Video: 'General Douglas MacArthur Farewell Speech to Congress'

(Thursday, April 19, 1951, 12:31 p.m. EST; during the Korean War) — U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, relieved eight days ago by President Harry S. Truman as commander of United Nations forces battling North Korean and communist Chinese forces on the Korean Peninsula, bid farewell today before a joint meeting of Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

MacArthur had openly challenged Truman by threatening to attack China directly — a strategy Truman feared would spark a wider war in Asia.

Video: 'General Douglas MacArthur delivers a farewell address at a Joint meeting of Congr...HD Stock Footage'

MacArthur’s dismissal for insubordination ended his 52-year U.S. Army career while sparking a political firestorm, raising the prospect that MacArthur could succeed Truman in the White House. At the time, many Americans revered the 71-year-old general for having led a victorious campaign over the Japanese in World War II.

Video: '1951, April 19 - General Douglas MacArthur - Farewell to Congress - open captioned'

“Efforts have been made to distort my position,” MacArthur said during his 3,233-word address. “It has been said, in effect, that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.”

Video: 'PBS - American Experience - Truman (1997) 5of5' (MacArthur addresses Congress at 42:59)

In what was billed as his “farewell address,” MacArthur cited the reasons why he fell out with Truman over the conduct of the Korean War.

Video: 'Korean War - PART 20, MacArthur is Fired, 6.25' (MacArthur's address at 2:32)

The general concluded:

“When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’”

“And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.”