American Caesar by William Manchester (Review)
Earlier this year, I read a George Marshall biography in hopes of learning more about the rebuilding of Europe after WWII. The book prompted a new curiosity about Douglas MacArthur, about whom I knew very little. The great focus on the European front in WWII left me with a minimal foundation on the life of MacArthur. Most of what I knew took place in conjunction with his downfall at the end of the Korean War, which was undoubtedly inadequate.
After a quick detour to read about Julius Caesar, I moved straight toward William Manchester’s esteemed biography, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964. Manchester did not disappoint. In 1979, Professor Gaddis Smith wrote the following summary of Manchester’s book in Foreign Affairs:
The fullest biography yet of America's most dramatized (by himself and others) military leader. Ideologues of the Right will find the portrait too disparaging and those of the Left, too flattering. That is the price the author pays for presenting MacArthur as he was: simultaneously hateful and inspiring, direct and untrustworthy, realistic and obsessively romantic.
That’s about as succinct and accurate as it gets for how Manchester presented an immensely complex character. Manchester’s book is sizeable, but I flew through the content because Douglas MacArthur is such a compelling character. His life and career lends incredible insight into where we are as a nation because he was central to so many significant events. This influence and experiences are even more compelling as we see China’s growth and influence on the world stage. Though the book may appear daunting, it is wonderfully readable and edifying.
I learned a great deal from American Caesar and the following includes some of my observations:
In describing Douglas MacArthur’s father, Arthur MacArthur, Jr., Manchester highlighted the virtue of being a lifelong reader. Arthur’s time on the American frontier was far duller than his time fighting in the Civil War. He instead filled his time by reading constantly with books ranging on subjects from economics to Chinese history. The authors included Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, John Stuart Mill, and more.
Arthur MacArthur’s approach to learning made me think of an observation I made after reading Spiritual Disciplines by Don Whitney:
Wise men store up knowledge and never miss an opportunity to learn. Wise people seek knowledge. There is humility in wisdom because you learn how much more there always is to learn than what one person can learn in a lifetime…Remember Job 32:9, “It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right.” Wisdom does not just happen as we age; it requires disciplined learning.
Contrast this point on learning with many leaders who pride themselves on neglecting books or a willingness to continue learning and reassessing what they know (or think they know). Neglecting knowledge—particularly when you lead people—forces you down a troubled path and drags others along with you.
One of the interesting changes MacArthur made as Superintendent of West Point was to require students to read two newspapers per day and prepare themselves to discuss current national and international affairs. That depth and breadth of preparation, particularly in seeking multiple sources, seems lost today.
The United States had the 16th largest army prior to WWII. It was smaller than Portugal and Greece due to tremendous cutbacks after the stock-market crash. MacArthur fought the cuts to manpower as the Army’s Chief of Staff. Eisenhower was an assistant in his office. He had meaningful praise for MacArthur but noted that MacArthur often seemed more focused on the impression he made rather than securing results—a critical element of his political role as Chief of Staff.
Manchester referenced journalist John Gunther’s analysis comparing FDR and MacArthur: “The President and the General were alike in many ways. Both were intensely patriotic, authentic patricians, and always onstage. Each was dominated by an ambitious mother who lived to great old age, and each cut a dashing figure. Roosevelt was subtler and more of a fixer, but the greatest difference was in their political outlooks. FDR was guided by his liberal vision.” Though MacArthur similarly cherished liberal goals, but his Herbert Hoover conservatism prompted a recoiling from FDR’s social programs. This tension culminated with the following exchange between the two men: “’Why is it, Mr. President that you frequently inquire my opinion regarding social reforms under consideration…but pay little attention to my views on the military?’ His host replied, ‘Douglas, I don’t bring these questions up for your advice but for your reactions. To me, you are the symbol of the conscience of the American people.’ This, MacArthur later said, ‘took the wind out of my sails.’”
During the purgatorial years of the army between WWI and WWII, MacArthur spent much of his time studying and preparing for what he expected with the future of warfare. His wiring proved prescient with an expectation of planes, tanks, and submarines as part of all-consuming wars. He noted there would be a necessity of air cover to facilitate the movement of troops—largely predicting the blitzkrieg that Germany relied upon during its attacks. This understanding of future warfare makes the later court martial of Billy Mitchell—generally regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force—all the more interesting and tragic. Mitchell vocally argued for greater investment in air power, which was poorly received. The end of Mitchell’s military career reflects the resistance to change that plagued the military leading up to WWII.
