American Caesar

by William Manchester

  The memorial has become a shrine. Outside, a statue shows MacArthur in a swashbuckling stance; inside is an immense collection of memorabilia: medals, pipes, canes, banners, swords, caps, sunglasses, even the black limousine he rode to and from the Dai Ichi building for five years. His Masonic regalia is there, and the onyx clock that stood on the bookcase of his Dai Ichi office, and cartoons of him, and his Rainbow Division patch, and the pistol he carried during his Vera Cruz mission in 1914, and his familial coat of arms, and the MacArthur tartan. It goes on and on. If these walls could talk, one feels, they would say something preposterous.

  Yet the relics all seem curiously irrelevant. The spirit of the man is absent. He was more than swagger and frippery. He was certainly a poseur, but his imposture screened, not weakness, but immense force. Like Lyndon Johnson, another strutter, he could never persuade himself that others could behold his naked power without flinching. So both emperors wore clothes, and the wrong clothes, until a nation of spectators concluded that there was nothing there except gaudy costuming. In Asia MacArthur was appreciated, because Orientals know how to peer around elaborate facades and find the hidden essence of a man. They value deceit, aware that it can mask honor as well as shame; they respect one who seems to be less than he is, who wants to keep the best of himself to himself. Heraclitus, who understood this, said that “a man’s character is his fate.” MacArthur’s fate was extraordinary because his character was extraordinary. The difficulty lies in defining its nature. He was always elusive, but never more so than here.

  New York funeral procession for MacArthur, April 1964

  Possibly the quintessence of the man lives in images which cannot be preserved and displayed in a museum like Norfolk’s. If it were possible to peer back into his life, their rays might be seen darting in and out, each casting a brief but revealing beam, showing him becoming what he was by glimpses of what had happened to him. In a sense, and in his case particularly, every man is all the people he has been. If one starts at Walter Reed and reverses MacArthur’s lifetime, peeling away layer after layer of lang syne like a movie reel being rewound, the film spinning into the past, the General may be seen in unquiet retirement, then defying Truman, then locked in Korea’s hopeless stalemate, and then ruling postwar Japan. That viceroy would then be perceived evolving in the years that prepared him for his shogunate, those of his audacious campaigns against Hirohito’s armies. The seeds of that daring, in turn, would be found to have been sown on Bataan, as his stand there grew out of his years of anticipation between the two great wars, out of the mud and horror of the Argonne, and, before that, in his long apprenticeship to peril.

  But the most valuable flashes would be provided by gleams too intimate to be disclosed on this wide screen of history, recollections which nevertheless lie in the past like veterans waiting to be summoned to the colors. Here the regressing reflections would rouse memories of the Pacific’s liquefaction, one sound made of many, the parting and joining of the distant waves, the whicker of plunging anchor chains, and the groaning of Higgins boats shifting in their davits; of glimpses of shell-shredded palm fronds ragged against the savage tropical horizon at dawn, of soldiers moving jerkily down cargo nets, of the urgent rush of GI boot on hostile shore, and of the curious grays of combat, as though the mists of battle had drained away all color; of remembrance of the nauseous terror within as he defied sniper fire again and again; then the starchy scent of freshly ironed khaki; his tenderness as he held his frightened son during the bombardments of Corregidor; his surges of devotion in Jean’s arms; and, in the dazzling, sunlit, Kiplingesque flood tide of his youth, his rapturous submission to the seductive pull of nineteenth-century militarism as he donned his First Captain’s uniform and stepped out joyously with a full thirty-inch stride to Sousa strains, leading the Long Gray Line across the plain.

  Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feasts at Washington’s 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leaven-worth; his father’s tales of Sherman’s dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother’s imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand on his bare feet as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky’s face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child’s upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants barking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag; and the flag; and the flag.

  Acknowledgments

  In this, as in previous books, the author is profoundly grateful to the staff of Wesleyan University’s Olin Library, and in particular to university librarian Wyman W. Parker, for their generous help, thoughtfulness, and understanding.

