Remembering the embarrassing ostentation of his first wedding, her General made sure that this one was understated. Confiding in no one, he borrowed an army car and a sergeant chauffeur for the occasion from the local army commander without explaining his reason. He wore a conservative brown suit; Jean, a small brown straw hat and a brown coat trimmed with a red fox collar. The witnesses were Major Hutter and the general’s aide. After a ham-and-eggs wedding breakfast at the Hotel Astor, MacArthur told reporters: “This job is going to last a long time.” Once he had told Louis Hibbs that “a general’s life is loneliness.” Now that would no longer be true for him, though the old-fashioned formality which had marked their courtship would continue throughout their marriage. In the presence of others—even close friends—she addressed him as “General,” which from her came out “Gineral.” Alone, or in letters, she called him “Sir Boss,” after the character in Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. He usually called her “Ma’am.”36
After a brief honeymoon, they sailed for Manila on the President Coolidge. Since neither of them would see the United States again until fourteen years had passed, a brief glance at that month may be useful, because it did much to shape their views during their long expatriation. On the day of their wedding, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited U.S. citizens from selling armaments to any nation at war. (Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg objected; he thought it wasn’t strong enough.) President Roosevelt was trying to reform the Supreme Court. Detroit auto workers were staging sitdown strikes. The Depression was still very real; a roast-beef dinner in New York’s Longchamps restaurant cost ninety-five cents. The Nazi dirigible Hindenburg blew up over Lakehurst, New Jersey. Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize. John D. Rockefeller, aged ninety-seven, died in Ormond Beach, Florida. In Manhattan Ronald Colman was starring in Lost Horizon and Janet Gaynor in A Star is Born. Dizzy Dean was having a sensational season with the Saint Louis Cardinals. Abroad, Franco was winning in Spain. Neville Chamberlain was succeeding Stanley Baldwin as Britain’s prime minister. George VI was crowned king while his brother, now the Duke of Windsor, wedded the woman he loved. And Jean and her General had scarcely debarked in Manila when Japanese troops overwhelmed a Chinese outpost on the Marco Polo Bridge, near Peking.37
Jean Faircloth
MacArthur and his second wife, Jean Faircloth, after their 1937 marriage
The MacArthur’ held a reception for several hundred guests in the hotel penthouse, but that was their last major social event in the Philippines. Most evenings were spent at the movies, as before, or reading in the library. (Like MacArthur’s mother, Jean had an ax to grind, and it was the same ax; she was forever giving him biographies of Confederate generals; among them Douglas S. Freeman’s four-volume life of Lee, G.F.R. Henderson’s two volumes on Stonewall Jackson, and J. A. Wyeth’s Nathan Bedford Forrest.) A speed reader, MacArthur could get through three books a day; sitting in his favorite rocking chair he would also pore over magazines and newspapers, and during the football season he fired off a steady stream of exhortation to the West Point coach. Though his office hours were odd, he worked seven days a week, was in bed before midnight, and rose exactly eight hours later. Breakfast, at 8:00 A.M., consisted of orange juice, two soft-boiled eggs, a slice of toast, and a cup of chocolate. At 2:00 P.M. he lunched on a fruit cup, seafood or an omelet, and mango ice cream. After sipping at a gimlet or a screwdriver at sundown, he would sit down to his one big meal of the day at 8:00 P.M., but he never touched pastries or cake. He thrived on this schedule—his pulse and blood pressure were those of a much younger man, and he was never sick except for an occasional cold—but he was afraid it must be dull for Jean. Late in life he said, “How she has managed to put up with my eccentricities and crotchets all these years is quite beyond my comprehension.”38
Actually she flourished on his routine—and so, by all accounts, did Manila. Her spontaneous warmth and Southern charm complemented his distant manner. Each morning at nine o’clock she appeared at the local commissary like any other army wife. Out of loyalty to Tennessee she ordered cosmetics and clothing from there by mail—a perfect size twelve, she wore white dresses by day and foulards or light colors in the evening—but she pleased Filipinos by choosing chinelas, light native sandals, for footwear. At costume parties she appeared in old-fashioned, gold-embroidered gowns presented to her by her husband’s Philippine admirers. And guest lists for the small dinner parties the MacArthur’ gave after the big reception rarely included Americans. The names—Quezon, Manuel Roxas, Joaquin M. “Mike” Elizalde, Carlos Romulo, and Emilio Aguinaldo—were cherished by upperclass Filipinos, which was, of course, why they were invited.39
