Archive: Douglas MacArthur, Apr.5, 1964

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OBITUARY
Commander of Armies That Turned Back Japan Led a Brigade in World War I

M'Arthur Voiced Belief In Destiny

Confident He Had a Role in History--Served as Army Chief of Staff,
1930-35

Guided Manila Troops

Builder of Islands' Defenses Kept Vow and Returned to Liberate the
Philippines

General Relieved of Post in Korea by Truman After a Prolonged Dispute
on Policy

M'Arthur Recall Laid to Criticism

Officer's Failure to Clear Statements Chiding Path of War Led to Ouster

Principle Was at Issue

President Regretted Taking Action but Cited Need for Military
Suboridination

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

U.S. Army Signal Corps
Douglas MacArthur
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur served his country as a soldier
for more than 60 years. He achieved the highest acclaim for his
exploits as a grand strategist in World War II and in Korea and then
held the center stage in one of the bitterest civil versus military
controversies in the history of the nation.

Virtually every military honor was bestowed upon him, yet his active
career ended in bitterness and recrimination when he was relieved of
his command in the midst of a war by his Commander in Chief.

His life was marked by no struggle against poverty or lack of
privilege. His rise to prominence was unmarred by temporary setbacks or
misfortune. Even the final, discordant note of his career--his removal
from command--left him serenely confident in his judgment, outwardly
unmoved by the events that swirled about him.

Believed in Destiny

General MacArthur's evaluation of his role in history was probably most
succinctly and characteristically voiced by him in 1950 in a protracted
conversation with a newspaper correspondent who had known him for many
years.

Asked if he could explain his success, he puffed slowly at his corncob
pipe, looked out the window of his Tokyo office across a moat at the
Imperial Palace ground and said:

"I believe it was destiny."

Douglas MacArthur was born Jan. 26, 1880, in a sestion of the armory
building at Fort Dodge, Little Rock, Ark., that had been set aside as
the post hospital. He was the third of three sons born to Capt. Arthur
MacArthur and his Virginia-born wife, the former Mary Pinkney Hardy.

His eldest brother was Arthur, born in 1876, who graduated from the
United States Naval Academy in 1896, had a distinguished naval career
in the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China and as
commander of the light cruiser U.S.S. Chattanooga in World War I.
Arthur died of a ruptured appendix in 1923.

The second brother was Malcolm, born 1878, who died at the age of 5.

Of the older brother's death, General MacArthur wrote 40 years later,
"His premature death left a gap in my life which has never been
filled."

General MacArthur's father was the son of Arthur MacArthur, a
descendant of the MacArtair branch of the Clan Campbell. The MacArtairs
had their seat near Glasgow, Scotland. General MacArthur's grandfather,
with his widowed mother, came to this country in 1825 and settled in
Chicopee Falls, Mass. He became a lawyer.

Recollections of Grandfather

General MacArthur's recollections of his grandfather remained, he said,
vivid in his memory. In his memoirs to be published next fall by
McGraw-Hill, he told the story of a court case presided over by his
grandfather. One of the contending lawyers appeared to have overstated
his case and lost the suit. He recounted the episode to his grandson
Douglas.

"My grandfather," he wrote, "thus illustrated a lesson, which,
unhappily, I have not always kept in mind: Never talk more than is
necessary."

General MacArthur's father was destined for West Point, but in August,
1862, a little more than a year after the outbreak of the Civil War, he
joined the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He rose through the
ranks, won the Medal of Honor in the Battle of Missionary Ridge in
November, 1863, and was known as "the boy colonel." The war over, he
left the Army to study law, was recalled to the ranks and fought
against the Indians in the West. While he was on duty at fort Dodge,
his third son was born.

In 1898, the elder MacArthur was ordered to the Philippines where,
following the capitulation of Spain, he fought against Emilio
Aguinaldo's revolutionaries, including Manuel Quezon. The elder
MacArthur rose to major general commanding the Army of the Philippines,
and retired as a lieutenant general.

During these years Douglas MacArthur and his mother remained in the
United States, while he prepared for entry into West Point.

The MacArthurs had established their home in Milwaukee. It was there in
1898 that he took the competitive examinations for the United States
Military Academy.