Despite his conservative tilt and his Republican appointment as the army’s Chief of Staff, MacArthur had a legacy of having implemented the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a highlight of FDR’s New Deal programming. The CCC operated for nearly ten years and provided work opportunities for young, unemployed, and unmarried men. They worked to develop natural resources in rural areas in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, and nominal pay. MacArthur oversaw the CCC and most credit his organizational skills as the linchpin that made the program a success.
It is remarkable how little coordination there was between the military branches prior to WWII. Admiral Thomas Hart, commander of the Asiatic fleet, was the first in the region to hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He did not tell General MacArthur. Inversely, MacArthur intended to evacuate Manila on Christmas Eve in response to Japanese aggression. He did not tell Admiral Hart about his plans.
Given how much tension there was between the United States and Japan, it is odd how little preparation there was at Pearl Harbor and Manila. In school, I learned about Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor as if it were largely a surprise. Such a presentation is wholly incomplete. America’s absence of preparation in Hawaii and the Philippines is much more surprising than the actual attacks. The annihilation at Manila is one of the few black marks on MacArthur’s military career. MacArthur continued to hold an untenable position of status quo for two weeks before moving to a more defensive position.
For all the reading I have covered on WWII, the Pacific Front has been a minute percentage of the content. Manchester addressed the degree of geographical ignorance Americans had in the 40s, and some of his points still surprised me today. He explained MacArthur’s situation by leaning on the analysis by General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence, who said the Pacific Front “was a war of distances.” MacArthur was preparing to defend an area and coastline as large as the United States: 12,000 miles. It was as if MacArthur was a foreign general landing in New Orleans when he arrived in Australia. But instead of Melbourne and Australia’s coast, it was if he in Louisiana preparing for an immediate attack on the border of the United States and Canada. Manchester also gave a comparison of MacArthur’s geographic responsibility being 25 times the size of Texas. The distance and unfamiliar conditions MacArthur faced is staggering. Yet MacArthur showed a remarkable ability to learn and change in his 60s, which made the daunting geography an advantage. At West Point, water was an obstacle for the infantry. At Annapolis, the navy taught that rivers were highways. MacArthur grasped and embraced this mentality, which afforded him a strategic advantage that made his future success possible.
Another advantage MacArthur had was he had learned to respect the Japanese as his opponent. He knew their infantry was elite and the eastern mindset was wholly different from America’s. The Japanese had a brutal mindset with a belief of invincibility and no word for defeat. The philosophy was an embrace of suicidal devotion and willingness to die for the emperor no matter what. MacArthur used this belief of invincibility as a tactical advantage. While Japan was a tenacious opponent, their mindset that they could not lose made Japanese troops rigid in pivoting on the battlefield when the situation changed.
It is apparent why Manchester chose the title of American Caesar to describe Douglas MacArthur. Throughout the book, Manchester highlighted the many contradictions in how MacArthur lived his life. Similarly, in Adrian Goldsworthy’s biography of Julius Caesar, the contradictions of Caesar were also a regular theme.
It’s interesting how MacArthur’s leapfrogging technique in the pacific was initially opposed by other military leaders. It seems so logical to skip the islands occupied by Japan and moving to other islands of strength to draw Japan into battles where they were in the weaker position against Americans who were well positioned and well supplied. There is an elegance to his strategy but it’s all the more impressive because it was novel and defied conventions.
MacArthur once told General Robert Eichelberger that he didn’t understand why Eisenhower’s generals—Patton and Bradley—were on the cover of Time and Life. MacArthur stated that both Eichelberger and General Walter Krueger should be just as lauded. Eichelberger laughed at this comment in a letter to his wife because MacArthur’s communications exclusively focused on himself. Eichelberger knew how much MacArthur valued him, yet it was more important that MacArthur emphasize his own reputation as a field general rather than others. This approach also mimics how Caesar wrote about his own army’s exploits.
Throughout MacArthur’s zigzagging assault against Japan, analysts laud his strategy. Beyond MacArthur’s strategic expertise, it is remarkable that the general conducted his plan from the front lines in his 60s. His staff often remarked in their correspondence how surprising it was that MacArthur did not execute his plan from a map room, miles away. Instead, he went to every front with his boots on the ground or on ships ahead of landing parties. Multiple accounts describe his endurance during brutal jeep and ship rides through rough terrain and pounding waves.
The record of Japan’s torture as defeat drew near was heartbreaking and uncomfortable to learn the details. The American army closed in on Manila having to fight the Japanese army block by block and room by room while Emperor Hirohito’s men raped, tortured, and murdered civilians, including women and babies. The horror of using nuclear bombs falling on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be viewed in this context. Manchester’s book is the first place I learned about, “Sherman Carpets,” which was the nickname for children strapped with bombs who rolled under the treads of Sherman tanks to blow up the combat vehicles. In addition to training children for suicide missions, Japan had conscripted all men from 15-60 and all women from 17-45. This figure was in addition 2.3 million regular soldiers for a total of 34.6 million Japanese in defense of the island. The island stored thousands of tons of ammunition and 10,000 kamikaze planes were piloted for destruction. This description of Japan’s entrenched defense and posture of non-surrender led to a great deal of side reading on how historians and analysts view Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What I find interesting is how views have changed over the past 75 years.
