* * *
* The closest MacArthur came to contradicting declared policy was in his March 21 directive offering to meet with his Chinese counterpart to arrange an end to the fighting. Yet as he states in his memoirs, he drew up the memorandum before he learned that there was another peace plan in the offing—one that his March 21 communication supposedly disrupted (no evidence, incidentally, currently supports that latter contention).
The boy soldier: Arthur MacArthur, Jr., Douglas MacArthur’s father, as a lieutenant in the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin. He ended the war as a Medal of Honor winner, and with a love of the U.S. Army, which he passed on to his son. Wisconsin State Historical Society
Captain Arthur MacArthur; his wife, Mary “Pinky” MacArthur; and sons, Arthur III and Douglas, in white and gold curls, c. 1886. General Douglas MacArthur Foundation
Cadet Douglas MacArthur, far right in gray uniform, as manager of the West Point football team, c. 1900. The faraway, visionary look in his eyes was one colleagues and subordinates learned to get used to. USMA Library
Captain Douglas MacArthur in highly irregular gear during the Veracruz campaign (1914). He thought his secret mission deserved a Medal of Honor. The army thought otherwise. MacArthur Memorial Archives
Captain MacArthur as the War Department’s press relations officer in Washington, D.C., 1916. The job taught him a lot about handling the press that he put to good use throughout his career. U.S. Army Signal Corps
General John J. Pershing pins a second Distinguished Service Cross on Colonel MacArthur, 1918. MacArthur ended the First World War as the most decorated soldier in the U.S. Army. U.S. Army Signal Corps
“I never met so vivid, so captivating, so magnetic a man.” Editor William A. White, on visiting MacArthur at his headquarters in occupied Germany, 1919. U.S. Army Signal Corps
MacArthur as superintendant of West Point, c. 1920. His plans to modernize the military academy never bore full fruit, but set the agenda for the future of the Point. U.S. Army Signal Corps
MacArthur with his first wife, wealthy heiress Louise Cromwell Brooks, in 1925. Their storybook romance ended in a bitter divorce two years after this picture was taken. International News Photo
Pinky MacArthur gazes fondly at her son’s photograph, c. 1925. She was the pillar of strength in his life until her death in 1935. “Like mother like son, is saying so true / The world will judge largely of mother by you.” Underwood and Underwood and Brown Brothers
Army Chief of Staff Lt. General MacArthur supervises eviction of Bonus Marchers in Washington, D.C., 1932. His choice of uniform that day would haunt him later. MPI/Getty Images
MacArthur and President Franklin Roosevelt with Secretary of War George Dern (center), 1934. The laughter belied the uneasy rivalry between these two titans that lasted until FDR’s death in 1945. Brown Brothers
MacArthur arrives as military advisor to the Philippines, 1935. Standing behind him, on his right, is his chief of staff, Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower. U.S. Army Signal Corps
Jean Faircloth before her marriage, c. 1935. General Douglas MacArthur Foundation
The Philippines campaign: MacArthur and General Jonathan M. Wainwright, c. December 1941. U.S. Army Signal Corps
The Philippines campaign: MacArthur and Chief of Staff Richard Sutherland in Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor, early 1942. MacArthur assumed he would die on Corregidor fighting the Japanese. FDR had other plans. U.S. Army Signal Corps
A gaunt MacArthur arrives in Melbourne, Australia, March 21, 1942, to a cheering throng. They thought he had come to save them from the Japanese; he intended to make good on his promise to the Filipinos and his men on Bataan and Corregidor, “I shall return.” Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Jungle warfare: American infantrymen on New Guinea, c. 1942. The soldier with the M-1 rifle (left) owed his indispensable weapon to then–Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur. U.S. Army Signal Corps
MacArthur, Roosevelt, and Admiral Chester Nimitz meet in Honolulu, July 26–28, 1944, to discuss strategy in the Pacific. “In all my life, nobody has ever talked to me the way MacArthur did,” FDR told his doctor afterward. U.S. Navy
“Rally to me,” MacArthur addresses the Philippine people on the beachhead at Leyte, October 20, 1944. General Douglas MacArthur Foundation
MacArthur greeted by liberated internees at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, February 7, 1945. U.S. Army
“The pity of war”: American soldiers advancing into the ruins of the Intramuros. Of all Allied capitals in World War II, only Warsaw saw more devastation than Manila. U.S. Army Signal Corps
August 30, 1945: MacArthur descends from Bataan II to the tarmac at Atsugi Airfield, Japan. Winston Churchill called MacArthur’s action that day one of the most heroic of the Second World War. ACME
“Jim, Jim,” MacArthur greets General Wainwright after the latter’s release from Japanese captivity. Many said that Wainwright deserved a Medal of Honor for his suffering, but MacArthur vetoed the idea. U.S. Army Signal Corps
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended.” MacArthur signs the Japanese unconditional surrender, September 2, 1945. Wainwright and General Arthur Percival, commander of the defeated British garrison at Singapore, stand behind him. Admiral William Halsey in cloth cap can be seen standing beyond MacArthur; General George Kenney stands at the right. U.S. Army Signal Corps