"Always before me," he wrote many years after, "was the vision of West
Point, that greatest military institution in the world. To join the
Long Gray Line had been the lodestar of all my hopes since the sound of
bugles had ushered me into the world."

He passed the examination with high marks and entered West Point in
June, 1899. Much has been written of his West Point military and
academic record. In the four undergraduate years he attained a
scholastic record not equaled in the previous 25 years. He recalled
that there were others in his class smarter than he, but said that his
achievement resulted, perhaps, from having "a somewhat clearer
perspective of events--a better realization that first things come
first. Or, perhaps, it was just luck."

If his military, scholastic and athletic records were outstanding as a
cadet, his tutelage was among the strangest ever noted on the Plains of
West Point.

Mother Lived Near Academy

His mother established a residence just off the West Point reservation.
Her son visited her every day of his cadet life.

Recalling a crisis in his cadet career when he was summoned to a
hearing on the question of hazing at the academy and faced the
challenge of being ordered to disclose the names of culprits involved,
General MacArthur told of his mother's stanch support of his decision
to remain silent on pain of dismissal.

He wrote that his mother "sensed the struggle raging in my soul," and
composed an inspirational poem urging him to stand fast.

"I knew then what to do," he wrote.

He remained in the academy and graduated first in his class with many
honors in 1903. He chose the Corps of Engineers, he recalled, because
chances of promotion were good in that branch.

Much of General MacArthur's success as a cadet has been credited, by
him and associates of the period, to his mother, the indomitable
"Pinky" MacArthur. With his father serving in the Army 10,000 miles
away in that critical period of his life, the young cadet drew from the
aristocratic, forceful woman the inspiration and strength that
sometimes come from both parents.

To her, throughout his life, General MacArthur attributed his sense of
rectitude and "destiny" that was to move his admirers to boundless
praise and annoy those who thought him an egocentric.

As a newly commissioned second lieutenant he was posted to the
Philippines and was involved in surveying the islands where, although
the insurrection had been put down, skirmishes with Moro dissidents
were not uncommon and survey parties were ambushed from time to time.
There, for the first time, he heard shots fired in anger. And, as a
prelude to many escapes in many other battlefields, he once had his hat
shot off.

In the years before World War I, General MacArthur saw service in
Mexico, once disguising himself as a drifter to lead a raiding party,
an early evidence of his proclivity for independent action. As a
captain, he served in the expeditionary forces at Veracruz.

The ascendance of his military star began with the outbreak of World
War I. He helped to organize the 42d (Rainbow) Division and went to
France as commander of one of its brigades.

Exhibiting daring and dash--frequently to the annoyance of his
superiors--he savored the excitement of war and the dangers of combat.
Moreover, he displayed the detached self- confidence that marked his
career through nearly a half-century as an active soldier.

Competition for Sedan

As a brigade commander with the temporary rank of brigadier general, he
directed actions that sometimes ran counter to grand strategy. On one
occasion, with the capture of the French city of Sedan assigned to the
French Army, he entered into competition with the French to be first in
the town.

The prize was of particular significance to the French because it was
the site of the surrender of the French to the Germans in 1870.

Orders for the operation had been drawn up by Col. George C. Marshall,
an operations officer at the headquarters of the American Expeditionary
Force. General MacArthur acted on his own interpretation of the orders.
History recorded conflicting accounts of which forces first entered
Sedan, but the French were listed officially as the first.

Thirty-three years later George C. Marshall, then Secretary of Defense,
drew up another set of orders to which there was no opportunity for
General MacArthur to apply a dissenting interpretation. They were the
orders in 1951, relieving General MacArthur of his Far East commands
during the Korean conflict.

Having once said to General MacArthur, "Young man, I do not like your
attitude," Gen. John J. Pershing, commanding the American Expeditionary
Force in France, nevertheless, pinned the Distinguished Service Cross
and the Distinguished Service Medal on the bold young officer.

In 1919, General MacArthur returned to the United States and was
appointed Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He was
credited with broadening the curriculum and raising the status of the
Army's "trade school" to academic levels equal to those of nonmilitary
colleges and universities.

