Cordell Hull Quotes

MacArthur had been the Commander of our Military Forces in Korea. He had a huge ego, and he wanted to cross the border and attack China since Chinese Troops were aiding the North Vietnamese. He had previously assured the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President that the Chinese would not send troops into Korea, but he was then wrong. And when they had attacked, they had erased the territorial gains that MacArthur had previously gained. The Joint Chief’s of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State had decided upon a strategy which this time did not follow MacArthur’s strategic advice. The President approved the strategy, but MacArthur spoke and acted contrary. The President met with MacArthur and reiterated the strategy that the President approved. But MacArthur did not follow the orders of the Joint Chiefs. At the time, he and Eisenhower were America’s two most famous military leaders, and of the two MacArthur was senior and thought that he should be President. After he was fired, MacArthur addressed a Joint Session of Congress and gave his "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech which was his first active step towards the Presidency. It was a very sentimental speech with little content and nothing about why he had disobeyed orders. He was totally shocked when it was Eisenhower who was selected to run for President and not him.

At the time Japan had a strong Fascist military wing and the army was not under the control of the civilian government. The government diplomats were less aggressive and expansionist as the military was. The Japanese diplomats would assure other governments like the United States of their peaceful intentions and then the Japanese army would do something that was completely contradictory. As the militarist wing gained domination over the government, the diplomats would strategically lie, and then claim what whatever the army did, was done be rogue officers and was not part of government policy. See {627085}.

See Ben Franklin for an earlier similar sentiment {465143}.

This quote comes from Goebbels' text "Churchill's Lie Factory" and is believed to be the paraphrased source of the commonly misattributed quote in {583627}.

Describing Martin Luther King Jr.:

After the Constitution had been ratified, there was a concerted attempt on the part of the Southern Slave States to minimize the importance of the Declaration of Independence. They feared that the equality principle in the Declaration should be seen by Americans as desirable policy which clearly meant slavery was untenable. There were three approaches all used by the Southerners. First, they tried to make it clear that the Declaration had no weight in American law or moral principles as it was superseded by the Constitution. Second, they claimed that it could only have applied to white men as Black males were not really men. Third, that the statement was patently false. This quotation illustrates the latter.