In the weeks following the Chinese attack, MacArthur seemed to be offering the President only the choice between a much larger war in which he claimed he would ultimately triumph or a complete rout. The Truman administration was in many ways fighting if not for its life, at least for its legitimacy. On November 30, at a White House press conference a reporter asked Truman whether, since he had said that America would take any and all steps to meet its military obligations, that might include the atomic bomb.