Encouraged Athletics

A former varsity football and baseball player, General MacArthur
encouraged intramural athletics and wrote the motto that now stands in
bronze on the inner wall of West Point's new gymnasium:

"Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, upon other
fields, on other days, will bear the fruits of victory."

Sinking into peacetime doldrums and sagging appropriations from
Congress and public unconcern with military might in a world that had
just won democracy's "ultimate" triumph over tyranny, the Army offered
only routine duties at routine stations for its professionals.

General MacArthur filled a number of these assignments at home and in
the Philippines. He became involved routinely in a lively controversy
as a member of the court in the court-martial of Brig. Gen. William B.
Mitchell in 1926. Billy Mitchell was an enthusiastic champion of the
airplane as an instrument of war. After having publicly charged the
Government with having failed to recognize the validity of this
position, he was court-martialed.

The court ruled the charges against him "proved" and he resigned from
the Army. For decades rumors, neither confirmed nor denied by General
MacArthur, said that General MacArthur had cast a dissenting vote. The
actual vote was never disclosed.

General MacArthur achieved his fourth star in 1930, when he was named
Chief of Staff of the Army by President Herbert Hoover.

It was in this post, during the Depression, that he came into sharp
contact with the realities of the disarray in the nation's economic
life. In the summer of 1932, several thousand unemployed men, many of
them veterans of World War I, gathered in Washington to demand
immediate payment of war bonuses. They camped in squalor on
Washington's Anacostia Flats amid widespread sympathy for their plight,
but to the vast embarrassment of the Hoover Administration.

Eisenhower an Aide

On July 29, President Hoover issued written orders to Chief of Staff
MacArthur to clear and destroy the camp. The task was accomplished.
With Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, an assistant executive officer to the
Assistant Secretary of War, at his side, General MacArthur directed the
operation of the scene. In some newspapers General MacArthur was
pictured as a beribboned military dandy directing his troops to shoot
down hungry former soldiers.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded Mr. Hoover, General
MacArthur was re- appointed Chief of Staff of the Army. He held the
post until 1935, longer than any predecessor.

There have been charges by General MacArthur's critics that with the
war in Europe only four years away, he was no more aware, despite his
position as Chief of Staff, of the strides Germany and Japan were
making toward waging a modern war than other top officers in the United
States military establishment.

He was credited, however, in the face of penurious appropriations, with
having effected a minor modernization of the Army. In his friendly
biography of General MacArthur, "The Untold Story of Douglas
MacArthur," Frazier Hunt discussed at length the general's dispute with
President Roosevelt over the President's attempt to reduce military
appropriations. Mr. Hunt wrote that General MacArthur had threatened to
resign and take his case to the people unless the President dropped
plans for certain drastic reductions in military budgets.

It was not the first, nor was it to be the last, time General MacArthur
showed himself to be recalcitrant to higher authority. It was noted by
observers of the proud and stiff professional soldier as another of
those curious stances he took that appeared to belie the very essence
of his training and profession--discipline and compliance with orders
from above. The man who demanded and got complete obedience to his
orders on the part of subordinates did not always apply the military
golden rule to himself.

In such moments he explained himself as being "animated by the sole
desire to help restore. preserve and advance those great American
principles and ideals of which we have been beneficiaries ourselves and
are not trustees for future generations."

Used Words As Weapons

Throughout his career he used words as weapons, often soaring to
heights of grandiloquence in search of a phrase, inspirational in
content, sonorous in tone and evocative of his call to "destiny."

No rapport ever developed between President Roosevelt and General
MacArthur. Each had his "style." As in his relations with all
Commanders in Chief during his active military service, General
MacArthur appeared unable to acknowledge that a civilian whose trade
was politics could be the repository of ultimate wisdom. Among his
statements and writings, references to a President as the "Commander in
Chief" are sparse.

President Roosevelt relieved General MacArthur as Chief of Staff on
Oct. 3, 1935, and named Gen. Malin Craig as his successor. Resuming his
permanent rank of major general, General MacArthur was sent to the
Philippines as military adviser to the commonwealth.

For two years he worked at building a military force in the Philippines
that might ultimately be capable of defending the islands with American
help.