It seems never to have occurred to Jean that she might have disagreed with her husband about anything. He never went to church, but she abandoned her Presbyterianism for his Episcopalianism just in case he changed his mind. If he accompanied her on a shopping trip, she made her decisions almost instantly to keep him from waiting. His mother’s early American and Georgian silver was prominently displayed in the penthouse. When spring arrived with its glut of insects—the Philippines abounds with mosquitoes, flying cockroaches, and no fewer than fifty-six varieties of bats—she made sure that punk was burning on the balconies before the blue hour. He liked flowers, so she spent hours arranging scented green-and-white ilang-ilang blossoms and creamy white ginger flowers which emit a fragrance very like that of jasmine.40
Most of all, she knew, Douglas MacArthur wanted a son, and on February 21, 1938, at Manila’s Sternberg Hospital, she gave him one. That being the golden age of sexism, a friend wrote the General, “I didn’t realize you had it in you,” and he jovially replied, “You know, I didn’t realize it myself!” Because of her small stature her obstetrician had been anxious; he had feared that the birth would have to be Caesarean. The seven pound, eight ounce baby arrived in the usual way, however, and was inevitably named Arthur MacArthur IV. Manila’s Episcopalian bishop presided at the christening in the penthouse on June 2, which would have been Judge Arthur MacArthur’s one-hundred-twenty-third birthday. Jean was asked if her son would go to West Point. “How can he help it, with such a father?” she said. A Tennessee relative sent a biography of Lee to the three-month-old baby; already the pressure on the infant had begun. The infant’s father did not mention the martial tradition in his christening speech, however. (Naturally there had been no doubt that MacArthur would speak.) Instead he said that he hoped young Arthur would attain the qualities of three great ladies: the child’s mother, his paternal grandmother, and his godmother. The godparents were Manuel and Aurora Quezon. This made the General and the commonwealth president compadres, an untranslatable Spanish word which defines the relationship between a father and a godfather. Not long afterward a high American official, jealous of the friendship between the General and the Quezons, expressed his frustration to Dona Aurora. “But you don’t seem to understand,” she replied. “Douglas is our brother.”41
MacArthur was never celebrated for his sense of humor, but now he penned lighthearted notes to his two married nephews. He had, he said, “ordered and directed” them “to produce a son to be duly named Arthur MacArthur,” but each of them had bred only girls. Since they had “failed completely” to carry out his “orders,” he had been obliged to “take over the assignment personally.” Now, he informed them, “the mission” had been “completed.” Clearly, as he put it later in a more solemn mood, the boy had rapidly become “the complete center of my thoughts and affection. I feel I am very fortunate in having him in the twilight period of my life.” Whether young Arthur was fortunate in becoming the object of such adoration is another question. It was all very well for the General to sit up all night when the child had croup, but something else when it developed that he couldn’t refuse Arthur anything. Jean was equally devoted to their son—she always hurried home for his tinned-milk lunch (fresh milk was not then available in the islands)—but she was also sensitive to the
need for discipline. When the infant was four days old, Jean hired an amah, a thin-faced, brown-skinned Cantonese whose name, Loh Chiu, was altered by the General to Ah Cheu. Jean studied books on modern theories for raising children and explained them all to the amah. One evening the baby started crying. The books had been firm about such situations, and following their advice Jean said to Ah Cheu, “Just let him cry. He’ll stop if nobody pays any attention.” Ten seconds later the door of the library burst open and the Field Marshal of the Philippines flew out. “What’s the matter here?” he demanded. “Two strong women sitting around doing nothing and my baby crying!” He swooped into the nursery and scooped the infant up. Jean gave the books away the next morning.42
When Arthur began to walk, and then to talk, father and son developed a morning ceremony. At about 7:30 A.M. the door of the General’s bedroom would open and the boy would trudge in clutching his favorite toy, a stuffed rabbit with a scraggly mustache which he called “Old Friend.” MacArthur would instantly bound out of bed and snap to attention. Then the General marched around the room in quickstep while his son counted cadence: “Boom! Boom! Boomity boom!” After they had passed the bed several times, the child would cover his eyes with his hands while MacArthur produced that day’s present: a piece of candy, perhaps, or a crayon, or a coloring book. The ritual would end in the bathroom, where MacArthur would shave while Arthur watched and both sang duets: “Sweet Rosie O’Grady,” “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ ”—burring all the r’s—or “Army Blue”:
