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C6 1Saturday/Sunday, August 20- 21,2016
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
.,
BOOKS
·vour guidepost stands
t l'k
t f ld b
.
ou ' e a en- o
eacon •n the night: duty, honor, country.' -Douglas MacArthur
•
Be ore
Brexit
s on
Douglas MacArthur:
American Warrior
By Arthur Herman
Rondom House, 937 pages, $40
Cammander in Chief
By Nigel Hamilton
HMH, 464 pages, $30
B\ JO~.\TIL\ ~ W. JORDAN
'I AM A JUGGLER•, 1:'-an.kl·
r, .
m Roose-
v~lt once quipped. "I never let my
light hand know what my left hand
does."
with "great
" Our fasemation
.
men. turns, m large Part, on contradi
. ctions between their psychological
light and left hands. From the Bible's
~~on t~ Broadway's Hamilton, the
~mciest ~st for the biographical mill
15 found m flgures whose yin and
yang defy easy summary.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur is a staple
of the "flawed hero" genre. He pulled
off one of military history's most audacious feats-his amphibious landing at I<orea's Inchon harhor in
1950-only to be caught flat-footed
by a Chinese counteroffensive. Denied
a Medal of Honor for unquestioned
bravery at Veracruz and in the First
World War, he received one on flimsy
grounds in the Second. He demanded
absolute obedience from his subordi- TRIUMVIRATE MacArthur, Roosevelt and Nimitz on board the heavy cruiser USS
nates, yet defied his commander in
chief and lost his job. Hurniliated as a and Eichelberger are small but telling tions for which documentary support
war leader, he delivered stirring biemishes that Mr. Herman appropri- is thin. Take the Anglo-American
benedictions to wild applause in a ately debits against MacArthur's leg- atomlc-bomb project. Mr. Hamilton
joint session of Congress and in an acy. He addresses MacArthur's epic claims that in a private meeting at
emotional farewell to his beloved blunders-hls failure in the hours af- the presidenfs Hyde Park, N.Y., home,
alma mater, West Point.
ter Pearl Harhor to proteet his price- FDR ensured British access to U.S. nuFor over half a century, biogra- less bomher force from a Japanese air clear secrets on the condition that
phers have reilected on the subtime attack, his tone-deafness to the build- Churchill support an invasion of
and profane of MacArthur the man, ing Chinese offensive in Korea and, France in 1944- an invasion Churchill
but few have been able to reconcile arguably, his ground campaign that had opposed on more than one occathe two competing sides. William turned Manila into a charnel housesion. FDR's "D-Day for the Bomb" deManchesters uAmerican Caesar" by putting these disasters into con- mand, says Mr. Hamilton, was a ubit(1978), D. Clayton James's three-vol- text. (13lessed with the inestimable ter pill" that ustunned" Churchill.
ume "The Years of MacArthur" gift of hindsight, later hlstorlans and Quoting the prime ministers mem(1970-85), and Walter Bomernan's commentators almost unanimously oirs, he writes: "Churchill was not
recent "MacArthur at War" (2016) condemn MacArthur's decision to actremain the best examples of the mid- vanee to the Yalu [River, the border of
dle ground lying between hero-wor- Korea and China] as a disastrous
one," Mr. Hennan observes. Yet, tak- FD R loved working the
ship and derision.
Arthur Herrnan's "Douglas Mac- ing into account MacArthur's air su- levers of power, and
Arthur: American Warrior" joins the periority, control of the seas and straduring
the
war,
he
pulled
tegie
momentum,
he
notes
that
cast on the admiring side of the zniddle growtd. From the birth of Mac- ('MacArthur had good reason to be- the right ones with
Arthur's father, Gen. Arthur Mac- lieve that the tools of victory were
remarkable
consistency.
still
in
bis
grasp/t
Arthur, to the son's death in 1964, Mr.
In "Douglas MacArthur," Mr. HerHerman devotes 848 pages to a thorough expJoration of MacArthur's char- man offers a rich portrait of the man
acter, his intluences-an overshadow- behind the Ray-Bans and comcob happy with the outcome-indeedt he
ing father and a helicopter mother- pipe. The general's strategiest he ex- woke in the night (unable to sleep and
and the context in which MacArthur's plains, were frequently the product of hardly able to breathe."'
