The Generals

by Winston Groom

  The next year Patton was reassigned to the Office of the Chief of Cavalry in Washington. There the family rented Woodley Mansion, a grand old estate near the Washington Cathedral dating to 1797 that had been home to a series of important or fashionable people, including President Grover Cleveland. At that time the Pattons also bought their first and only house—Green Meadows in the Myopia Hunt country near Avalon in Massachusetts, where George kept his ever growing stable of thoroughbreds.

  At Woodley, Patton renewed his friendship with Henry Stimson, the former secretary of war, and joined him on long rides through Rock Creek Park. Three years later, Stimson was named secretary of state in the Hoover administration and bought Woodley, which the Pattons had been renting. George therefore moved his family into a nearby mansion that required nine servants and was thought to be haunted.

  Like clockwork, the Pattons resumed their places on the social ladder. In addition to the normal foxhunting, steeplechasing, and polo playing, there were nightly dinners held at the Patton home. We learn from biographer D’Este that they were extraordinarily formal affairs, the women wearing long gowns and the men in dinner jackets. The fancy attire did nothing, however, to conceal the uncouthness that had become a staple of Patton’s complex personality.

  This was aptly demonstrated when one evening the telephone rang and “a gentleman with a cultured Harvard accent” inquired after Major Patton. “Thinking it was an old family friend,” Patton replied, “Why Francis, you damned old nigger lover! What in hell are you doing in Washington, and who the hell let you out of jail?”—to which the caller replied, “This is the secretary of state. I called to see if Major Patton would like to come over to Woodley for a game of squash rackets and a drink.”45

  Regarding his career in the Office of the Chief of Cavalry during this period, Patton was dancing on the edge of a very sharp knife. On the one hand he realized that the tank and other new armored vehicles would one day replace the horse. But as a high-ranking member of the Chief of Cavalry staff, he could hardly come out and advocate the demise of his branch of service. He continued to dance, giving speeches and writing articles in such publications as Cavalry Journal, suggesting that there was still a valuable place for the horse on the battlefield. Still, he tempered the argument with an acknowledgment that the tank would also be a force to reckon with in future wars.

  In 1931 Patton became a student at the Army War College in Washington, which aimed at preparing officers for high field command. As at Leavenworth, he performed exceptionally well, but remained a major, with bleak prospects for promotion—so much so that when active duty generals or colonels died there would be secret rejoicing among the lower-ranked officers.

  That same year his aunt Nannie passed away at the age of seventy-three, and Patton journeyed back to Lake Vineyard for her funeral. It was during this visit that he finally became emotionally affected by the death of his mother, Ruth, who had passed three years earlier. He composed to her a moving letter that he left in a whatnot box on her desk.

  Dear Mama, here with your things before me you are very near. I never showed you in life the love I really felt or the admiration for your courage … Children are cruel things. Forgive me. I had always prayed to show my love by doing something famous for you … Perhaps I may but time grows short. I am 46. In a few moments we will bury the ashes of Aunt Nannie. All the three who I loved and who loved me so much are gone now. When we meet again I hope you will be lenient for my frailties. In most things I have been worthy. Perhaps this is foolish but I think you understand. I loved and love you very much.46

  IN SUMMER 1932, the height of the Great Depression, heated demonstrations known as the Bonus March put Patton and other army officers in a hard spot. For several months, destitute veterans of World War I had been pouring into Washington to demand early payment of a “bonus” that had been voted to them by Congress after the armistice. At issue were so-called service certificates, which were due to be redeemed in 1945. The certificates had been issued to the veterans using a complex formula of time and place served and had a maximum value of $625 (about $8,000 in today’s money).

  Earlier, Patton’s former orderly Pfc. Joseph Angelo, who had saved Patton’s life in the Argonne Forest, testified in full uniform before a committee of Congress, telling them, “I could go right over to this cavalry camp across the river and get all of the money I want or need from Colonel Patton. But that ain’t right … He owes me nothing. All I ask is a chance to work or a chance to get my money on my certificate.”47

  As the encampment of veterans grew into thousands who styled themselves as the Bonus Army, a number of agitators or “troublemakers” turned to violence. Before long, bricks, rocks, and other debris were being thrown.

