought "a decisive end without the calamity of a third world war," and repeats his long-held argument that failure to fight communism in Asia will mean that "it will roll around to Europe as sure as the sun rolls around." But Gen. George C. Marshall and Gen. Omar Bradley support President Truman's action in dismissing MacArthur; Marshall expresses the administration's fear that MacArthur's proposals for taking the conflict directly to the People's Republic would risk an expanded war with the Chinese, loss of American allies, and "an all-out war with the Soviet Union." "General MacArthur's actions were continuing to jeopardize the civilian control over military authorities," Bradley testifies, and by the time the hearings wind up June 25 the transcript runs to more than 2 million words. Gen. MacArthur retires to private life.
Japan regains her autonomy May 3 (Constitution Day) after nearly 6 years of Allied military government. A U.S.-Japanese treaty of peace and mutual security pact signed September 8 at the San Francisco Opera House restores Japan's national sovereignty but permits U.S. troops to remain in Japan indefinitely to assist UN operations in the Far East; no other nation is to have Japanese bases without U.S. consent. Prime Minister Yoshida has flown to San Francisco to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and sign the agreement with representatives of 47 other nations.
Former Australian prime minister Joseph B. "Ben" Chifley dies at Canberra June 13 at age 65, having led the opposition in Parliament since his defeat at the polls 2 years ago. Former United Nations General Assembly president Herbert Vere Evatt, 57, becomes leader of the Labor Party and successfully counters Prime Minister Menzies's effort to outlaw Australia's Communist Party.
A U.S.-Philippine mutual defense pact signed August 30 is the first of several security pacts among anticommunist powers in the Far East (see SEATO, 1954).
Chinese armies enter Lhasa in September, securing their control of Tibet (see 1950; Dalai Lama, 1959).
French forces under Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, now 62, repulse communist attacks on Hanoi in French Indochina, turning back the Red River delta offensive of Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, 39, but illness obliges Lattre de Tassigny to return home; the communists revert to guerrilla tactics. Vietnamese prince Cuong De has died in exile at Tokyo April 6 at age 68 (approximate), having failed in his hopes of obtaining the imperial throne (see 1953).
Former newspaper publisher and Nazi supporter Alfred Hugenberg dies at Kukenbruch, West Germany, March 12 at age 85; former chief Comintern agent in China Mikhail Borodin dies in a Siberian labor camp May 29 at age 76.
Soviet UN representative Jacob A. Malik, 45, proposes a Korean cease-fire June 23; Gen. Ridgway broadcasts an offer to negotiate, talks open July 8 at Kaesong but break off August 23. Heartbreak Ridge falls to UN forces September 23 after 37 days of bitter trench warfare to gain the strategic heights north of Yanggu. UN forces grow to 500,000 and outnumber the communists; new peace talks begin October 25 at Panmunjom, but a 30-day "trial" armistice ends December 27.
Former Finnish field marshal and president Carl G. Mannerheim dies at Lausanne January 27 at age 83; former British foreign minister Ernest Bevin at London April 14 at age 70; former French chief of state Henri Pétain July 23 at age 95 on the Ile de Yeu, where he has been imprisoned since 1946 on treason charges; Rear Admiral Max Horton, Royal Navy (ret.), dies at London July 30 at age 67, having won fame as a submarine commander in World War I.
The Twenty-second Amendment limits U.S. presidential terms to two. Ratified February 27, it represents the culmination of Republican Party frustration at Democratic Party control of the White House since March 1933.
A federal judge at New York finds Ethel Rosenberg, 35, her husband Julius, 34, and their friend Morton Sobell guilty March 30 of having sold atomic secrets to Soviet agents. Mrs. Rosenberg's brother David Greenglass worked at the Los Alamos nuclear research station in New Mexico; it will turn out that the Rosenbergs supplied the agents with valuable information about radar and sonar, but although they knew nothing about the Manhattan Project the couple is sentenced to death April 5 (see 1953; Fuchs, Gold, 1950).
Sen. McCarthy calls George C. Marshall, now 70, a communist agent, but the junior senator from Wisconsin has been unable to prove, or even show any real evidence, that anyone in the State Department is guilty of any subversive activity (see 1950). Sen. Millard E. Tydings, 61, (D. Md.) has attacked McCarthy for perpetrating "a fraud and a hoax," but the campaign of accusations continues (see 1954; Lattimore, 1952).