MacArthur meets Emperor Hirohito, September 27, 1945. The photograph sent shock waves across Japan and confirmed MacArthur’s role as the “American shogun.” U.S. Army Signal Corps
Crowds gathered every day to watch MacArthur leave his headquarters in the Dai-ichi Insurance building, Tokyo. U.S. Army Signal Corps
The power of supreme command: MacArthur during the Inchon landings, September 15, 1950. General Douglas MacArthur Foundation
“It has been said in effect that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.” MacArthur addresses the joint session of Congress, April 19, 1951. U.S. Army Signal Corps
Norfolk, Virginia, April 11, 1964. Front row, left to right: Courtney Whitney, nephew Douglas MacArthur II, Jean, son Arthur MacArthur, Jean’s brother Colonel Harvard Smith. U.S. Army
To Beth, for everything
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks go to the MacArthur Memorial Archives in Norfolk, Virginia, especially its archivist, James Zobel, and its director, William Davis. Jim Zobel not only patiently pulled boxes of files and hunted down rare photographs, but was a sure and shrewd guide to the many treasures lurking in the archive shelves—and to understanding Douglas MacArthur as a soldier and as a man. Conversations with Bill Davis helped me to gain additional perspective on the career of someone who led and shaped the United States Army in not one but three wars, and if the U.S. Marine Corps doesn’t appear in this book as often as it should, I know Lieutenant Colonel William Davis, USMC (retired), will understand.
Thanks are also due to the staffs of the following libraries: the Library of Congress; the National Archives in College Park, Maryland; the Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library; the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library; the United States Army Historical Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and the libraries of the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Virginia Military Institute, and the Cosmos Club.
I’d also like to thank my colleagues at the Hudson Institute, who were fully supportive as I completed work on the manuscript, who cheerfully listened as I discoursed on various aspects of MacArthur’s career, and who offered useful suggestions and insights that have made their way into the final book. Hudson Institute President Kenneth Weinstein; John B. Walters, Christopher DeMuth, Lewis Libby, William Schneider, William Luti, Seth Cropsey, John Lee; Ambassador Hussein Haqqani; John Fonte, and everyone else: It’s impossible to imagine a better set of friends and intellectual companions. In addition, my research assistant, Idalia Friedson, provided invaluable help with the book’s maps and photographs.
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Two other figures deserve special mention for having had a decisive impact on the shaping of the book and its themes. One is Kenneth Drea, who has given every MacArthur scholar fresh perspective on the role of intelligence-gathering for understanding MacArthur’s strategy in World War Two. The other is Henry Kissinger, who decisively shaped my thinking about the issues surrounding MacArthur’s dismissal in April 1951, and who has encouraged my work on the theme of military versus civilian leadership in America’s land wars in Asia in ways that have left a permanent imprint on this book.
The list of friends with whom I discussed key aspects of the book, historians who selflessly offered help and advice, eyewitnesses to key events in the book with whom I had the privilege to speak, and others who encouraged me to write this book the way I wanted to write it, is really too long to include here, but I can mention a few who stand out: Andrew Roberts, Richard Frank, Carlo D’Este, Walter Borneman; Mark J. Reed, Ivor Tiefenbrun, Sacha Jensen, Alex Pollock, Keith Urbahn, Matt Latimer, Bob Brown, Al Haig, Philip Anns, Brandt Pasco, Farhad Jalinous, Yoshihisa Komorio of the Sankei Shimbun, Toshiyuki Hayakawa of the Sekai Nippo, Seiichiro Mishima of Nikkei Asian Review, Kyosuke Matsumoto, President of Asian Forum Japan; Kin-Ichi Yoshihara, Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae, and prime minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.
Thanks also go to my editor, Molly Turpin, and the production staff at Random House, especially Dennis Ambrose, for their persistence and patience in seeing this book to execution, and to my parents, Arthur and Barbara Herman.
Finally, my greatest debt is to my wife, Beth, who endured three years of MacArthur madness, including changes of editor and agent. You have been my rod and staff, the true love of my life. Thank you, honey; the dedication says it all.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1: SON OF THE FATHER
1. Kenneth Ray Young, The General’s General: The Life and Times of Arthur MacArthur (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 4–5.
2. “Proceedings Attending the Reception and Banquet to Major General Arthur MacArthur,” quoted in Young, 87.
3. United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C., 1880–1901), 38:327–30.
4. Young, 109.
5. Quoted in Young, 97.
6. Record Group 94, MacArthur Memorial Archives (cited henceforth as MMA), Letters Adjutant General to MacArthur, August 6, 8, 12, 1866; September 20, 1866.
7. Office of the Center for Military History, 228.03 Permanent HRC File, Arthur MacArthur.
8. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 12.