  President Herbert Hoover’s administration refused to recognize or assist the veterans, and Congress adjourned without addressing their demands, other than to enact a law allowing them to borrow against their certificates and only to the extent that it paid for their travel home. By mid-July, ten thousand or so veterans remained in the encampment on the mudflats of Southeast Washington’s Anacostia River directly in sight of the Capitol. It was dubbed Hooverville, and the veterans were threatening to stay there until 1945 if necessary. The confrontations increased in both number and intensity while the protestors repeatedly blocked streets and crowded the lawns of the Capitol and other government buildings.

  On July 28, in the heat of the season, the secretary of war declared what amounted to martial law. By this point, D.C.’s police were outnumbered and the police chief had been struck. A policeman responded by firing into the crowd, which resulted in the killing of two marchers and injury to three policemen. The chore of driving demonstrators out of downtown D.C. now fell to the Third Cavalry Regiment, of which Patton was the executive officer. MacArthur too would be called on to contain the escalating chaos.

  The regiment formed for riot duty with their steel helmets, rifles, and gas masks. Quickly, they moved across Memorial Bridge to the Ellipse, south of the White House, to await the arrival of an infantry battalion under MacArthur’s command. Around 4 p.m. the army began sweeping the demonstrators off of Pennsylvania Avenue south, toward Hooverville. They did not go easy: more stones and bricks were thrown before the infantry used tear gas.

  During the melee, a fire was set to one of the shacks in Hooverville and soon the entire encampment was ablaze. The next morning, with the cavalry on picket lines near the smoking ruins on the Anacostia River, a somewhat dubious story has it that Patton refused to speak with his former orderly Pfc. Angelo, who had asked to see him. What we do know from Patton’s family is that they were all taken to see Joseph Angelo when he “somehow or other ended up in Walter Reed Hospital,” Patton’s daughter Ruth Ellen said. “He was a sad little man, all eyes, and we wondered how he could have dragged Georgie into the shell hole and saved him.”48

  The press were generally sympathetic to the veterans and appalled at U.S. Army troops violently ejecting U.S. citizens from the capital city. This, Patton later wrote, “insured the election [in November 1932] of a Democrat [Franklin D. Roosevelt].”49

  IF MACARTHUR WAS UNHAPPY with his new assignment he did not show it. In fact, he seemed glad to be back in the Philippines after eighteen years, installed in luxurious quarters in the lovely eighteenth-century House on the Wall that towered above the old fortified city of Manila. There he renewed his friendship with Manuel Quezon, who was a rising politico in the Philippines, and with other Filipinos of note, scorning “the color line,” which often brought him at odds with the upper-caste white population.

  One of his first jobs as commandant of the Military District of Manila was to arrange a military survey of the mountainous Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor—the Rock, as it was known. These two large terrain features figured prominently in the army’s War Plan Orange, which, in the event of a sudden attack by the Empire of Japan, were to become the last-ditch defensive positions of American and Filipino forces until a relief exp
edition could arrive from the United States.

  MacArthur had serious doubts about the plan, not least because the islands contained only one thin American infantry regiment “commanded by a dottering officer who had last fought in the Sioux war,” and the Japanese were thought to be able to land 300,000 invasion troops within a month. Washington, however, refused to reinforce the garrison for fear of antagonizing Tokyo. Still, in the ensuing weeks, MacArthur “covered every foot of rugged terrain, over its trails, up and down its steep mountainous slopes, and through its bamboo thickets.”50

  Meanwhile, the new Mrs. MacArthur was less taken with her circumstances, considering that the social scene in Manila was somewhat different from what she was accustomed to in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, respectively. She wrote home explaining that life in the Philippines was “extremely dull,” and that she was trying to get her husband to quit the army and become a stockbroker—which at that, or any point, would have been patently ridiculous.