Sen. Arthur H. Vandenburg (R. Mich.) dies at his native Grand Rapids April 15 at age 67. An isolationist before Pearl Harbor, he became the chief Republican architect of America's bipartisan foreign policy, supporting the Marshall Plan and U.S. participation in the United Nations.
U.S. nuclear scientists headed by Edward Teller set off the world's first thermonuclear reaction May 8 in a test at the uninhabited mid-Pacific atoll Eniwetok (see hydrogen bomb, 1952).
British diplomats Guy (Francis de Moncy) Burgess, 41, and Donald (Duart) Maclean, 38, flee to Moscow in late June amidst suspicions that they transmitted classified information to the communists. Indian-born British double agent H. A. R. (Harry Adrian Russell) "Kim" Philby, 40, has told Burgess and Maclean (who are also double agents) that their cover was blown and that British intelligence agents were closing in (see 1963).
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith dies at Washington, D.C., August 9 at age 65; communist leader Ella "Mother" Bloor at Richlandtown, Pa., August 10 at age 89.
President Truman directs federal agencies August 10 to support a program that would disperse industrial plants to prevent total destruction in the event of a nuclear war.
Gen. George C. Marshall resigns as secretary of state in September. President Truman appoints Marshall's Texas-born deputy Robert A. (Abercrombie) Lovett, 56, to succeed him, and Lovett will continue in the position until January 1953.
President Truman demands more stringent classification of security information by government agencies September 25.
Britain's Labour government falls in the general elections October 26 after 6 years in power. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister once again at age 77, but most of the social programs introduced by Clement Attlee's Labour government remain in place under the new Conservative government that takes office October 27.
The U.S. Army explodes an atomic device over the Nevada desert November 1 in the first war maneuver involving troops and nuclear weapons.
Guatemalan minister of war Jacobo Arbenz (Guzmán), 37, succeeds to the presidency in March with support from the army and left-wing groups that include the Guatemalan Communist Party. His emphasis on agrarian reform will lead him to attempt the expropriation of idle lands belonging to the United Fruit Company, Guatemala's largest landowner, and to impose higher taxes on the company and on other large landowners. Argentinian communist Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, 25, completes his medical studies and travels to Guatemala, where his Argentinian speech mannerism of interjecting "che" soon gives him the nickname Che Guevara (see 1954).
Puerto Ricans approve last year's Commonwealth Bill by an overwhelming majority in a referendum held June 4 (see 1952).
Eva Perón announces her candidacy for vice president, the Argentine military objects, she disclaims any intentions of running August 22, an Argentine Army group stages a revolt against President Perón's repressive regime September 28, but he wins reelection November 11 with campaign help from the popular Evita.
Iran's senate and majlis name Mohammed Mossadegh, 70, premier April 29. The leader of the extremist National Front will hold power for nearly 15 months (see 1953).
Jordan's Abdullah is assassinated at Jerusalem July 20 after a 5-year reign, his heir Emir Talal is proclaimed king by the national assembly September 5, but the new king suffers from schizophrenia and will be declared unfit to rule within the next year (see 1949; 1952).
French authorities in Morocco encourage a tribal rebellion against the sultan Muhammad V and surround his palace with troops on the pretext of protecting him. Encouraged by the late President Roosevelt to seek independence, the sultan is obliged to denounce the nationalist movement (see 1953).
The UN Security Council protests Egyptian restrictions that prevent Israel-bound ships from using the Suez Canal (the USSR, the People's Republic of China, and India abstain). Egypt refuses September 1 to comply with a UN resolution calling for an end to her nearly 14-month-old embargo on Israeli-bound shipping in the Suez and refuses October 15 to join in a western-oriented Mideast defense plan. Egypt abrogates her 1936 alliance with Britain October 27 and abrogates also the condominium agreement of 1899 covering the Sudan.
Libya proclaims herself an independent kingdom December 24 with a grandson of the late Islamic theologian as-Sanusi as monarch (see 1943); (see religion, 1859). Now 61, the emir of Cyrenaica Sidi Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi as-Sanusi has headed the mystical Sanusiyah brotherhood since 1916. The United Nations General Assembly voted in November 1949 that Cyrenaica, Fezzan, and Tripolitania should be combined into a single kingdom no later than January 1, 1952, and the pro-British Idris will reign until 1969 as Idris I (see energy, 1959).
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