The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur (8 page)

But while MacArthur celebrated the U.S. decision to free its Pacific colony, Filipinos were more circumspect. Like the United States and much of the rest of the world, the Philippines were suffering the effects of a deep economic crisis that Americans could do little to alleviate. But more importantly, Philippine leaders were worried about the growth of Japanese power and the U.S. failure to recognize it. Japan had conquered Manchuria, and many Philippine leaders believed they were next. They had good reason to be suspicious. In the summer of 1934, Major General Frank Parker, the U.S. commander of the Philippine Department, reported to the War Department that the islands had recently been subject to an influx of male Japanese tourists, who spent their time traveling through the country, “mapping roads and photographing bridges and other points of military interest.” MacArthur read these reports and began to maneuver to have himself appointed either as Parker’s replacement or, better yet, as military advisor to the Philippine government. For MacArthur, the latter seemed like a perfect position: Not only would he leave Washington “in a blaze of glory,” but he would return to Manila in triumph as its potential savior.

I
n October 1934, in the midst of MacArthur’s study of strategy, Manuel Quezón, the head of the largest political party in the Philippines, visited Washington to discuss U.S. plans for his country. Quezón, a former
insurrectos
and aide-de-camp to independence leader Emilio Aguinaldo (who had surrendered to MacArthur’s father in 1901), had befriended MacArthur when the American had headed the Army’s Department of the Philippines in 1929. The Filipino’s visit provided MacArthur with the opportunity to reignite an old and important friendship. Spindly, handsome, and mercurial, Quezón was his country’s most prominent nationalist and an outspoken critic of American “colonialism,” which did little to endear him to American officials. “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like
heaven by the Americans,” he had once said. But while other U.S. officials were uncomfortable with Quezón, MacArthur admired him. As summer gave way to autumn, the two made the rounds on Capitol Hill, then shuttered themselves in MacArthur’s office to talk.

Quezón, an economic reformer in the Roosevelt mold, told MacArthur about his dreams for the Philippine Commonwealth (an eleven-year self-governing period to begin in the autumn of 1935), but was worried about the Japanese, who were building one of the largest navies in the world. “General,” he asked, “do you think that the Philippines, once independent, can defend itself?” MacArthur didn’t hesitate. “I don’t think that the Philippines can defend themselves,” he said, “I know they can.” The answer must have come as a relief to Quezón, though it is doubtful he was as confident as his old friend. What Quezón really wanted was a promise that the United States would help him build a professional army. Without it, he said, the Philippines would be overrun by the Japanese. MacArthur pledged his support. “We cannot just turn around and leave you alone,” he told Quezón. “All these many years we have helped you in education, sanitation, road-building, and even in the practice of self-government. But we have done nothing in the way of preparing you to defend yourselves against a foreign foe.”

Quezón suggested that the United States appoint a military advisor to Manila, and he pushed MacArthur to take the job. MacArthur thought this a splendid idea. Two months after Quezón’s visit, the general broached the subject with Roosevelt at a White House meeting attended by George Dern. “Both of them were not only in complete sympathy but were enthusiastic,” he wrote to Quezón. “As a consequence I am making definite plans to close my tour as Chief of Staff about June 10th and leave for the islands immediately thereafter.”

In the months that followed, MacArthur kept Quezón’s offer in mind, hoping to move up the date of his departure from Washington. That proved impossible. Even as MacArthur was planning to leave for Manila in June 1935, Roosevelt had extended the general’s term as army chief yet again—until October. Finally, on September 3, 1935, MacArthur met Roosevelt at Hyde Park to work out the details of his new assignment. The two had lunch together and talked for several hours, during which time Roosevelt confirmed MacArthur’s appointment
as military advisor to the Philippines, adding that the general might also consider filling the role of U.S. high commissioner. The new office, which would have enormous powers and prepare the archipelago for independence, would replace that of governor-general once the Philippines became a commonwealth later that year.