  Out of boredom and a need for exercise, she joined a bicycle club and hung out with the American elite, but the marriage was strained. Meantime, MacArthur adored Louise’s two young children, Walter Jr. and Little Louise, and doted on them while Louise used her influence with powerful people in Washington to have her husband promoted, which she saw as the easiest ticket out of the Far East.

  Pinky MacArthur, languishing in the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, likewise put up a lobbying campaign for her son with the War Department, including an almost pathetic letter to Pershing “presuming on my long and loyal friendship for you—to open my heart in this appeal for my boy …” Whatever the effect of these efforts, on January 17, 1925, MacArthur was able to pin on the extra star of a major general—the youngest two-star general in the army—and he, Louise, and the children sailed for home.51

  Louise owned a 150-acre estate in the Green Spring Valley, which was generally considered to be hunting country. There, north of Baltimore, sat an elegant manor house that she renamed Rainbow Hill in honor of the 42nd Division. From this lofty perch the MacArthurs began taking in the eternal dinner parties and ceaseless rounds of hunts, debutante balls, and other social etcetera that attaches to the presence of a handsome two-star general with a wife connected to high society. MacArthur assumed duties as commander of III Army Corps, headquartered in Baltimore, a dull sinecure in which he made speeches, visited training camps, and organized ROTC programs.

  Among his baggage that he maintained through all his years in the army was his father’s vast library of literature and military history. At night, perched by the fire at Rainbow Hill, MacArthur read voraciously. Over time he had developed a particular antipathy toward ideologies such as Bolshevism, communism, and passivism, which he equated with the other two, thinking them highly dangerous to the American way of life and frequently speaking out against these subjects during his lectures to Rotary clubs and Kiwanis meetings. It was also during this time that MacArthur was assigned to a “most distasteful” duty—the court-martial of Billy Mitchell.

  Mitchell, a brigadier general who like Patton would forecast with chilling accuracy the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, had been the top U.S. air combat commander in World War I and a good friend of MacArthur since their days growing up in Milwaukee. He had been slated to take over the army’s air arm but, in a series of ill-advised speeches and remarks, Mitchell so excoriated the administration of President Hoover for failing to properly fund military aviation that he found himself hauled before a court of twelve major generals accused of “conduct prejudicial to the military” and several like charges.

  The press were generally favorable toward Mitchell—who was flamboyant and always good for a quote—and hostile to court officials, none of whom were fliers and who were seen as hidebound throwbacks, MacArthur included. After a fair trial, Mitchell was duly convicted and sentenced to five years’ suspension without pay—later reduced by half. No one knows for sure how MacArthur voted; members of the court were sworn to secrecy and only a two-thirds majority was necessary for conviction. MacArthur would go only as far as to say that he had “tried to help” Mitchell as much as possible, and that he agreed in general with Mitchell’s complaints about lack of administration support for military aviation. A reporter who rifled through a wastebasket in the jury room after the verdict claimed that he found a ballot for “not guilty” with MacArthur’s handwriting on it. In any case, Mitchell remained on friendly terms with MacArthur for the rest of his life.§

  MacArthur’s duties to this point continued to border on the mundane; the army, as well as his marriage, seemed to be foundering. Needless to say, he was becoming restless, when up popped an opportunity that promised to be a restorative tonic. The president of the American Olympic Committee had suddenly died and MacArthur was offered the job for the 1928 games in Amsterdam. He had always been a strong supporter of athletics and the job seemed tailor-made.

  The outlook for the U.S. team, in MacArthur’s estimation, was “not bright” but he wasn’t about to accept that as fact. “I rode them hard all along the line,” he said later, noting that “athletes are among the most temperamental of all persons.” He told them that they “represented the greatest nation in the world and we had not come 3,000 miles just to lose gracefully.” As it turned out, the U.S. team dominated the Olympics, scoring more than twice the points of Germany and Finland, the nearest runners-up, and set seventeen records. The team returned to America as heroes coast to coast—a fine feather for MacArthur’s cap.