Mr. Hamilton cites no oral or docubJwtders and triumphs can be judged. inner dialogues. 'When MacArthur
Sympathetic but not sycophantic, was pacing like this, li.ke a tiger in a mentary evidence of an explicit deal,
Mr. Herman peels away the medals, cage, and speaking to his guest, he and Roosevelt/Churchill scholars such
general's stars and rumpled uniform was actually 'communing aloud with as Warren F. Kimball, Richard M.
to find what made Ma.çArthur tick- bis own mind. He was questioning Langworth and David Reynolds have
written extensively on FDR's atomie
and what made him fail. MacArthur's MacArthur's reasoning in front of a
Iimits as a team player played a cen- live witness,' " Herman writest quot- diplomacy without flnding the quid
pro quo Mr. Hamilton suggests.
ing
an
old
Anny
comrade.
(1t
was
tral role in many of his missteps. Of
(Churchill's inability to sleep that
bis efforts in the early 1920s to mod- sorne~ subordinates would see
night, according to his memoirs, was
emize West Point's curriculum over again and again, at the War Departdue to the August heat: (1t was inment,
in
the
Philippines,
Brisbane,
the objections of hidebound aca~em­
and Tokyo." BeautifuJly scripted, deed so hot that I got up one night
ics, for instance, Mr. Herman ~~es: '(Douglas MacArthur" takes its place because I was unable to sleep and
('lt was MacArthur's fate that hls unamong the general's best biographies hardly able to breathe/' Churchill
patience to reform the curriculum
for its prose, construction and insight. wrote.) The "historie deal" at Hyde
alienated those who would have to
Nigel Hamiltonts ucommander in Park is an interpretation driven by
carry it out.... He was learning that
Chief: FDR's Battle With Churchill'' how events played out-possible, perthings got done best when h~ could
haps plausible, but a thin reed for an
centers
on
President
Franktin
Roosehandpiek his staff. Otherwise, he
velrs record as military leader during emphatic factual claim.
tended to make as many opponents as
The heart of ucommander in
FDR
loved
working
the
levers
1943.
he did converts to his vision of what
Chief" is FDR's opposition to an invaof
power,
and
Mr.
Hamilton's
lush
vimust be done." MacArthur's ratio of
sion of France in 1943 and hls insisgnettes
of
Roosevelt
pushing
for
an
converts to enemies would not change
tenee that the invasion take place in
invasion
of
France
in
1944,
or
apmuch over the next three decades.
the spring of 1944. Mr. Hamilton con~
proving
the
assassination
of
Adm.
While Mr. Herman clearly admires
cludes that a 1943 invasion of France
Isoroku
Yamamoto,
cast
a
glowing
the contraversial generalt he does not
would have been umass American
light
on
a
leader
whose
wisdom
enoverlook MacArthur's faults. His dislaughter" because Gennan veterans
sastrous marriage to a Washington abled him to pull the right levers
were better soleliers than American
with
rernarkable
consistency.
debutante, his assignations with a FilOCCasionally Mr. Hamilton's zeal to troops in 1943-a weakness unlmown
ipino mistress, his exaggerated reports home, and his vetoing the stress Roosevelt's force of will drives to Gen. George C. Marshall and his
planning staff but clearly perceived by
ucommander
in
Chief>'
to
interpretaMedal of Ho nor for Gens. Wainwright
Continued frompageCS
calling all troops east of Suez, th~S
marking the symbolic end of the Bntish Empire. The British Empir~ ha~
been a joint enterprise. One-third 0
colonial govemors were Scots. When
the bond of empire dissolvedt Scot·
land had monumentally less in cornmon with England.
.
Edward Heath became prime nunister in the year that de Gaulle died.
"' .
1970. He pursued memhership in the
Common Market as if it were the Holy
Grail campaigning across the countrY
and ~anaging the govemment with a
mastery of polltical and economie detail, including provisions for New zealand butter and Australian kangatoo
meat. His success in joining the common Market in 1973 was the high
point of his career.
.
Yet memhership continued to snr
up such opposition that Harold Wil~
son decided to hold a referendum
when he retumed to power in 1974.