On Aug. 6, 1937, he was notified that he would be returned shortly for
duty in the United States. Stating that his task in the Philippines was
not yet completed, he abruptly terminated 34 years of uninterrupted
service by applying for retirement from the Army.

In a message addressing him as "Dear Douglas," President Roosevelt
notified him that his retirement had been granted. The President wrote:

"Your record in war as in peace is a brilliant chapter of American
history."

Manuel Quezon, the Philippines Commonwealth President, then appointed
him Field Marshal of the Philippines. He was the only American to hold
such a rank. It was then, exercising the privileges of that exalted
rank, that General MacArthur designed the gold leaf-encrusted garrison
cap that, along with sunglasses and a corncob pipe, was to become his
trademark.

The Philippines Government paid the commander a salary of $25,000 a
year and provided him with a penthouse atop the Manila Hotel. Other
emoluments were provided, making it possible for him to live, as he did
later in Tokyo and in the Waldorf Towers, a simple life amid luxurious
surroundings.

It was noted during his service to the Philippines Government that
General MacArthur was the highest paid military officer in recent
history. His considerable investments, both in the Philippines and in
this country, were the basis of frequent conjecture, but their extent
and nature were never disclosed. His mode of living after achieving top
rank was such that he seldom opened a door, drove an automobile or had
to perform the myriad personal tasks of ordinary persons.

Spare and just short of 6 feet tall, General MacArthur maintained a
deceptively jaunty air that the unsuspecting thought invited
familiarity, which was swiftly and coolly spurned. Save for his
battered, braid-encrusted campaign cap, his military dress was
simplicity itself. Almost ostentatiously, he wore no ribbons, insignia
or braid other than the tiny circlet of five stars on his right collar
tabs.

As the possibility of war grew, the Philippine Army was merged with the
United States Army under the command of General MacArthur, who was
restored to duty with the American forces as a lieutenant general on
July 27, 1941. In December he was made a full general 11 days after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

That attack was followed on the same day by a Japanese attack on
military installations in the Philippines where General MacArthur's
forces were caught completely by surprise. His air arm was virtually
destroyed. His air command later explained that it was caught at Clark
Field simple because there were no other airfields capable of receiving
it.

Now began the greatest fighting retreat of General MacArthur's life. A
hardened, well-equipped Japanese force landed on Luzon and struck
toward the fortified United States military base on Bataan Peninsula
into which MacArthur had drawn his forces.

With the opening of the battle on Dec. 10, General MacArthur commanded
12,000 Philippine scouts and 19,000 United States troops. Added to this
force were about 100,000 partly equipped Filipinos. The Japanese rolled
the American forces into the Bataan Peninsula where it was hoped they
could hold our for 14 months.

Roosevelt Reported Incensed

General MacArthur assured his troops that this aid would be
forthcoming, although he had been given no assurances by Washington
that reinforcements would come.

His assurances to his troops reached President Roosevelt, and, it was
reported, the President was incensed by General MacArthur's statements.

An entry into the diary of William Hassett, a White House aide,
published in 1953, disclosed that the President had said it had been
"criminal for General MacArthur to raise false hopes among his men."

Meanwhile, the highly trained Japanese forces tightened the noose
around Bataan, forcing the American and Filipino troops toward the tip
of the peninsula, setting the stage for the final battle for
Corregidor.

As General MacArthur directed the defense from the labyrinthine,
underground fortifications of Corregidor, orders came to him on Feb. 22
to leave his command in the hands of Lieut. Gen. Jonathan (Skinny)
Wainwright and proceed to Australia to take command of the newly
created Southwest Pacific Area.

Bidding farewell to his men and their Filipino comrades, General
MacArthur uttered a phrase that was to be added to his trademarks.

"I shall return," he said.

With his wife and their 4-year-old-son, Arthur, and a Chinese amah, or
nursemaid, General MacArthur was taken off Corregidor by a PT boat in a
dramatic dash.

Learned of Allies' Plight

Arriving in Melbourne, the general learned in full detail the plight of
the retreating Allies from the Philippines to Southeast Asia.