9. MMA RG 94, National Archives, Document File, Officers Individual Report from May 1, 1890; quoted in Young, 127.
10. Reminiscences, 13.
11. Young, 130–31.
12. Reminiscences, 14.
13. Young, 138.
14. Young, 140.
15. W. N. Chambers, Old Bullion Benton, Senator from the New West (Boston: Little Brown, 1956), 353.
16. Robert S. Thompson, Empires in the Pacific: World War II and the Struggle for the Mastery of Asia (New York: Basic Books, 2001).
17. Quoted in Stars and Stripes, “Remembering U.S. Grant’s Visit to Japan,” April 8, 2004.
18. Letter to Badeau, quoted in Joan Waugh, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 161.
19. J. F. Packard, Grant’s Tour Around the World (Cincinnati, OH: Forshee & McMakin, 1880), 756.
20. Packard, 756.
21. Young, 143.
22. “Chinese Memorandum” and Notes [1882], MMA, RG 20, Microfilm Collection, 6–8.
23. Memorandum, 13.
24. Memorandum, 18.
25. Memorandum, 22, 25.
26. Young, 144.
CHAPTER 2: TURNING POINTS
1. Young, General’s General, 145.
2. Carol Morris Petillo, Douglas MacArthur: The Philippine Years (Bloomington: Indiana State University Press, 1981), 14–15.
3. Reminiscences, 14.
4. Quoted in Petillo, 18–19.
5. Reminiscences, 15, 16.
6. Petillo, 254, n. 27.
7. Reminiscences, 3, 4, 8.
8. Young, 161–62.
9. Quoted in D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol. 1, 1880–1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 29.
10. Reminiscences, 16–17.
11. James I, 58; “West Texas Academy,” Wikipedia.
12. Reminiscences, 17; James I, 60.
13. James I, 60.
14. James I, 61.
15. Allen Burlsen to AG, June 1, 1898, Record Group 94, National Archives, Adjutant General’s Office (AGO)-DF 38122; quoted in James I, 60.
16. Young, 168.
17. Reminiscences, 18.
18. Frazier Hunt, The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur (New York: Devin-Adair Company, 1954), 18.
19. James I, 63.
20. James I, 64.
21. James I, 65.
22. Hyman Rickover, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994); Edward Marolda, ed., Theodore Roosevelt, the United States Navy, and the Spanish American War (London: Palgrave, 2001).
23. E.g., Geoffrey Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur (New York: Random House, 1996), 25.
24. A. Beveridge, “The March of the Flag,” September 1898.
25. Young, 175; James I, 30–31.
26. Max Boot, America’s Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 103.
27. Young, 178.
28. Reminiscences, 18.
29. Reminiscences, 18; James I, 67–68.
30. Hunt, 18.
31. Hugh Johnson, The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran 1935), 24–25.
32. William Manchester, American Caesar (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), 62.
33. James I, 67–68.
CHAPTER 3: GLORY DAYS
1. Jesse George, Our Army and Navy in the Orient, Giving a Full Account of the Operations of the Army and Navy in the Philippines (Manila, 1899), 54.
2. Boot, America’s Savage Wars, 104.
3. Young, General’s General, 200.
4. Quoted in Margaret Leech, In the Days of McKinley (1956; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 345.
5. Fredrick Funston, Memories of Two Wars (1911; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 177–78.
6. Wood, “An Upperclassman’s View,” Assembly 23 (Spring 1964).
7. James I, 70; Perret, Old Soldiers, 33.
8. Hunt, Untold Story, 25.
9. James I, 70.
10. Reminiscences, 25.
11. Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Random House, 1989).
12. Quoted in Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898–1902 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973), 198.
13. Young, 257.
14. Brian Linn, U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine Wars, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); Young, 263.
15. Mark Moyar, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).
16. Young, 263.
17. Boot, 116.
18. Boot, 119; Young, 288.
19. Reminiscences, 25–26.
20. Reminiscences, 26.
21. Hunt, 22–23.
22. Donald Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing (New York: Scribners, 1973), 13; Perret, 31.
23. Hunt, 31.
24. Hunt, 31.
25. Quoted in Hunt, 33.
26. James I, 72, 74.
27. Perret, 34–35.
28. Perret, 39.
29. Reminiscences, 26.
30. Quoted in Boot, 116.
31. Petillo, 55–56; Young, 302.
32. Official Register of
Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy, June 1903 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), 10; James I, 77–78.
33. Perret, 43; James I, 77.
34. Hunt, 27.
35. Arthur Hyde, “Douglas MacArthur,” Assembly I (October 1942), 3; Hyde, “MacArthur—His Barracks Mate Reminisces,” Hudson Views (1964).
36. Quoted in Petillo, 37.
37. Douglas MacArthur, A Soldier Speaks: Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (New York: Praeger, 1965), 358.
CHAPTER 4: YOUNG MAN GOING EAST
1. Reminiscences, 28.
2. Reminiscences, 29.
3. Arthur Herman, Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008), l.
4. John Hersey, Men on Bataan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), 76.
5. Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the Philippines 1929–1946 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), 264.
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