Always the supreme tactician, wilson
declared himself an anti-marketeer in
order to hold together the Labour
Party. His problem was the radical
left, above all the stand taken by the
MP Tony Benn, who, long before
Thatcher, believed that the Common
Market was fundamentally undem.ocratic. He stood for the principle of
Baltimore in Hawaii on July 28, 1944. demoeratic accountability, a vital
concept that would reverberate four
their oommander in chief. From a lean decades later. The consensus among
comment by FDR to Canada's prime politicians in 1975 held that the outminister in late 1942, Mr. Hamilton coroe of the referendum could go eiconcludes that Roosevelt was udeter- ther way. In fact, energetic canlpaignmined to stop his top military staff ing by Thatcher, Heath and many
from insisting upon a suicidal assault others helped secure the 67% vote in
in the wrong place, at the wrong favor of remaining in Europe.
time." When a consensus among the
What then were the main ditterAllled high command at last swung to ences between 1975 and 2016? The
the idea of a push into Sicily in 1943fundamental contrast was that the
instead of a cross-Channel invasion- 1975 referendum took place in the
Mr. Hamilton credits the president apocalyptic era of the Cold War.
with overcoming the strategie myopia After the collapse of the Soviet
of Gen. Marshall and his senior plan- Union, the disappearance of a comners. ('Mass American suïcide in a mon enemy allowed other issues to
premature Second Front would once resurface, for example (in Mr. Grobagain be avoided that year, thanks to
Fitzg~bbon's words), Thatcher's "Gerthe President's military realism," Mr. manophobia dating from the Second
Hamilton concludes.
Wor1d War." Yet another difference
The image of a wise FDR teaching was the caliber of leadership. Wilson
befuddled generals the limits of their and Health, for all therr faults, were
soldiers' capabilities stretches Roose- master politidans.
velt's wartime acumen, formidable as
There were only three television
it was. Like many of the war's great stations in 1975, the Spectator magadecisions, the Mediterranean strategy zine was virtually the sole coherent
for early 1943 emerged as a slow, anti-market voice in the press. To
painful consensus among military party leaders at the time, the British
leaders that Roosevelt sympathized pubtic seemed apathetic, though one
with in its nascent state and agreed oompeiling motive to vote in favor of
with when it crystallized in January Europe was to spite the French. The
1943. Marshall favored an invasion of Labour Party held together, apart
France that year but was honest from a minority on the far left. On the
enough to acknowledge probieros of Conservative side, Enoch Powell was
supply, air cover and landing craft vocal in his dissent. His earlier "rivers
that could make it unsustainable. of bloodu speech found renewed exRoosevelt questioned and probed, but pression in 2016 in the toxic issue of
he did not bowl over his military pro- immigration. Discontent arising from
fessionals, as he had the previous the woes of globalization would have
year when he insisted on an invasion been little known in 1975; but revolt
against the establishment and a sense
of North Africa.
In the main, however, Mr. Hamilton of social injustice had roots going
fincis ample support for bis portrai.t of back at least as far as the 1950s. The
a rommander in chief who possessed ucitizens' rebellion" of 2016 was overstrategie vision, meddled when he whelmingly an English rather than a
needed to meddle and left giant toot- British movement. It carried with it
prints on the war's winding path. Mr. the prospect of balkanization and the
Hamilton's prose is sharp and engag- dissolution of the United Kingdom.
"Continental Driftu is a sound hook
ing, and the fowtdation of his narra·
tive-FDRts struggle to bring Church- but would have been better had it
ill around to an invasion of Normandy been purged of excessive detail. 1t will
at the right time-is admirably con- be nonetheless an obligatory work of
structed. In a Twitter era when pubtic reference. The title is apt In the hope
figures are reduced to two-dimen- merely of solving a party problern,
sional memes, ''Douglas MacArthur" and certainly unaware of the lessons
and ucommander in Chief" highlight of 1975, David Cameron drifted into
the Brexit referendum.
a pair of deliciously complex souls.
Mr. Jordan is the author of "American Warlords: How Roosevelt's
High Command Led America to
Victory in World War II. n
Mr. Louis is Kerr Professor at the
University of Texas. Hls books
include "The British Empire in the
Middle East. ''
MYSTERIES: TOM NOLAN _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _-=~"---==========---------~~