  Once more my invaluable assistant, Margaret Kennedy Rider, has proved to be loyal, resourceful, tireless—and indispensable—during the long years of gathering information.

  I am further indebted to my literary agent, Don Congdon; my editor, Roger Donald; and my copy editor, Melissa Clemence. Their skillful midwifery and their bottomless reservoirs of patience helped bring this creation to term. To paraphrase MacArthur, how they have managed to put up with my eccentricities and crotchets is beyond my comprehension. The fact that they have done so suggests that, were there decorations for editorial merit, they would deserve medals of twenty-four-karat gold, burnished to blind the universe.

  In this work I have also received assistance from Tyler Abell, Robert H. Alexander, Jack Anderson, Norman J. Anderson, Cathy Bakkela, D. K. Baxter, Earl Blaik, Edward J. Boone, Jr., John H. Bradley, James H. Bready, Richard L. Bryan, Harry A. Buckley, Laurence E. Bunker, Robert Byck, Marie Capps, Robert G. Carroon, Hodding Carter III, Richard Cooper, David Cornwell, William Craig, Michael Crawford, Virginia Creeden, Burke Davis, Bill M. Davis, Beth Day, T. C. Dunham, Michael Durkan, William Eckert, Jr., Roger O. Egeberg, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Edward Robb Ellis, Don Engley, James A. Farley, Roy Flint, Thomas P. Garigan, James M. Gavin, Fred I, Greenstein, Earl D. Hanson, Averell Harriman, Nicola L. Harrison, Paul T. Heffron, Robert Debs Heinl, Jr., Nobu Ann Hibino, Paul Horgan, Debbie Howell, Ying-mau Kau, Elia Kazan, Robert F. Kennedy, George C. Kenney, Ham Kumekawa, Charles Landis, Orval Liljequist, Nick Lotuaco, Clare Boothe Luce, John B. Lundstrom, Sabina Mayo-Smith, Tom Mori, Charles S. Murphy, Roger H. Nye, Lisa J. Obayashi, Katrushka Parsons, John W. Paton, Philip E. Poms, Jr., L. H. Redford, Joseph W. Reed, Jr., Edwin O. Reischauer, Antonio Romualdez, Carlos Romulo, Dean Rusk, Judith A. Schiff, Edwin H. Simmons, John Slonaker, Louis Sullivan, Ross Terrill, David Thompson, Mary Forde Thompson, Norman Earl Thompson, Stanley P. Tozeski, Claudia Tudan, A. L. Valenchia, Dennis Vetock, D. C. Walker, Willard Wallace, John B. Wentworth, Edward White, Jacob Winfield, Scott Wuest, and Walter Zervas.

  In his research role the writer owes them much, and the debt is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also go to Mrs. Douglas MacArthur for her encouragement, but the point cannot be made too strongly that she has not read any part of the manuscript and is in no way answerable for a single line of it. That is also true of all those cited above. All responsibility is mine alone.

  W.M.

  Notes

  In these notes, works are generally cited by the author’s name only; for full listings see the bibliography. If the note is citing an author with more than one work in the bibliography, a brief title for the work cited is also given in the note. Other forms of citation are:

  LC Library of Congress

  NYT New York Times

  RG Record Groups in the MacArthur Memorial

  Bureau of Archives in Norfolk, Virginia

  SH Senate hearings (testimony before the Armed Forces and Foreig
n Relations committees, 82nd Congress, 1951)

  T Time magazine

  WM Author’s interviews

  WMC Author’s correspondence

  WPA-DM West Point Archives: Douglas MacArthur

  YUMA Yale University Manuscripts and Archives

  PREAMBLE: REVEILLE

  1 LaFollette 269; Phyllis Casler, Army War College, Carlisle, Pa., 11—12/1977; Norfolk archives, MacArthur’s WD 66 File (back to text)

