Fading Away – Douglas MacArthur and Our Crisis of Meaning
by DL Adams (May 2010)
Introduction – the Value of History
During times of national strife, upheaval, and war thoughtful people look in many directions for counsel and context. The essential resource for this research has always been history.
While we hold our past heroes and leaders in high esteem and speak of them with respect (or critically) in the halls of academia and occasionally elsewhere, we seem poorly equipped to learn the lessons they hold for us or to heed their often extraordinarily clear warnings for future generations, that is, for us.
Failure to learn about the past can only result in a functional failure today in that the full picture of people, motives, and events can never be fully understood. The extraordinary conflict and its aftermath between President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur that culminated in MacArthur’s 1951 dismissal is a case in point.
A great orator and insightful observer of culture, politics, and history, MacArthur gave a series of speeches after his dismissal in 1951 and afterwards that warned of cultural decline, cynicism, and loss of faith. These orations ring loud and clear today.
It is the role of the historian to bring these lessons back to the consciousness of the people and to provide context and analysis. MacArthur’s insight and wisdom driven by love of country and a desire to serve help to illuminate our current difficulties.
Re-reading MacArthur’s brilliant speeches of warning and concern allow us to smash the vacuum of ignorance and confusion in which many toil today and return to a world of context, comprehensibility and understanding. Many of the issues that MacArthur publicly discussed from 1951 to his death in 1964 involve core societal and cultural concerns that still reverberate today though the specific issues of contention have faded into the past. The challenges of human development never disappear.
MacArthur Dismissed
There is a clear demarcation between military and political leaders. They have different challenges, and different purposes that often come into conflict. This occurred during Vietnam and, most regrettably for MacArthur, during the Korean War.
While Truman and his political team worked to bring about cease-fire discussions early in 1951, MacArthur—in apparent response to the constraints placed upon him—complained publicly, thus demonstrating his opposition to the administration. The conflict between political control (Truman) and military subservience was growing.
Later that month MacArthur issued a public statement. This statement was completely opposite to the more conciliatory tone of the Truman White House and could well have been meant by MacArthur to “increase the heat” in the Korean theater of war.
MacArthur viewed Korea as an active front in the global fight against Communism and believed that, if Asia were to fall, Europe would eventually also fall. For MacArthur, defeat in Korea, or a peace in which Communism were allowed to flourish (that is, anything other than a total defeat of Communism) would result in threats to Europe and the United States in the future.
nuclear weapons against the Chinese) to achieve victory in Korea.
[ii]
The high esteem in which MacArthur was held by the American people is now not seen for any leader in our society. For Truman, dismissing MacArthur would be the most dangerous political move of his presidency.
[iii]
[iv]
Not Fade Away – MacArthur Continues to Serve
[v]
David McCullough, not apparently a great fan of the General, described the speech as MacArthur’s “finest hour.”[vi] This was the beginning of the old soldier’s fading into twilight – fading away as he said that he would but with a profound message of warning for the country and the future.
remarks closing the ceremonies of the surrender of Japan, September 2, 1945, aboard USS Missouri)
[vii]) In Dallas at the Cotton Bowl in June 1951, 27,000 people attended a MacArthur speech. Covering an appearance by MacArthur at the Texas Legislature in June, 1951 Life Magazine described the oratory style of MacArthur as “couched in rhetoric such as few Americans have heard in recent times and evocative of an earlier, heroic era.”[viii]
[ix]
In December, 1951, MacArthur was in New York. In accepting an award from the Salvation Army he delivered the following remarks at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
[x]
Every generation faces challenges– these challenges often have similar foundations. The challenges of today seem particularly grave with nuclear proliferation, economic crisis, deeply divided domestic politics, two confused and costly ongoing wars for Sharia law, ideological war and offensive jihad at home and in the cities and capitals of our allies and friends.
An Ongoing Crisis of Meaning
We are not adept yet at learning well the lessons of our history, or looking back to those great men and women who can help light our way today with their insights gained from the challenges of their eras.
It is said that history is cyclical, that it repeats itself. But more accurately history perhaps is an ever advancing wave with eddies and whirls and areas of calm within and without at times. The challenges we face today are related to a similar cultural decline that MacArthur spoke about again and again after his dismissal from the service. A culture that does not understand itself, that cannot analyze itself, that cannot see its own value is not a culture that can defend itself.
In 1962, MacArthur, the youngest Commandant of West Point, returned to the US Military Academy to deliver his farewell address to the Corps of Cadets. He would be dead within two years. MacArthur reiterated his essential points of duty, honor, country. He told the cadets that while civilians can argue points of political differences and other issues of division, the American soldier stands aloof in total service to the nation, the guardians of American democracy.
[xi]
MacArthur mentioned many of the same issues in 1962 that still vex us today. History is like a forward moving wave but the themes and consequences of the past are never fully left behind. Understanding MacArthur’s character and motives (as well as those of Truman in relieving him) can illuminate the difficulties of today and through his vigorous analysis and profound turn of phrase, seldom seen today, gain insights into how we should respond to our present challenges.
Armistice Agreement. Our American soldiers remain in Korea and North Korea continues to be an ongoing threat to regional stability and peace. We never quite leave our past behind – our ignorance of it and our inability to understand it is an indictment of our society and its intellectual development.
In our world of terror and war, in which we face determined absolutist enemies our domestic cultural crisis of meaning and value cannot help but undermine our ability to resist the onslaught from those who are more violent and less inclined to compassion and are utterly driven for our destruction.
The wave of history moves ever forward and if we are not to be drowned by it or our civilization subsumed, we ought to hear again the voices of our great men and women from our past.
MacArthur took his leave of the country he served with bravery and honor for over 50 years by saying that he would “fade away” as old soldiers do. He said that old soldiers never die. They do not die because their example of selflessness, courage, determination, love of country, compassion, duty, honor, and bravery lives on. If we allow them to fade away and disappear the result can only be a great loss to us all.
Civilian Control of the Military<span style="color: black;">; Democracy Papers.
[iii] Ibid, p. 837.
[iv] Ibid, p. 845.
[v] Ibid, p. 852.
[vi] Ibid, p. 852.
[vii] Life Magazine, June 25, 1951, p.42.
[viii] Ibid, p. 42.
[ix] Ibid, p. 42.
[x] Imparato, General MacArthur: Wisdom and Visions, (Turner, 2000), p. 127.
[xi] MacArthur, Farewell Address, West Point, May 12, 1962.
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DL Adams is an American historian.