Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
Promises were made to the American people to open the files on secrets that have bedeviled Americans for over half-a-century. President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and FBI Director Patel all committed themselves to revealing what government insiders know about matters such as Unidentified Flying Objects, the Epstein files, the Diddy files, and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
As of this writing, these promises remain unfulfilled. Increasingly, it seems that the Federal law enforcement and intelligence services are in open rebellion against their Constitutional masters. Leaders within the Central Intelligence Agency actually communicated to the Department of Government Efficiency, and more broadly to the Trump Administration, that their budget would remain untouchable and opaque. Note that this was expressed in the form of a command.
President Harry S. Truman once faced a similar challenge to his authority. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who had been a leading Theater Commander during World War II as well as the American Shogun of Japan afterwards, commanded United Nations and United States forces in Korea. MacArthur insisted that aggressive measures must be taken against the massive and decisive intervention of Red Chinese troops into the Korean War.
In particular, MacArthur deemed it necessary to destroy bridges across the Yalu River, which separates Chinese Manchuria from North Korea. He also advocated massive air strikes into Manchuria to disrupt Chinese Communist efforts to reinforce and resupply both their expeditionary force and troops loyal to North Korean Dictator Kim Il Sung.
More crucially, MacArthur was negotiating with Kuomintang leader Chiang KaiShek to send Chinese Nationalist forces from Taiwan to South Korea. These Nationalists had been driven from the Asiatic mainland a mere two years before. Introducing them into the Korean War would, in effect, reignite the Chinese Civil War.
This was political dynamite. Truman calculated that resuming the conflict between Chi-Nats and Chi-Coms would likely bring Stalin’s Soviet Union into direct conflict with United Nations and United States forces, likely somewhere in Manchuria.
Were that to happen, the full conventional power of the Soviet Red Army would be in play. So would the recently developed Soviet Atomic Bomb. Such a conflict would likely spread well beyond northeastern China and the Korean peninsula. The Red Army could plausibly invade Central and Western Europe, crushing our allies who were still living in the rubble of World War II.
In short, Truman believed that MacArthur’s intentions could ignite World War III. Whether he was correct is debatable. While the USSR’s army was the best in the world, every other element in the balance of power favored the United States, especially in the long run. However, if the Reds quickly conquered the Eurasian mainland from the English Channel to the Korea Strait, there might not have been a long run.
Famously, Truman fired MacArthur in a most unceremonious and humiliating fashion. MacArthur suddenly became the most popular man in America, at Truman’s expense. Speaking before a joint session of Congress he said that, “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.” MacArthur had no intention of fading away, but his ambitions were thwarted when another WW II General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, became the first Republican President since Herbert Hoover.
Truman’s firing of MacArthur still sparks intense controversy. Many wondered how it was even possible that a mediocrity like Truman, that haberdasher from Missouri, a creature of Crime Lord Tom Pendergast, could deprive America of a unique national treasure such as Douglas MacArthur?! Such a travesty boggled the minds of many Americans.
Yet, Truman was correct. Not because his fears were beyond reproach. Not because his personal biography eclipsed MacArthur’s. Truman was correct because he was the elected President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, the man entrusted by the American voter with our Republic’s leadership for his terms of office.
It was Harry S. Truman’s call to make. He really was a remarkably impressive fellow who saved the world from Soviet conquest. His judgment needed to prevail. Civilian control over the military is indispensable to our ongoing freedom.
We citizens entrust the President with a unique legal and moral authority. He commands the Executive Branch. No General, no matter how accomplished, has any right to say anything other than, “Yes Sir!” or “I Resign!” to a Presidential order.
This is equally true of the Executive Branch Employees who lead and staff our Federal Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies. As MacArthur before them, they might have unique perspectives due to their unparalleled access to data and command over covert operations. At their best, these sentinels have guarded our Republic from enemies in the shadows for eighty years. At their worst, they have intruded themselves into American domestic politics as if we were a Third World Banana Republic.
In no way can these expert manipulators be permitted to operate unchecked. They are not an independent power unto themselves, and should never be permitted to be. If they cannot accept the bridle of civilian control, they should be dismissed en masse and maybe imprisoned for their overreach. The entire CIA and FBI organizations must either be purged and reformed, or scrapped.
Regaining control over our Federal espionage and law enforcement agencies is the most dangerous challenge that President Trump has undertaken. It is a battle that he cannot be allowed to lose. Either the American voter’s choice as Chief Executive will preside over the Executive Branch of the Federal Government of the United States, or an unelected cabal will rule from the shadows, unchecked.
The evidence of restored civilian control will be a full and unrestricted release of all information on UFOs, Epstein, Diddy, JFK, MLK, and RFK. At this point, no secrets that these officials may be hiding can be more dangerous to our Republic than the preservation of such secrecy against the orders of the elected President and the expressed will of the American people.
Either way this turns out, we citizens will learn difficult truths.