Two weeks later, on September 18, Dern announced MacArthur’s appointment as the military advisor to the Philippines: “By direction of the President, General Douglas MacArthur is detailed to assist the Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands in military and naval affairs,” the order read. “He will act as the Military Adviser of the Commonwealth Government in the establishment and development of a system of National Defense.” Dern did not make public Quezón’s offer of monetary compensation—a little less than 0.5 percent of the total Philippine military budget—to MacArthur for this appointment. MacArthur accepted the offer, but only after the War Department’s adjutant general agreed to suspend the rule forbidding serving U.S. military officers from receiving monies from the nations they advise. Had the decision been made public, it would have been highly controversial. President Roosevelt approved the ruling. Nor did Dern mention Roosevelt’s suggestion that MacArthur also serve as U.S. high commissioner, but only because the final details of that assignment had yet to be worked out. Then too, as MacArthur discovered, his appointment as high commissioner would require congressional approval. When MacArthur queried Roosevelt on this in the wake of the Hyde Park meeting, the president responded positively, saying that the administration would sponsor a joint congressional resolution affirming MacArthur’s appointment. “I am inclined to hope,” Roosevelt said, “that there will be little or no trouble on the Hill.”

The problem for Roosevelt, however, wasn’t on Capitol Hill. It was with an American in Manila. Knowing that the present governor-general, Frank Murphy, would object to MacArthur’s appointment because Murphy wanted the high commissioner position for himself, MacArthur moved to head him off. MacArthur wrote to Roosevelt, claiming that Murphy’s views of the high commissioner’s role amounted to making him a “Super-President of the Commonwealth.” When Murphy learned of MacArthur’s allegations, the governor-general labeled them as “without foundation and unwarranted.”

The MacArthur-Murphy spat struck Roosevelt as unnecessary; if MacArthur had simply left well enough alone, he would have been named to the post without debate. But Murphy was a powerful figure in the Democratic Party, and Roosevelt couldn’t afford to insult him. The president quietly dropped MacArthur’s name for the high commissioner post, while confirming the general’s role as Quezón’s military advisor. MacArthur blamed Murphy ally Harold Ickes for the controversy, but the disappointment passed, dampened by the honors MacArthur received from the administration when his tenure as army chief lapsed. Secretary of War Dern made him the guest of honor at a War Department reception, where the secretary pinned an Oak Leaf Cluster on the Distinguished Service Medal that MacArthur had won during the Great War. More recognition followed, including a surprising accolade from John Pershing, read by Dern during the reception. “I have only praise for General MacArthur as chief of staff,” Pershing wrote. “He has fully measured up to that position.” But MacArthur’s proudest moment came after the reception when, during a Washington reunion, his old 42nd Rainbow Division greeted him with a standing ovation, a symbolic act of forgiveness for his Bonus Army actions.

MacArthur left Washington on October 1, 1935, traveling west by rail to San Francisco with his eighty-four-year-old mother and his brother’s widow, Mary, who came along to look after her. An army physician, Howard Hutter, was assigned to Pinky, monitoring her increasingly perilous health. Dwight Eisenhower also made the trip, along with MacArthur’s aide-de-camp (his personal assistant), Major Thomas Jefferson Davis. MacArthur had prevailed on Eisenhower to serve as his chief military aide during his time in the Philippines, and Ike had felt that he couldn’t turn him down. But Eisenhower had hesitated long enough to gain MacArthur’s approval that Ike’s former West Point classmate, Jimmy Ord, would serve as one of MacArthur’s assistants. MacArthur and his entourage planned to sail for Manila on a leisurely voyage, boarding the SS
President Hoover
in San Francisco.