He began agitating Washington with demands for more men and equipment,
seeming not to comprehend or not to want to understand that the war in
Europe held first priority for the time being. In addition, he
expressed bitter disappointment that the area of his command had been
limited.

He dreamed of relieving Corregidor up to the very moment of its
capitulation to the Japanese on May 5, 1942.

Until this time, United States strategy in the Pacific was wholly
defensive. But with the increase in Allied strength, the initiative
passed from the Japanese, and on Aug. 7, 1942, Marines landed at
Guadalcanal.

A prolonged struggle took place, and it was not until early in
February, 1943, that the Japanese were forced to evacuate Guadalcanal.
It was General MacArthur's belief, and that of the Navy, that the
Bismarcks Barrier had to be broken.

The MacArthur-Navy agreement on this point, however, did not extend to
the over-all strategy of defeating Japan. In fact, the views of the
general and those of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, United States commander
in the Pacific, were to be opposed until the middle of 1944.

General MacArthur favored moving up on Japan through the Solomons and
Bismarcks by what he called the New Guinea-Mindanao Axis. He wanted to
have the entire fleet and amphibious forces under his command to
liberate the Philippines before advancing on Japan itself.

The Navy plan, which the general opposed as too long a route, was for
an advance through the Pacific, taking key points in the Gilbert,
Marshall and Caroline Islands on the way, then to the Marianas, to
Taiwan and finally to the coast of China to establish a base for the
assault on Japan.

The plan that was adopted in May, 1943, was a combination of the two,
but pointing toward China as the invasion base for Japan, a move later
abandoned in deference to General MacArthur.

In June, General MacArthur's forces, supported by the Navy, began the
slow, grinding process of leapfrogging their way through the
Japanese-held islands.

By the end of February, 1944, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands had been
secured and the Bismarcks Barrier had been broken. From then on,
General MacArthur's forces advanced steadily, taking the Admiralties at
the same time as Admiral Nimitz's forces drove into the Marianas,
Tinian and Guam.

Philippines in Question

During the months that followed, it was left open whether the general
would try to liberate all or part of the Philippines or go straight
from Mindanao and the Marianas into Taiwan. The Navy wanted to go
directly into Taiwan from Saipan and Mindanao, bypassing the other
Philippine islands.

General MacArthur was still intent on liberating all of the Philippines
and using Luzon as the springboard to Japan. He made a strong emotional
appeal, backed up by strategic arguments, that the United States was
honor-bound to liberate the Philippines.

At a conference in Pearl Harbor in July, 1944, he convinced both
president Roosevelt and Admiral Nimitz to liberate the Philippines
first.

On Oct. 30, 1944, two and a half years after he had vowed to return to
the Philippines, General MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte and
proclaimed: "I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces
stand again on Philippine soil."

On Dec. 18, 1944, he was promoted to the newly created rank of General
of the Army. His forces went on to Manila, which fell Feb. 25, 1945.

By this time, Okinawa had been chosen as a substitute for Taiwan or
China as the last stop before Japan. Okinawa fell in July.

The next month, the doom of Japan was sealed with the dropping of the
first atomic bombs used in warfare, on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The long-expected bloody assault on the Japanese home islands was a
nightmare that never happened. The destroyed empire was reduced to a
shattered, charred and bewildered collection of islands that had never
known a conqueror's boot.

Unconditional Surrender

In a career studded with military triumphs, the greatest of these for
General MacArthur came on Sept. 2, 1945, when Japanese representatives
boarded the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay to sign the
unconditional surrender documents under his gaze.

Representing Emperor Hirohito, Mamoru Shigemitsu, attired in morning
coat and top hat, clumped to the document table on his one sound and
one artificial leg. It appeared that the Japanese representative
intended to read the surrender document before signing it.

"Show him where to sign, Sutherland," the General ordered Lieut. Gen.
Richard K. Sutherland, his Chief of Staff. Without further hesitation
the Foreign Minister signed his name. The Japanese Empire was ended.

A few years later General MacArthur assayed his role as Supreme
Commander of the Occupation of Japan as follows:

"If the historian of the future should deem my service worthy of some
slight reference, it would be my hope that he mention me not as a
commander engaged in campaigns and battles, even though victorious to
American arms, but rather as that one whose sacred duty it became, once
the guns were silenced, to carry to the land of our vanquished foe the
solace and hope and faith of Christian morals.

"Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to
the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded
by war."

The occupation of a proud nation, prostrate, bewildered and hated, was
to prove a phenomenon in the history of defeat and conquest.

The remnants of its military establishment were dismantled. Its
military leaders were imprisoned, tried and punished as war criminals.
Its vast industrial complex was in ruins and its people were fearful
and uncertain of the future. In swift strokes, the occupation stripped
the Emperor of his divinity, dismantled the Zaibatsu (an informal but
all-powerful industrial hierarchy based on family ties) and instituted
reforms that shook the roots of an ancient class society.

Sitting remotely and serenely atop the occupation was the architect of
the defeat of the Japanese, the symbol of their conquest, whose power
over them exceeded that of the now powerless Emperor. Rightly or
wrongly, this was the Japanese view of General MacArthur in September,
1945.

With the beginning of the occupation of Japan, the extent to which the
Soviet Union would share it had not been decided on the highest levels.
Taking advantage of this, General MacArthur rode roughshod over Soviet
efforts to get a foot in the door.

It quickly became a standing joke in Tokyo that the ranking
representative of the Soviet Union in Japan, Lieut. Gen. Kuzma
Nikolayevich Derevyanko, spent more time in General MacArthur's outer
office awaiting audiences that never took place than anyone else in the
country.

General Derevyanko, who had signed the surrender for his country aboard
the Missouri, sought General MacArthur's ear for a discussion of the
Soviet role in the occupation, but the Russians never obtained one.
General Derevyanko went home in the first week of October, 1945, and
the occupation remained an American affair.

The occupation moved along through five years during which General
MacArthur, remote but omnipresent, moved between his office in the
downtown Dai Ichi Building and his residence in the sprawling, white
stone-and-concrete United States Embassy.

Traditionalists Were Appalled

Thousands of Japanese lined the streets and sidewalks to watch him pass
in a long, black car four times a day. All precedent was shattered and
Japanese traditionalists were appalled when, early in the occupation,
the Emperor called on him at his home. The Tenno (Emperor), believed by
Japanese to be a descendant of the Sun Goddess, went, as did many
others of high station from many nations, to pay his respects to the
American general.

Two slightly irreverent American newspaper correspondents published a
book, "The Star- Spangled Mikado," which, translated into Japanese, had
a wide circulation.

Of the occupation, General MacArthur made this observation:

"The pages of history in recording America's 20th-century contributions
may, perchance, pass over lightly the wars we have fought. But, I
believe they will not fail to record the influence for good upon Asia
which will inevitably follow the spiritual regeneration of Japan."

The serenity of Asia was shattered at dawn on the morning of June 25,
1950, when North Korean troops who had been trained and equipped by
Russians swept southward across the 38th parallel in a lightning effort
to overwhelm the inadequate South Korean forces, who were being trained
under the direction of a United States military advisory team of fewer
than 1,000 men and officers.

Technically, General MacArthur was not responsible for the protection
of South Korea, but the fate of the military advisory group, their
families and several thousand other Americans in the country was in
doubt.

Step-by-Step Decisions

President Truman ordered General MacArthur to take whatever steps he
thought necessary to evacuate the Americans from South Korea. The
civilians were evacuated by sea and air. The advisory troops remained
with the Korean units.

Then General MacArthur informed Gen. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff,
that the South Koreans, in all probability could not defend themselves
successfully. In Washington decisions were being made hourly as a
result of which the United States became, step by step, involved in the
struggle.

The Fifth Air Force, initially assigned to protest the evacuation,
began to try to support the rapidly retreating South Korean forces.
President Truman decided to act on General MacArthur's recommendation
to send United States troops in Japan and Okinawa into the struggle to
stem the Communist tide.

The unequal struggle between the highly trained North Korean Communist
Army of 500,000 and the ill-prepared South Korean Army of slightly more
than 100,000 men soon involved scattered units of American troops,
swept up hastily from scattered bases in the Far East and thrown into
the conflict.