  2 WM/Roger O. Egeberg 10/18/1976; Archer 182; WMC/Edwin O. Reischauer 12/9/1977; Phyllis Casler, Army War College, Carlisle, Pa., 11-12/1977; Jonn Slonaker, Army War College, Carlisle, Pa., 4/10/1978; MacDonald 402. The actual figures are: 90,437 from Australia to V-J Day, and 106,502 for the Battle of the Bulge. (back to text)

  3 Ryan in American Mercury 10/1950; Phillips in New Republic 4/18/1964; MacArthur Reminiscences 290 (back to text)

  4 WM/William Craig 4/13/1976; WM/Jack Anderson 10/8/1976; Pilat 144-46; Sherrill in Nation 7/7/1969; Parade 8/24/1969; WM/James A. Farley 12/10/1975; WM/Laurence E. Bunker 4/20/1976; WM/Louis Sullivan 4/1/1976 (back to text)

  5 Kenney Know 10; Archer 181; George C. Kenney, introduction, MacArthur Duty v-vi (back to text)

  6 Barbey 282; Mellnik 22; LaFollette 269; Luvaas 3 (back to text)

  7 Clare Boothe Luce, foreword, Beck x; Gunther 23 (back to text)

  8 Manchester Controversy 304; Alfred Steinberg 87; Gunther 26, 79 (back to text)

  9 Edmund Wilson 115-16; Davis Washington 190, 197-98S, 336, 415 (back to text)

  10 Durants Age of Napoleon 258 (back to text)

  11 Ibid. 239; Walt Whitman, “As I Ponder’d in Silence,” 1870; Gunther 26; WM/Bunker 4/20/1976 (back to text)

  12 Merle Miller 342 (back to text)

  13 Archer 182; Sheean in Holiday 12/1949; Whan 73; Pogue II 375; Kenney Know 229 (back to text)

  14 WM/Bunker 4/20/1976; Blaik 498; WM/Robert F. Kennedy 12/1/1965 (back to text)

  15 Luce, foreword, Beck x (back to text)

  PROLOGUE: FIRST CALL

  1 Author’s observations 1/16/1976 (back to text)

  2 Kelley and Ryan 34; Muggah and Raihle 18; Merrill 235; Hart Sherman 215 (back to text)

  3 Merrill 237; Hersey 45 (back to text)

  4 Hersey 46; Muggah and Raihle 18; Merrill 237; Pratt 289; Hunt Untold 5; Kelley and Ryan 33 (back to text)

  5 Hersey 46; Pratt 290 (back to text)

  6 “Arthur MacArthur,” Outlook 9/21/1912; MacArthur Reminiscences 8, 9; James I 15; RG 20; Harper’s Weekly 5/27/1909 (back to text)

  7 Author’s observations 1/16/1976 (back to text)

  8 MacArthur Reminiscences 9; James I 12, 13; Gavin M. Long 3 (back to text)

  9 Hunt Untold 4, 6; Watrous in Putnam’s Monthly 12/1906; Archer 10; Francis T. Miller 26; James I 13-14; MacArthur Reminiscences 9 (back to text)

  10 James I 15, 16; Gavin M. Long 3; MacArthur Reminiscences 9, 10 (back to text)

  11 Hersey 45; WM/Laurence E. Bunker 4/20/1976 (back to text)

  12 MacArthur Reminiscences 3; Maher 86; Dictionary of National Biography XII 400-04; James I 7 (back to text)

  13 Jenkins 28; Newlon 19; Lee and Henschel 11, 12 (back to text)

  14 Author’s observations 1/21/1976; Newlon 19; (back to text)

  15 Richards 18 Francis T. Miller 17; Ridlon 5; Lee and Henschel 11, 12; “Some Ancestral Lines of General Douglas MacArthur,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 7/1942 (back to text)