MacArthur had departed the nation’s capital in an unexpected “blaze of glory,” but it’s unlikely that he felt vindicated by his service with Roosevelt. The general had reached the highest command in the U.S. military, and although he was still too young to retire, he must have thought that the most important days of his military career were now behind him. MacArthur might have yearned for a political career, but
he had never taken the steps to organize a campaign or approached Republican leaders for their support. Perhaps MacArthur realized that despite his desire to be president, he was actually ill suited for the job: He didn’t study politics, had never been involved in a political campaign, and had never formed or articulated any clear views on pressing domestic issues. An observer could read MacArthur’s personal papers without once tripping over an opinion on taxes, the economy, or the federal budget—three issues that are the mother’s milk of American politics.

Another reason for MacArthur’s reluctance to throw his hat into the political ring was that the general’s boss, Roosevelt, remained both a popular president and a talented politician. It seemed unlikely that MacArthur would replace him. For his part, while Roosevelt viewed MacArthur as a political competitor, the president wasn’t overly worried about a MacArthur candidacy. And why should he be? It would be not only difficult for MacArthur to criticize the New Deal as candidate MacArthur, but impossible. The general had been a part of the program, which is why Roosevelt had kept him on as chief of staff to begin with. Traveling west to San Francisco with Eisenhower, Davis, Ord, and the MacArthur family, MacArthur would have never admitted that he had been outmaneuvered by Roosevelt—“tamed” by him—but he had.

Clear evidence of this political maneuvering came halfway through his trip across the country, when MacArthur received word that Roosevelt had appointed General Malin Craig as MacArthur’s successor. The information came in a telegram from Assistant Secretary of War Harry Woodring, who added that MacArthur would revert to his former two-star rank. He was now Major General MacArthur.

Reading the telegram, MacArthur exploded. He burst out with “an explosive denunciation of politics, bad manners, bad judgment, broken promises, arrogance, unconstitutionality, insensitivity, and the way the world had gone to hell,” wrote Eisenhower, who witnessed the tantrum. Roosevelt had outfoxed him—appointing Pershing partisan Craig as chief of staff when MacArthur had done everything he could to make certain that George Simonds would be the successor. The appointment of Craig also promoted the candidacy of General Hugh Drum, a Pershing ally who was next in line for the chief of staff position after Craig. MacArthur had it right: When Roosevelt had extended MacArthur’s tour, back in June, it
was only to make certain that Simonds was eliminated as a candidate for the chief of staff job. It was all a matter of timing. Had MacArthur been replaced in the spring of 1935, Simonds would have been a leading candidate, but six months later, MacArthur’s protégé was too old.

Roosevelt later explained his maneuver to aide James Farley:

    
You see, General Douglas MacArthur, during his service as Chief of Staff, had been trying to have all his favorites placed in responsible positions. He was arranging it so that he would be succeeded by Major General George S. Simonds. Last spring Simonds had four years left to go before retirement and could have served out the term of a Chief of Staff. I had to think fast, so I asked MacArthur to stay until October on the representation that I needed him to assist in the formulation of legislation relative to the War Department . . . [Roosevelt hadn’t told Secretary Dern of his plan because] he might have mentioned it, innocently, to someone in the War Department and pressure might have been brought to bear to force the appointment of Simonds while he still had four years to go.

But as it turned out (and as Roosevelt surely knew), there was more to the story than simply making certain that MacArthur wouldn’t be able to dictate his own successor.

Roosevelt’s appointment of Malin Craig as army chief of staff had a profound impact on the American military, supplanting MacArthur’s “gang”—which is how Eisenhower described them—with Pershing’s “Chaumont crowd.” Among those who would benefit was George Marshall. Craig’s promotion crucially shifted Marshall’s career path. Rather than being sidelined, as Marshall had been under MacArthur, Marshall was now being included with the other army colonels who would serve as the next generation of senior officers. None of this was news to MacArthur, but he was nevertheless enraged by Woodring’s telegram. It was not simply that Roosevelt had maneuvered Craig into the chief of staff’s job, but that the president had also cleared the army’s underbrush of MacArthur’s most important disciples. This next generation of leaders would prepare the country for war and lead the military in battles in Europe and the Pacific. MacArthur could not know this at the time, but
this new leadership would mark a thoroughgoing transformation in military thinking. It was not Craig or Simonds (or even Drum) who would lead the army, but George Marshall.