Manchester referenced sociologist, David Reisman, as he described the Japan that MacArthur found as he led the occupation. Reisman classified people in three types: tradition-directed, inner-directed, and other-directed personalities. Other-directed personalities find their conduct driven by social forces—what others think, say, and do dictates how the other-directed person behaves. The inner-directed person lives not by tradition or social norms but according to what that person discovers individually and then adopts—what they expect of themselves. In the case of Japan, their society was a tradition-directed people, that expected obedience to rules established well in the past with people who did not seem themselves as individuals but part of a homogeneous culture. MacArthur’s understanding of this trait served him well in his leadership.
Douglas MacArthur’s relationship with his son provided a great deal of insight into the general by his staff as they watched the duo’s interactions and the general’s affection toward the younger MacArthur. They recorded observations and questions that leave a better understanding of General MacArthur: “They wondered, for example, whether the boy would display his father’s contradictory traits. MacArthur was an honorable man, yet he could not be trusted to keep his word. He was obsessed with personal neatness. With Manila collapsing around him, he insisted on summoning a 71-year-old Filipino barber he had known before the war and having his hair cut. Yet his famous cap and his uniforms always looked threadbare because he couldn’t bring himself to throw away old clothes. Instead, he would tell an orderly to cannibalize them and piecing them together rather than get new ones.” Further, those closest to MacArthur had deep loyalty toward him but also grave misgivings—perhaps best described as loyalty without trust. MacArthur’s generals noted his traits of greatness also came with peculiar traits that undermined the good. MacArthur’s deep conspiratorial nature caused a constant belief that someone was always out to get him.
Barbara Tuchman looked at the causes of WWI in Proud Tower. She observed that between Darwinism and Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead,” the combination of lost religion created a void that was filled by nationalism in many nations across Europe. MacArthur observed a similar occurrence in Japan when its citizens discovered that Emperor Hirohito was not a god. Manchester summarized their collective psyche as follows: “They had nothing spiritual to cling to…their whole world had crumbled.” MacArthur observed that it was not just the defeat of their military but a collapse of faith and what they believed in. MacArthur was determined to fill the vacuum with principles of democracy.
The MacArthur Constitution is quite remarkable. His efforts and success in transforming Japan into a strong democracy was dramatically swift and effective. Further, MacArthur’s ability to fend of the desire to make an eventual peace treaty resemble the Treaty of Versailles is also impressive. The prevailing mindset in Washington was to ensure a fully humbled Japan. Instead, MacArthur nurtured a strength within Japan and dignity in his dealings to foster an ally that remains today.
The Leathernecks landing at Inchon in the Korean War was thrilling. Manchester gave helpful insight as to why MacArthur’s staff opposed the landing, and why the Joint Chiefs was so tentative about the strategy. A quick geographic primer: Seoul is in the northern South Korea, near Inchon on the eastern coast. American forces attacked from the Yellow Sea, which had tides that changed up to 30 feet. After landing, they needed to scale sea walls to overcome the North Korean defenses. The plan was so unexpected that the North Korean Army was unprepared, and MacArthur’s plan changed the course of the war. Manchester’s retelling of the battle was gripping.
MacArthur’s downfall after China countered in North Korea illustrates the dangers of two traits: (1) finding your value in other people’s opinions and (2) the need to be right. The two ideas are strongly connected. Despite MacArthur’s military genius and his decades of success, he could not tolerate how others were assessing him after his Korea campaign faltered.
I understand why American Caesar received such acclaim and remains a significant book today. MacArthur’s complexity as an individual coupled with his role in American history makes him a compelling figure. Additionally, Manchester’s analysis lends greater insight into current U.S. relations with Korea, China, and Russia. It also makes me wonder if MacArthur was right in his argument that the United States should have pursued a complete victory in North Korea. Today’s tensions make such an argument more convincing.
I offer this thought as support that the life of a general who died nearly 60 years ago still resonates today. The ripples of history continue reverberating long after the era seems to end, and learning the history gives us wisdom to proceed more prudently moving forward. When an author packages history as interestingly as Manchester did, it makes the learning that much more enjoyable. I recommend American Caesar for anyone who enjoys the story of complex characters and significant historical events.
