A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ASUPREME Commander should be a big man even if he cannot be a great one, and I find it difficult to excuse General Mark Clark for his failure to tell Field- Marshal Alexander of his projected attacks on the Yalu power- plants. At the time when the Field-Marshal was his guest in Tokyo and Korea these operations must have been mounted 'down to the last detail. The minds, the in-trays and the map-rooms of the Suprenie Commander and his principal staff officers must have been so full of matters pertaining to this new turn in strategy that special security precautions must have been taken to conceal from so shrewd a visitor what was in the wind. The General had served under Alex in the last war, had personally invited him to Tokyo and knew that the purpose of his tour was to inform himself as fully as• possible about conditions in the theatre and the progress of operations. Even if—as I suppose is just possible—he had orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to keep the whole thing secret from his guest, he would surely have disregarded them and put the Field-Marshal unofficially in the picture if he had had any sense —or sensibility. As it was, his conduct implied a lack of con- fidence in a distinguished officer which a lesser man would find insulting but which will strike Alex (I don't mind betting) as merely ridiculous. * * * *
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