MacArthur was therefore not simply moving to Manila to serve as Manuel Quezón’s military advisor, but was also leaving behind an administration that had little use for him or for his followers. The general wasn’t simply heading west; he was heading into exile. And ironically, heading into exile with him was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the officer whom George Marshall would one day pick to lead American soldiers in Europe.

T
wo weeks after MacArthur boarded the
President Hoover
, Pinky became ill. MacArthur quickly radioed ahead to Manila to make certain she would receive the best care, but five weeks after his arrival in the Philippine capital, on December 3, 1935, she died. MacArthur was stricken. Eisenhower wrote in his diary that her death “affected the General’s spirit for many months.” MacArthur never wavered from his commitment to his mother and was never embarrassed by her interference in his life. In his
Reminiscences
, he describes her as the pillar of the MacArthur family, her departure marking the passing of a generation: “Of the four of us who had started from the plains of New Mexico, three now were gone, leaving me in my loneliness only a memory of the households we had shared, so filled with graciousness and old-fashioned living.” There was some compensation, however. While aboard the
President Hoover
, MacArthur met thirty-seven-year-old Jean Marie Faircloth, a sophisticated and affluent daughter of a Nashville banker.

An immediate friendship, begun as the two talked on the rail of the
Hoover
, blossomed into a deep but quiet love affair. Jean was to have disembarked in Shanghai (where she was to visit family friends) but stayed on board at MacArthur’s pleading and, arriving in Manila, took up residence near the MacArthur penthouse on the top floor of the spacious Manila Hotel. She was thereafter seen with him every day on his veranda, which had a spectacular view of the harbor, or arriving on his arm at Filipino receptions.

Faircloth was a perfect match for MacArthur. A loving and loyal companion, she was impressed by his command of history and literature
and became friendly with members of his staff, who admired her. She called him “General” or “Sir boss,” and he addressed her as “ma’am.” In many ways, Faircloth was evidence that MacArthur’s relationship with women had matured: She never grasped for public attention, and she remained studiously unimpressed by the great and near great. She had nothing in common with Louise Brooks, and certainly not with Isabella Rosario Cooper. No hint of scandal ever touched her.

Sidney “Sid” Huff, who later joined MacArthur’s staff as a naval advisor, was one of her admirers, as well as a friend. He helped her acclimate to Manila social life, advised her on local customs, and, on one occasion, helped arrange a reception that she hosted for Manila socialites. He has shared an impression of her during one such event. A graceful worrier, she had been concerned that the general would arrive before the reception had ended and that the ever-demanding “Sir boss” would expect her to leave, as she and MacArthur went to the movies nearly every night. But she did not want to appear ill-mannered before her friends, as no self-respecting Nashville hostess would ever leave before her guests. “What should I do, Sid?” she asked. Huff told her to leave, but to do so quietly, as every hostess did at one time or another in Manila. So she did, sneaking out a side door and meeting MacArthur at his limousine for their nightly appearance at the local movie house.

But Faircloth rarely joined MacArthur during his work hours or when he paced the floor of his penthouse office, issuing perorations on the future of the Philippines, on military strategy, or on Japanese intentions. Huff remembered these scenes:

    
He stuck his hands in his hip pockets as he paced, his jaw jutted out a little and he began talking in that deep, resonant voice—thinking out loud. From time to time he paused beside the wide mahogany desk to push the cigarette neatly into line with the edge of the ash tray, and to glance over at me. “Do you follow me, Sid?” he asked, swinging into his pacing stride again. Or sometimes he would stop at the desk to line up a dozen pencils that were already in a neat pattern—or to turn them around and push the points carefully into line. But always he went back to pacing and to thinking out loud.