If equal in spirit to the challenge, the young, postwar G.I.'s had
little training and less ability to stem the Communist tide, sweeping
under Soviet-prepared battle plans down the mountain valleys and into
the rice bowl of South Korea.

U.N. Joined Struggle

The United States appealed to the United Nations to join the struggle
against armed aggression. Since the Soviet Union was at that moment
boycotting the Security Council for other reasons and was not present
to use its veto, the United Nations decided to join forces with the
South Koreans and the United States in the struggle.

Meanwhile, one of General MacArthur's most trusted and competent
officers, Lieut. Gen. Walton H. Walker, commanding the United States
Eighth Army, was given the task of halting the aggressor.

Several factors were in General Walker's favor as he sought to build up
his forces while fighting bitter rear-guard actions against the
invader. The North Korean air arm was negligible, its naval forces were
nonexistent; General Walker's Fifth Air Force support was on constant
increase, his sea borne supply lines were unhampered. He took his stand
on the Naktong perimeter in August, protecting the vital supply port of
Pusan and ground down the enemy by repulsing, with costly casualties,
its assaults on the defenses.

On Sept. 12, 1950, General MacArthur executed a daring and massive
strike from the sea on the North Korean rear and flank with an
amphibious landing at the western port of Inchon.

North Korea's defense broke and the remnants of its army fled in
disorder across the 38th parallel. General MacArthur announced that for
all practical purposes the war had ended, except for the need to pursue
the enemy to the Yalu River, the border between Communist China and
North Korea.

Near the end of September, mopping-up operations of North Korean
Communist forces south of the 38th parallel continued while some United
Nations units, their areas cleared of the enemy, marked time.

The taste of victory sent the enthusiasm of United Nations forces
soaring. Unit commanders were in favor of pursuing the enemy northward
without delay. However, orders were held in abeyance as word came that
there was grave consternation at United Nations headquarters as to
whether the intent of the combined effort had been to repel the
invaders or rid the entire peninsula of Communist military forces.

Seated in his Tokyo office-command post in the Dai Ichi Building,
General MacArthur marshaled his arguments in support of the pursuit
plan.

For more than three months he had directed the affairs of Japan with
one hand, and conducted the grand strategy of the war with the other.

Deep within his all-but-impenetrable office, surrounded by a staff that
guarded his time and presence with zeal, he read the daily and
sometimes hourly battlefront reports.

On fewer than a dozen occasions he motored to Haneda or Tachikawa
Airports outside Tokyo, boarded his luxuriously appointed four-engine
personal transport plane, the Bataan, for a visit to Korea and talks
with his field commanders.

Except for frequent teletype and telephone conversations with his field
commanders, General MacArthur's routine of five years was not visibly
affected. He came and went between office and residence with the same
clockwork regularity while Japanese and G.I.'s alike gawked at the
detached splendor of his passings.

On Oct. 10, President Truman flew to Wake Island for a meeting with
General MacArthur. The President appeared to be concerned with the
General's propensity for independent action.

At Wake Island, General MacArthur was understood to have expressed
great optimism about the Korean situation. He told the President there
was "very little" chance that the Chinese Communists or the Soviet
Union would react to a venture into North Korea.

General MacArthur returned to Tokyo and began to "close out" the Korean
War. Near the end of October a regimental airborne combat unit was
employed in the war's only paratroop operation. United States
paratroopers were dropped at two points just north of the North Korean
capital of Pyongyang to cut off fleeing and disorganized Communist
units. At the same time United Nations ground troops slashed across the
38th parallel in a dash to the Yalu River, Korea's northern boundary
with China.

But elements identified as Chinese Communist troops were found south of
the 38th parallel in the central and east coast sectors at about the
same time--the end of October. They had crossed the Yalu about Oct. 16.
General MacArthur's intelligence officers, however, apparently failed
to attach any significance to the reports of their presence.

Second Phase of War

First Cavalry Division units reached the river, but within hours the
Chinese Communist Army struck across the border and the second phase of
the Korean struggle was under way. By the second week in November
full-scale warfare had begun and the United Nations forces were giving
ground at a speed that, in many instances, amounted to a rout.

