Editorial Note
At 10:30 p. m. on April 11, President Truman delivered a radio report to the American people on Korea and United States policy in the Far East. The principal theme of his address, which he reiterated several times, was that the United States was trying to prevent the spread of hostilities in Asia into a third world war. By fighting a limited action against the Communist aggression in Korea, which, the President asserted, had been plotted and launched as part of a greater plan to conquer all of Asia, the United States believed it would blunt the Communist thrust and thwart the Kremlin’s effort to take over the Far East. General MacArthur’s dismissal, resulting from his disagreement with the American policy of limiting the war to Korea, presaged no change in the country’s policy. Mr. Truman went on to state that a negotiated peace could be achieved, but not through appeasement of the aggressors. It must be based, he said, on a cessation of the fighting, the taking of concrete steps to see that the fighting would not break out again, and an end to aggression. (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, page 223)