Mr. Truman's War: A Debate and Its Aftermath

Abstract

“WeDoubtvery much if there is any question in the minds of the majority of the people of this country that the conflict now raging in Korea can be anything but war,” wrote Federal District Judge Harry C. Westover in the spring of 1953. “Certainly those who have been called upon to suffer injury and maiming, or to sacrifice their lives,” he continued, “would be unanimous in their opinion that this is war — war in all of its horrible aspects.” What common sense dictated, the judge didnot deny. Yet, although federal and state courts in this and several other instances touched tangentially on the question of whether the Korean conflict was a war in a legal and technical sense, on balance they produced no definitive answer. The United States Supreme Court, moreover, refused to hear any of the cases in question. But the lower courts ofthe nation were not alone in their diversity of opinion regarding the status of the war. The political branches of the Federal Government similarly displayed little agreement on the parallel issue of what the legal basis was for American participation in the Korean venture.