Editing Douglas MacArthur (section)

=== China enters the war ===
China considered the UN offensive to its border a serious threat to its security. China's fears of an invasion were reinforced by MacArthur's public statements that he wanted to conventionally bomb, but not invade, China and use [[Kuomintang]] forces stationed in Formosa to augment UN forces in the Korean peninsula in response to China first initiating hostile actions against UN troops in non-Chinese territory (North Korea) during October and November. MacArthur was banned by Truman from sending any airplanes, even reconnaissance planes, over Chinese territory and his Air Force and Navy pilots complained to him about Chinese (and also very likely Soviet) jets illegally attacking them across the Yalu River inside North Korean territory while UN planes were bombing North Korean infrastructure south of the Yalu. For the purpose of domestic mobilization, the Chinese government lied about how the war started by falsely claiming MacArthur initiated the hostilities when he landed his troops at Inchon.{{sfn|Zhao|2022|pp=32-33}}<ref>{{citation |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA353574.pdf |title=United States Army in the Korean War – Policy and Direction: The First Year |last=Schnabel |first=James F. |publisher=Center of Military History United States Army |location=Washington, D. C. |date=1992 |pages=247–250 |access-date=5 September 2023 |isbn=0-16-035955-4}}</ref> The theory that Chinese leader [[Mao Zedong]] only entered the war because of MacArthur's Yalu offensive and comments has been accepted without question for many decades after the Korean War. However, recent research from historian [[Arthur L. Herman]] and others in the 2010s, citing evidence from Chinese historical archives, showed that Mao actually planned on directly intervening in the Korean War ever since July 1950, when the first American soldiers landed in South Korea, long before the Inchon and Yalu battles and long before MacArthur's public statements regarding Taiwan and China in late August 1950. The Chinese were planning to get involved in Korea with or without MacArthur's Yalu offensive.<ref>{{YouTube|id=udPpvxkFfT0|title=Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior|time=33m45s}}</ref> In fact, China had already indirectly intervened in the beginning of the Korean War by transferring 69,200 [[People's Liberation Army]] soldiers who were [[Koreans in China|Chinese citizens with Korean ethnicity]] to the North Korean [[Korean People's Army]] in 1949–50. These three Chinese army divisions that were transferred to North Korea were the [[12th Division (North Korea)|156th Division]], [[5th Division (North Korea)|164th Division]], and [[6th Division (North Korea)|166th Division]]. These former Chinese soldiers turned North Korean soldiers made up 47% of North Korea's 148,680-man army by June 1950.{{sfn|Tsui|2015|pp=45–47}}

On 25 November 1950, Walker's Eighth Army was attacked by the Chinese Army and soon the UN forces were in retreat. MacArthur provided US Army chief of staff General [[J. Lawton Collins]] with a series of nine successive withdrawal lines.{{sfn|James|1985|pp=537–538}} On 23 December, Walker was killed when his jeep collided with a truck and was replaced by Lieutenant General [[Matthew Ridgway]], whom MacArthur had selected in case of such an eventuality.{{sfn|James|1985|p=545}} Ridgway noted that MacArthur's "prestige, which had gained an extraordinary luster after Inchon, was badly tarnished. His credibility suffered in the unforeseen outcome of the November offensive&nbsp;..."{{sfn|James|1985|p=559}}

Collins discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons in Korea with MacArthur in December, and later asked him for a list of targets in the Soviet Union in case it entered the war. MacArthur testified before Congress in 1951 that he had never recommended the use of nuclear weapons, and considered but did not recommend a plan to cut off North Korea with radioactive poisons, although he broached the latter with Eisenhower, then president-elect, in 1952. In 1954, in an interview published after his death, he stated he had wanted to drop atomic bombs on enemy bases, explaining that "I would have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs on his air bases and other depots strung across the neck of Manchuria from just across the Yalu River from Antung (northwestern tip of Korea) to the neighborhood of Hunchun (just north of the northeastern tip of Korea near the border of the U.S.S.R.)". In 1960, he challenged a statement by Truman that he had advocated using atomic bombs. Truman issued a retraction, stating that he had no evidence of the claim; it was merely his personal opinion. In January 1951, MacArthur refused to entertain proposals for the [[forward-basing|forward deployment]] of nuclear weapons to cover a UN retreat in Korea as proposed by Truman.{{sfn|James|1985|pp=578–581}}<ref name="Senate 15 May 1951" />{{sfn|Dingman|1988|p=68}}

In April 1951, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted orders for MacArthur authorizing nuclear attacks on Manchuria and the [[Shandong Peninsula]] if the Chinese launched airstrikes originating from there against his forces.{{sfn|James|1985|p=591}} The next day Truman met with the chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, [[Gordon Dean (lawyer)|Gordon Dean]],{{sfn|Anders|1988|pp=1–2}} and arranged for the transfer of nine [[Mark 4 nuclear bomb]]s to military control.<ref name="HNN Cumings" /> Dean was apprehensive about delegating the decision on how they should be used to MacArthur, who lacked expert technical knowledge of the weapons and their effects.{{sfn|Anders|1988|pp=3–4}} The Joint Chiefs were not entirely comfortable about giving them to MacArthur either, for fear that he might prematurely carry out his orders.{{sfn|James|1985|p=591}} Instead, they decided that the nuclear strike force would report to the [[Strategic Air Command]].{{sfn|Dingman|1988|p=72}}