  When MacArthur returned to the placidity of Rainbow Hill Louise was not there; in his absence she had moved to East Fiftieth Street in New York City from where—the gossip columns reported—she was observed clinging to the arms of men not her husband. “Wild stories were circulating about her behavior in speakeasies and on Westchester weekends,” writes biographer Manchester. All of this was duly noted by MacArthur, who—whether or not at his own behest—was ordered to assume command of all forces in the Philippines. “No assignment could have pleased me more,” he remarked.52

  Once back in his old quarters “On the Wall,” MacArthur received a communication from Louise’s attorneys saying she was going to Reno, and he agreed to a divorce (in the days before no-fault divorces) on “any grounds that will not compromise my honor.” The grounds ultimately agreed upon were that MacArthur had “failed to provide support” for his wife, an accusation that was patently ludicrous since her family was worth more than $100 million. The decree was granted on July 18, 1929. MacArthur’s lone comment on the subject was this: “I entered into matrimony but it was not successful, and ended in divorce years later for mutual incompatibility.”53

  What lay more heavily on his mind was his third tour of duty in the Philippines and the Japanese threat to the archipelago. Japanese migrants had been arriving in the northern islands in alarming numbers and, like Patton in Hawaii, MacArthur saw them as a potential menace. He was opposed in this, however, by his old friend Manuel Quezon, who saw the new arrivals as a business opportunity. A recent treaty that the United States and Japan had signed forbade building any new forts in the islands. MacArthur protested that the number of troops on hand were wholly inadequate for a proper defense of the Philippines, but in fact the administration had all but written off the islands, a position MacArthur refused to concede. “From 1928 onward,” writes Manchester, “the chief obstacle to Japanese conquest of the Philippines was his implacable will.”

  Then, in 1930, a new chapter opened in MacArthur’s life. He was made chief of staff, the highest-ranking man in the army.

  ON NOVEMBER 21, 1930, MacArthur was sworn in and moved, with his mother, to the palatial Officers Quarters Number 1 at Fort Myer, Virginia. Somehow, having four stars seemed to stimulate MacArthur’s eccentricities. Always casual about his military attire, he now took to wearing a Japanese kimono in his office and paced around fanning himself with an Oriental fan. He acquired a bejeweled holder for smoking his cigarettes and began sp
eaking of himself in the third person. On journeys to Europe to watch maneuvers, he demanded his own railroad car for travel. Then he did what may have been for the time the ultimate eccentricity—he took a mistress.

  She was a Eurasian girl in her twenties named Isabel Cooper, daughter of a Scottish businessman and an Asian woman. MacArthur began seeing her several months before leaving Manila. A Washington hostess who met her said, “I thought I had never seen anything as exquisite. She was wearing a lovely, obviously expensive chiffon tea gown and she looked as though she was carved from the most delicate opaline.”ǁ MacArthur kept her in an apartment in Northwest Washington, where he showered her with the finest gowns and lingerie, as well as a poodle. Before meeting MacArthur, she had been a chorus girl in Shanghai, “with all that that implied,” and she called MacArthur “Daddy.”54

  Mistress or not, as chief of staff MacArthur had the stupendous task of trying to keep the army together in the wake of Congress’s consistent budget cuts during the first full year of the Great Depression. The entire American army at home and abroad consisted of only 124,301 enlisted men (including 6,000 native “Philippine scouts”)—compared with nearly five million at the end of World War I—and 12,255 officers, with a bill pending in Congress to reduce the officer corps to 10,000. MacArthur thus began a fight that only a man of his eloquence could wage. He told the House majority leader: “An army can live on short rations, it can be insufficiently clothed and housed, it can even be poorly armed and equipped, but in action it is doomed to destruction without the trained and adequate leadership of officers. An efficient and sufficient Corps of Officers means the difference between victory and defeat.”