  16 Lee and Henschel 11; MacArthur Reminiscences 4; Wisconsin Historical Society VI 101-06; Quafe I 539 (back to text)

  17 James I 9-10; MacArthur Reminiscences 4, 5; Lee and Henschel 12 (back to text)

  18 Newlon 25; MacArthur Reminiscences 5 (back to text)

  19 RG 20; James I 11; MacArthur Reminiscences 5; Hunt Untold 13, 14; Evening Wisconsin 8/26/1896 (back to text)

  20 Arthur MacArthur II to Mrs. S. H. Burrage 1/30/1916; RG 10 (back to text)

  21 Gavin M. Long 3; James I 16, 18; In Memoriam 1, cited in James I 16; MacArthur Reminiscences 11, 12; Hunt Untold 12; Huntington 226-29 (back to text)

  22 Alfred Steinberg 14; Francis T. Miller 31; Gavin M. Long 4; James I 19, 48; Considine Magnificent 18; MacArthur Reminiscences 12; Richards 23 (back to text)

  23 Keheler 356-62; Alfred Steinberg 19; Lee and Henschel 16 (back to text)

  24 Richards 24; Hunt Untold 7 (back to text)

  25 MacArthur Reminiscences 11 (back to text)

  26 Hunt Untold 7, 8; MacArthur Reminiscences 14 (back to text)

  27 Hunt Untold 3; Considine Magnificent 18; MacArthur Reminiscences 14 (back to text)

  28 Considine Magnificent 18; Eleanor P. Cushman to DM 5/10/1944; RG 10 (back to text)

  29 James I 26 (back to text)

  30 Alfred Steinberg 17-18; “War Plan,” Outlook 5/27/1931 (back to text)

  31 James I 28-30; Turner 1-6; Huntington 226-27; Hunt Untold 13-14; Alfred Steinberg 18 (back to text)

  32 MacArthur Reminiscences 19; Hunt Untold 16; WM/Bunker 4/20/1976 (back to text)

  33 Leech 284; Considine Magnificent 22; James I 32; Coffman Sword 12-17; Wolff 305-06; Sexton 104-15; Kelley and Ryan 36 (back to text)

  34 Considine Magnificent 22 (back to text)

  35 Leech 405; Lee and Henschel 20 (back to text)

  36 Considine Magnificent 23; Ganoe Army 397-403; Stratemeyer passim (back to text)

  37 Considine Magnificent 24; James I 35-36; Lee and Henschel 26; Hunt Untold 18 (back to text)

  38 Hersey 44; Hunt Untold 29, 30; Considine Magnificent 26 (back to text)

  39 Leech 572 (back to text)

  40 Lee and Henschel 21 (back to text)

  41 Ibid.; Bernstein 86; Berthoff in World Politics 1/1953 (back to text)

  42 Ibid.; Minger in Ohio Historical Quarterly (back to text)

  43 Lee and Henschel 21; Berthoff in World Politics 1/1953; Jessup I 358-61; Elliott 524-26; Worcester and Hayden 325-31; Pringle I 167-70 (back to text)

  44 Berthoff in World Politics 1/1953 (back to text)

  45 Ibid.; Minger in Ohio Historical Quarterly (back to text)

  46 Berthoff in World Politics 1/1953; Minger in Ohio Historical Quarterly; RG 20 (back to text)

  47 Ibid. (back to text)

  48 Berthoff in World Politics 1/1953 (back to text)

  49 Minger in Ohio Historical Quarterly (back to text)

  50 Leech 573; Kelley and Ryan 37 (back to text)

  51 NYT 2/16/1905; “Up from the Ranks,” Literary Digest 9/21/1912; Hunt Untold 38 (back to text)

  52 Francis T. Miller 83; Ganoe Army 420, 493 (back to text)

  53 Hunt Untold 39-40, 46; “Up from the Ranks,” Literary Digest 9/21/1912; Kelley and Ryan 37 (back to text)

  54 NYT 9/6, 9/8/1912; Hersey 47; MacArthur Reminiscences 35-36; Hunt Untold 47; Milwaukee Sentinel 9/8/1912; James I 42-43 (back to text)