We’ve not much longer here to stay,
For in a month or two
We’ll say farewell to cadet gray,
And don the army blue. . . .43
“The fact of the matter,” the General told friends, “is that the only person who appreciates my singing is Arthur.” He was wrong. Everyone around him appreciated it because they saw the changes the boy had wrought in him. John Hersey of Time noted that MacArthur now “carried himself as if he had a flagpole for a spine, and the flag of his keenness was always flying. . . . Everything about him was awake. His eyes were clear and piercing. He thought fast, remembered a frightening amount, and talked concisely and clearly. His pictures gave an impression of austerity, but his laugh was frequent, hearty, and more contagious than an unhidden yawn.” A snapshot of the three MacArthur’, taken on the boy’s third birthday, shows Arthur in a sailor suit, his mother in a flower-trimmed frock, and his father in khaki. The General’s expression can only be described as adoring. Acclaim, achievements, decorations, and high rank had come to him early. Now, in his sixties, he had found serenity. His one paternal regret was that his son would have no American playmates. Because of the worsening situation in the Far East, all wives and children of U.S. military personnel had just been ordered back to the States. The MacArthur’ were exempt because the General had retired from the U.S. Army. Although he still headed the U.S. military advisory group, his only employer was the Philippine government. He and his family would face whatever was coming together.44
Meanwhile the Japanese bicycle salesmen, sidewalk photographers, tourists, and assorted tradesmen had been sending detailed reports about Philippine defenses to Tokyo. There, on Ichigaya Heights, the nerve center of Dai Nippon’s imperial army, the information was a source of unalloyed pleasure. Ichigaya intelligence officers agreed with MacArthur’s appraisal of the archipelago as “the key that unlocks the door to the Pacific,” and they were squinting at the keyhole with growing anticipation.45
After the war MacArthur would insist that it was the boldness of his defense plans which had precipitated the enemy attack. He quoted Lieutenant General Torashiro Kawabe, deputy chief of Hirohito’s general staff, as telling a postwar interrogator that “an important factor in Japan’s decision to invade the Philippines was the fear on the part of the Japanese General Staff of the ten-year plan for the defense of the Philippines. The plan was in its sixth year and a menace to Japan’s ambitions. The Japanese had to intervene before it was too late.” But the fact is that Philippine preparedness was in a wretched state in 1941, not because the defenders hadn’t had enough time, but because they had used their time unwisely. One culprit was MacArthur. But he had a lot of company.46
The trouble had begun with the General’s resignation from the U.S. Army’s active list on December 31, 1937. In a September 16 letter to Chief of Staff Malin Craig he had explained that he was blocking “promotion of junior officers” and was convinced that “the magnificent leadership of President Roosevelt” guaranteed “that the United States will not become involved in war in my day.” FDR, cabling acceptance of his resignation, lauded MacArthur’s career as “a brilliant chapter of American history” and expressed his “best wishes for a well-earned rest.” As is so often true in such exchanges, this was all eyewash. The General had powerful antagonists in Washington. Craig was one. Senator Millard Tydings, who wanted the United States to withdraw from the western Pacific, was another. Harold Ickes was a third, and a fourth was Frank Murphy, who had returned home to become governor of Michigan and was influential in the administration. Murphy endorsed a withdrawal to the Hawaii-Alaska perimeter, but as a zealous pacifist he didn’t much like the idea of any perimeter. As his biographer put it, he feared the “militarization” of the Philippines under MacArthur. The upshot of all this was that Craig informed MacArthur that “upon completion by you of two years of absence on foreign service you are to be brought home for duty in the United States.” The General’s resignation followed.47
Jean Faircloth MacArthur shortly before Pearl Harbor
Arthur IV, MacArthur’s only son, with a stuffed toy
Arthur MacArthur IV at an early age
