It goes without saying that the nature of the Korean War has accentuated enormously the controversy between the Truman Administration and General MacArthur. Indeed, with the passage of time the war itself has become the focus of contemporary debate. It was not a war that mobilized the emotional and physical energies of the entire American people. Not only was it a limited war; it was a most peculiar kind of limited war. It was an undeclared war against an unidentified enemy. Its aims were generally uncomprehended, possibly because they were never adequately explained by the Truman Administration. And the conduct of the war was as equivocal as its purpose. - Preface.