Lord Russell Sees MacArthur Dismissal as “Act of Courage” [1951]

Although billed as an “exclusive” by The Wichita Beacon (22 April 1951, p. a9), this brief commentary for the Kansas daily (see Plate X) on the Truman–MacArthur controversy had already appeared in abridged form as “World Sighs with Relief at Firing of MacArthur: Bertrand Russell”, The Daily Compass, New York, 18 April 1951, p. 2 (B&R C51.12). Russell’s statement was solicited by his American literary agent, Julie Medlock, acting as executive director of her small non-profit foundation, Public Interest International. As the pair were forging their professional relationship in New York in November 1950, Russell had agreed that not all Medlock’s efforts on his behalf would be conducted on a commercial basis (see Medlock c.1972, 15). In this instance, for example, no fee was demanded when 72 was circulated in mimeograph to some three hundred editors, journalists, publishers and educators, as well as to members of Congress (ibid., 93). Yet only the two published versions cited above have been found. Medlock remembered how “pro-MacArthur newspapers ignored it, although some wrote scathing editorials denouncing the statement they had not given their readers the opportunity to see” (ibid., 91–2). Nevertheless, Russell informed Medlock, he was “proud to see that you got the Wichita Beacon to publish my blast about MacArthur”—even as he was still wondering “how the MacArthur business will end” (9 May 1951).