Once again, at the 38th parallel, the United Nations forces regrouped
and stood their ground for a time. Later, however, Seoul, the South
Korean capital, fell to the Communists for the second time.

What General MacArthur had called "a new war" went on through the
winter and into the spring. He became restive and wanted to strike at
Chinese depots and supply lines within Chinese territory.

He let it be known that he was displeased with high decisions to
refrain from attacking outside Korea lest the war spread. In a message
to the American Legion, he reiterated his vies and, in a reply to a
request from Representative Joseph W. Martin Jr., the Massachusetts
Republican, he set down a position that Washington did not believe
consonant with its views. In the message, he said:

"There is no substitute for victory."

In April, 1951, he was relieved of his commands in the Far East by
President Truman.

In his book, "MacArthur, His Rendezvous with History," the General's
long time friend and senior aide, Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, recalled
the moment General MacArthur received the fateful order:

"MacArthur's face froze. Not a flicker of emotion crossed it. For a
moment, while his luncheon guests puzzled on what was happening, he was
stonily silent. Then he looked up at his wife, who still stood with her
hand on his shoulder. In a gentle voice, audible to all present, he
said: 'Jeannie, we're going home at last.'"

In the message that accompanied his order relieving General MacArthur,
President Truman said:

"Full and vigorous debate on matters of national policy is a vital
element in the constitutional system of our free democracy. It is
fundamental, however, that military commanders must be governed by the
policies and directives issued to them in the manner prescribed by our
laws and Constitution. In time of crises this consideration is
particularly compelling.

"General MacArthur's place in history as one of our greatest commanders
is fully established. The nation owes him a debt of gratitude for the
distinguished and exceptional service which he has rendered his country
in posts of great responsibility. For that reason I repeat my regret at
the necessity for the action I feel compelled to take in this case."

On April 17, the general, his wife and son arrived in San Francisco.
His return was that of a conquering hero as city after city feted him
with parades.

Beginning May 3 he testified for three days before the Armed Services
and Foreign Relations Committees of the Senate, insisting he could have
won the Korean conflict if he had been given a free hand. He addressed
the joint houses of Congress on April 19, creating a deep impression by
the moderation of his speech and the dignity of its presentation.

He ended with a quotation from an old army song--"Old soldiers never
die--they just fade away."

He did not fade away, however. He continued to make speeches and
pronouncements. His name was brought up before the 1952 Republican
National Convention as a possible Presidential nominee. He was the
keynote speaker, but the nomination went to General Eisenhower.

Of the United Nations he once said:

"It represents perhaps the noblest effort man has yet made to evolve a
universal code based upon the highest of moral precepts. It became the
keystone to an arch of universal hope."

General MacArthur and his wife settled in a 37th floor suite of the
Waldorf Towers, high above Park Avenue. On Aug. 1, 1952, he was named
chairman of the board of Remington Rand Inc. (now Sperry-Rand),
manufacturers of electrical equipment and business machines. General
Whitney remained his inseparable companion and confidant.

With the death in 1959 of Gen. George C. Marshall, General MacArthur
became the senior officer of the United States Army in the rank of
General of the Army. He remained on active duty without assignment,
entitled to a small staff and pay and allowances amounting to $20,543 a
year.

In July, 1961, General MacArthur, accompanied by his wife, made a
sentimental journey to the Philippines, his only trip abroad following
his return to the United States in 1951. Additional honors were
bestowed upon him by the Government there.

Yearly, on Jan. 26, his birthday, he joined old comrades at a private
dinner in the Waldorf to reminisce about the campaigns they had been
through. Delegations of West Point cadets called each year to serenade
him.

His only previous serious illness struck him in January, 1960, when he
underwent surgery for a prostate condition. He recovered from the
ordeal despite his 80 years.

General MacArthur was married twice. His first marriage was to Mrs.
Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks, the divorced wife of Walter Brooks,
Jr., and stepdaughter of Edward T. Stotesbury, a wealthy Philadelphia
banker. She obtained a divorced from him in 1929 on the ground that he
had failed to support her.

He was married to Jean Marie Faircloth, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., April
30, 1937. Their only child, Arthur, was born in Manila on Feb. 21,
1938. Arthur graduated from Columbia University in 1961.