Ironically, his chief supporter in all this was Quezon, who had wired FDR that he was “deeply disturbed” by the prospect of losing his Field Marshal. Now that the General no longer represented the United States, however—now that he was just another official on the commonwealth payroll—Quezon treated him with diminished respect. Compadres though they might be, the General and the peppery mestizo were on a collision course, evidence of which surfaced a few months later. The Philippine president had dreamed of possessing an army like China’s. It had been his impression that Chiang Kai-shek’s defenses were strong. Now, to his horror, the Japanese were overrunning China. Foreseeing that his beloved islands might become the battleground of a conflict between America and Japan, and irked by MacArthur’s inability to secure aims from Washington, Quezon contemplated the possibility of neutrality. In July of 1938 he sailed for Tokyo, pointedly leaving the General behind, and talked along these lines with Nipponese diplomats. Returning, he again demanded that the United States accelerate plans for Philippine independence, granting the archipelago freedom by the end of the 1930s. When Washington’s responses were cool, he began his slashing of defense budgets, talked of terminating MacArthur’s ten-year plan, and argued that increasing the size of the Philippine army would merely antagonize Japan. Indeed, an American correspondent in Manila reported that Quezon “is considering giving up the national defense plan entirely.”48
Predictably, morale declined among Filipino troops. Already dissatisfied over their pay—seven dollars a month compared with thirty dollars paid to American privates—men of military age began to evade conscription. Between 1936 and 1940 the number registering for the draft dropped 42 percent. The Field Marshal’s standing army had dwindled to 468 officers and 3,697 men. As he continued to argue that preparation for war was the best deterrent to Japanese aggression, he and the president became estranged. Quezon spoke openly to Francis B. Sayre, McNutt’s successor as high commissioner, of dismissing the General. Privately Sayre agreed with those who held that the islands were practically indefensible, but he was as shocked as MacArthur when Quezon told an audience in Manila’s Rizal Stadium that “it’s good to hear men say that the Philippines can repel an invasion, but it’s not true and the people should know it isn’t,” adding that the islands “could not be defended even if ever
y last Filipino were armed with modern weapons.” The General asked Jorge B. Vargas, the president’s secretary, for an appointment and was told that Quezon was too busy. MacArthur said: “Jorge, some day your boss is going to want to see me more than I want to see him.”49
Despairing, the General wrote William Allen White: “The history of failure in war can be summed up in two words: Too Late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy; too late in realizing the mortal danger; too late in preparedness; too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance; too late in standing with one’s friends.” He blamed Washington as much as Manila. In 1938 he sent Eisenhower to the States to drum up support. In the capital Ike found that “they were unsympathetic. As long as the Philippines insisted on being independent, the War Department’s attitude was that they could jolly well look out after their own defenses. To end the interminable frustrations at lower levels, I went to the top.” Craig was more understanding, but Eisenhower still felt like a poor relation: “After begging . . . everything I could from the Signal, Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Medical groups, I went to Wichita, bought several planes, then to the Winchester Arms Company in Connecticut. With what I had liberated’ and bought, I went back to Manila.”50
The following year MacArthur asked if he could just borrow some arms from the United States and was told that “the loan of additional weapons to the Philippine Army” would be pointless “unless ammunition is available to use with the weapons”—which it wasn’t. As Eisenhower said, “The American Army itself was starved for appropriations. . . . There wasn’t much the Army could do for the Philippines without cutting the ground from under U.S. preparedness.” That was understandable; Washington’s wavering Philippine policy was not. In assigning defense priorities, the War Department put the archipelago below Hawaii and sometimes below Panama. Even after a new team took over at the War Department, with Henry L. Stimson as secretary and George Marshall as Chief of Staff, the irresolution continued; FDR asked Marshall if more guns couldn’t be sent to MacArthur and was told it could be done only by giving Manila a “few grains of seed corn” needed for the protection of the American mainland. As late as July 1940 MacArthur pleaded with Washington to allot him $50 annually for each Filipino draftee and was turned down. (That year Congress appropriated $220 for every man in the U.S. National Guard.) Later, despite an appeal from Mike Elizalde, the Philippine resident commissioner in Washington, Congress even refused to include the Philippines in the Lend-Lease program. London was considered more valuable than Manila.51
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