  55 E. E. Farnam Papers WPA-DM; MacArthur Reminiscences 36 (back to text)

  CHAPTER ONE: RUFFLES AND FLOURISHES

  1 Alfred Steinberg 14; Hunt Untold 3-4; MacArthur Reminiscences 15; Lee and Henschel 9 (back to text)

  2 Laura Long 70; MacArthur Reminiscences 15; Hunt Untold 11; Archer 9, 11-12 (back to text)

  3 Laura Long 13, 16-17, 58-59; Archer 12 (back to text)

  4 Lee and Henschel 10, 243; Alfred Steinberg passim (back to text)

  5 MacArthur Reminiscences 15; Archer 13-14 (back to text)

  6 Gunther 32-33; Lee and Henschel 10, 14; Ryan and Kelley in Collier’s 9/23/1950; Kelley and Ryan 39-41 (back to text)

  7 Alfred Steinberg 16; MacArthur Reminiscences 16; James I 56-57 (back to text)

  8 Alfred Steinberg 18; Gunther 32 (back to text)

  9 West Texas Military Academy Catalogue 1893-94, 6, 14-16; James I 58, 61-62; Hersey 56 (back to text)

  10 Hunt Untold 15; MacArthur Reminiscences 17; Francis T. Miller 39; Alfred Steinberg 21 (back to text)

  11 Alfred Steinberg 20 (back to text)

  12 Hunt Untold 15; Hersey 57-58 (back to text)


  13 Archer 16; Hunt Untold 16; Kelley and Ryan 43 (back to text)

  14 Francis T. Miller 38-39; Hersey 58 (back to text)

  15 MacArthur Reminiscences 18; Hersey 58-59; Goertzel 92; Hunt Untold 17 (back to text)

  16 Lee and Henschel 46-47 (back to text)

  17 Davis Mitchell 18; WM/Laurence E. Bunker 4/20/1976 (back to text)

  18 James I 67; author’s observations 2/6/1976; WM/Thomas P. Garigan 2/5/1976; Thomas J. Fleming 379; Alfred Steinberg 23 (back to text)

  19 Wood in Assembly Spring 1964; Gavin M. Long 7; Mayer MacArthur 18 (back to text)

  20 Wood in Assembly Spring 1964; Hersey 71-72 (back to text)

  21 Ibid. (back to text)

  22 Wood in Assembly Spring 1964; Archer 24-25; Miller 44; Gunther 33-34; Goertzel 92; Lee and Henschel 28-29 (back to text)

  23 Hunt Untold 18; WM/Garigan 2/5/1976 (back to text)

  24 “Douglas MacArthur,” Current Biography 1948 (back to text)

  25 Ambrose 229; Maher 88; Thomas J. Fleming 283 (back to text)

  26 James I 70-71; MacArthur Reminiscences 25 (back to text)

  27 Ambrose 230-31 (back to text)

  28 Hyde in Assembly 10/1942; Francis T. Miller 51-52; Thomas J. Fleming 284; Hunt Untold 26 (back to text)

  29 Thomas J. Fleming 284; Maher 89 (back to text)

  30 Thomas J. Fleming 284; Hersey 30; Cocheu in Assembly Spring 1964 (back to text)

  31 Alfred Steinberg 25-26; Thomas J. Fleming 285 (back to text)

  32 WM/Stanley P. Tozeski 2/6/1976; WPA-DM; James I 77-78; Lee and Henschel 29 (back to text)

  33 Archer 27; Ganoe MacArthur 22; Thomas J. Fleming 285 (back to text)

  34 Cocheu in Assembly Spring 1964; Ashbury and Gervasi in Collier’s 9/14, 9/21/1945 (back to text)

  35 “Douglas MacArthur,” Current Biography 1948; Alfred Steinberg 26; Hunt Untold 30 (back to text)

  36 MacArthur Reminiscences 26 (back to text)