Air Force Major General Lewis Brereton, who commanded U.S. air assets in the Philippines, described MacArthur as “one of the most beautiful talkers I have ever heard,” adding that “while his manner might be considered a bit on the theatrical side, it is just part of his personality and an expression of his character. There is never any doubt as to what he means and what he wants.” This “thinking out loud” became a MacArthur characteristic—a means of trying on ideas and, later, of testing strategies. At fifty-seven, he did not view himself as old, but remained trim, energetic, and filled with life. He rose early, ate a modest breakfast, then exercised, though not very strenuously—and not for very long.

MacArthur, it turns out, was something of an obsessive, the result perhaps of his West Point training—where uniforms and shirts are neatly arranged, perfectly spaced, and properly buttoned, with shoes shined to a high gloss and where books and pencils and papers are arranged neatly on a desk. Brereton noted this in his diary, which includes a description of MacArthur as “one of the best dressed soldiers in the world.” This obsession with appearance was a carryover from his days in France and was replicated now for the Filipinos: His uniform was unornamented, his face scrubbed, his spine ramrod straight, his pressed khaki trousers with a distinctive crease. He walked with a purpose, chin forward. He never slouched, never put his feet on his desk, never lounged indulgently. He was fastidious; he was never late, never apologetic, never forgetful. He bowed and nodded when meeting someone, exercising a graceful turn to introduce “Miss Faircloth of Nashville,” after which he would smile, nod with interest, or laugh softly. It was a practiced pose, but one as necessary in Philippine society as it had been in Washington. These small obsessions were reflected in his constant editing and reediting of papers and directives, picking just the right word or phrase. He mastered the art of writing his instructions using the sparest prose (“there is never any doubt as to what he means”), so that his orders were clear, explicit, rigorous, and unambiguous. In this, he shared a trait common to America’s great soldiers, who practiced the art of writing precise orders—where
may
,
perhaps
, and
seems
are excised and replaced with
will
,
must
, and
is
.

MacArthur’s arrival in Manila was cause for rejoicing among Filipinos. He was much sought after by Philippine society, whose company
he preferred to that of the small in-country American community. He was seen, with Jean, as a regular guest at receptions held by the new commonwealth president, Manuel Quezón, or standing quietly with a group of legislators at Manila’s parliament building. But there was still the sense among his closest associates that when he wasn’t with Jean, he preferred his own company. Unlike the gregarious impression left by Eisenhower (a master bridge and poker player and the head of a movable all-male group called Club Eisenhower), there is no report of MacArthur’s participation in the kinds of raucous, always-alcohol-
fueled sessions then preferred by American officers (MacArthur was not a teetotaler, but abstemious). Nevertheless, wherever he went—whether it was on a tour of U.S. installations or to hear a briefing at U.S. military headquarters at No. 1 Calle Victoria in Manila’s Spanish old city—MacArthur was known by every senior military officer. He was easy, relaxed, and approachable.

But MacArthur’s easy manner belied the challenge he faced in building a Philippine army, despite the capable ally he found in Major General Lucius Holbrook, the commander of U.S. troops stationed in the country. The Philippine Department was undermanned and understaffed, the result of Roosevelt’s Depression-era cutbacks. The department consisted of the Philippine Division, a complex organization composed of the U.S. 31st Regiment (a little over ten thousand soldiers) and the combat-capable Philippine Scouts, a unit of three infantry and two artillery regiments of Filipinos under American command. The total strength of the Philippine Division was some twenty thousand soldiers, which is all that Holbrook had to defend an archipelago of seven thousand islands. While both the American garrison and the Philippine Scouts were well trained, they were the only soldiers MacArthur could count on. So even as he exuded confidence about the ability of the Philippines to defend itself, he hedged his statements with cautionary clauses. He would, he said, build an army that would “give pause even to the most ruthless and powerful,” before carefully adding that any defense of the islands would have to be mounted in “the furthermost retreat left available.”