Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [110]
His comments followed a discussion of the reasons why he had ordered the dropping of the first two atomic bombs on Japan in World War II. Our conversation went this way:
“Was there any pressure on you to release the A-bomb again in the Korean conflict?”
“Yes, MacArthur wanted to do that.”
“MacArthur did?”
“Yes, he wanted to bomb China and eastern Russia and everything else.”
“Use the atomic bomb?”
“Why, of course. That’s the only weapon we had that they would understand.”
“This was one of the main reasons you recalled him?”
“I recalled him for disobedience of orders. He was in private contact with the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, Joe Martin, and he had been warned that the Commander in Chief was still the Commander in Chief.”
Both Associated Press and United Press International flashed the story to clients in this country and abroad. Later, when reporters asked Mr. Truman why he had not mentioned MacArthur’s alleged advocacy of what amounted to a “preventive war” in his memoirs, the former President replied:
“I didn’t want to do MacArthur any damage, but when a question is asked point-blank, I have to answer it.”
The next day MacArthur, in a statement issued through his former aide Major General Courtney Whitney, called Mr. Truman’s version “completely false.”
“The records are available,” he said, “and will show that atom-bombing in the Korean War was never discussed either by my headquarters or in any communication to or from Washington.”
Mr. Truman’s final comment on the subject:
“I’ll have no further comment on the controversy. History will take care of itself.”
But At Random is not primarily a political show. It offers a bit of everything. And inevitably, wherever such literate guests gather, the conversations are laced with innumerable bon mots and humorous anecdotes.
Theo Bikel, actor and folk singer, told of what impelled him to leave a position as an agricultural student in Israel for a stage career:
“I was shoveling dung and reciting Shakespeare, and I decided they didn’t mix.”
Arthur (“Red”) Motley, publisher of Parade magazine, gave this definition of a committee:
“A group of unfits, appointed by the unwilling, to do the unnecessary.”
And actor Pat O’Brien told how his son had won a school prize for an essay on highway safety:
“Drive carefully!” the boy had written. “Don’t hit a child! Wait for a teacher!”
But in the long run it is not humor, or controversy, or even the promise of news-making statements that keeps millions of viewers awake long past their normal bedtimes on At Random nights: it is that other element – the promise of seeing prominent people as they really are. Because of the varied and freewheeling nature of the conversation, At Random reveals these people as few other programs can.
Viewers who heard Bill Veeck discuss research with Dr. Percy Julian, or state his considered opinions on international affairs, social problems, and other subjects can understand why those of us who know him say that the former White Sox president is a most remarkable man. The amount of reading he does is amazing. There is almost no field in which he does not have more than a passing knowledge.
And those who have seen and heard Jimmy Roosevelt in several visits to the show know why he is considered one of the most personable