August 26, 1950: Truman Orders MacArthur's Formosa Message Withdrawn

Today in 1950 · Saturday, August 26, 1950

General Douglas MacArthur on an inspection tour of the Korean front, 1950

General Douglas MacArthur on an inspection tour of the Korean front, 1950 · U.S. Army Signal Corps photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1950, the simmering conflict between President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur broke into the open — over a message to a veterans' convention. MacArthur, invited to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars' 51st National Encampment in Chicago, had cabled a statement laying out his personal views on Formosa (Taiwan) as vital to America's 'strategic potential in the Pacific.'

The problem: those views flatly contradicted the administration's policy of neutralizing the Formosa question, and the text had already been released to the press before the White House ever saw it. On August 26, the Department of Defense telegraphed MacArthur that the President directed withdrawal of the message 'because various features with respect to Formosa are in conflict with the policy of the U.S. and its position in the UN.'

MacArthur announced the next day that he had been directed to withdraw it, and the White House confirmed the order had come from Truman himself. The message was recalled; the friction was not. Eight months later, in April 1951, the same collision of general and president would end with MacArthur's dismissal.

Also on this day

  • Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai met with military commanders as Beijing continued planning for possible intervention in Korea.
  • Died this day: Ransom E. Olds, the automobile pioneer whose name lives on in Oldsmobile.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — its 13 straight weeks at No. 1 was the longest run of the 1950s. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: James Stewart was in theaters twice over — as peacemaker Tom Jeffords in “Broken Arrow” and chasing a stolen rifle in “Winchester '73,” whose profit-sharing deal rewrote how Hollywood stars got paid.
⚾ In sports: In a wild Fenway slugfest on the 28th, the Red Sox fell behind Cleveland 10-1, then stormed back with an eight-run fourth to win 15-14.

Sources: Truman Library: withdrawal of the VFW message · FRUS 1950 vol. VI, doc. 267 · Wikipedia: August 1950 · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Retrosheet 1950 game logs and box scores. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from August 2026

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