The difficulty in reading history: Even President Truman, NY Times and TV special can spread the unfounded anecdote

I pick up Hampton Sides' On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle as my daughter, Jo, is reading it and recommends it with enthusiasm.

MacArthur

The book has a very negative portrayal of General Douglas MacArthur: egotistic, vainglorious, autocratic, over-confident (such as in saying Mao would not send troops into North Korea), grandiose, tempestuous, flamboyant, aloof, narcissistic, even sly. He loved pomp and circumstance occasions. He created photo up opportunity of “I shall return” (He proclaimed “I came through and I shall return” when he escaped with his staffs and families from Philippines to Australia).

This is a fair assessment to some extent. But some of the negative anecdotes were probably invented by his critics who were many or added unwittingly. I'll mention two stories to make my point.

A few months after the Pearl Harbor attack, FDR and General George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff under FDR, the most famous son of Uniontown, PA) ordered MacArthur to escape from Philippines to Australia and the army was turned to General Jonathan Wainwright, who eventually surrendered at Corregidor and who languished as a prisoner-of-war for three years and whose troops underwent the notorious Bataan Death March.

MacArthur handed pen to Wainwright

Upon Japanese surrender and after his release, Wainwright, invited by MacArthur, attended the Japanese surrender ceremony boarding USS Missouri battleship. MacArthur said before signing the document, “Will General Wainwright and General Percival (British general who surrendered Singapore) step forward and accompany me while I sign.” After scribbling his signature, MacArthur turned and handed the fountain pens to the two released generals.

There was an article on NY Times (November 16, 1964) reporting a TV series of “Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman”, in which Truman claimed MacArthur snubbed the released Wainwright, treating him in cavalier way.

{of note, Cavalier is originally the supporters of King Charles I during the English Civil War, it is now used as “in a high handed, arrogant or supercilious manner”; it must be the work of Parliament supporters. That is to say MacArthur treated the just released Wainwright with contempt and disdain.}

NY Times 11/16/1964: TRUMAN RECALLS WAINWRIGHT SNUB; Asserts MacArthur Treated General in Cavalier Way.

“Well, as soon as the surrender came [in 1945], and the Japanese surrendered, I sent a plane to pick up those imprisoned officers and brought them back. General Wainwright, of course, felt that he ought to stop by and see his former commanding general in Japan.”

General MacArthur was at lunch at the time, Mr. Truman says. “General Wainwright walked in on him and started to salute and talk to him. MacArthur—instead of asking him to sit down and have lunch—he said, ‘General, I told you I'd see you at 3 o'clock! I'll see you at that time.’

It didn't happen that way. In William Manchester's American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, we read that Wainwright arrived when Douglass was having a second dinner in the hotel (after his arriving at Tokyo) and MacArthur greeted him right away. (see the scanned copy from the book below.)

The only time President Truman and MacArthur ever met was at Wake Island on October 15, 1950. In the mid-1970s two TV specials on the Wake meeting depicted MacArthur behavior toward Truman as insulting. But nothing could be further from the truth. The following is from David's McCullough's TRUMAN.

In a later account of Truman's arrival at Wake, as given to the author Merle Miller by Truman and Wallace Graham, MacArthur would be pictured deliberately trying to upstage Truman by circling the airstrip, waiting for Truman to land first, thus putting the president in the position of having to wait for the general. But it did not happen that way. MacArthur was not only on the ground, he had arrived the night before and was at the field half an hour early. Averell Harriman, whose plane had come in a few minutes before the Independence [Truman's plane] and who stood waiting with MacArthur.

In William Manchester's American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur we also read similar story:

“MacArthur arrived several hours before Truman, slept, bathed, dressed, breakfasted, and was on field at 6:30 A.M. Ready to greet the President thirty minutes before the Independence landed.”

The book also has detailed how the author Merle Miller spread the untrue stories. Using a tape recorder Merle Miller interviewed Truman, I believe, in 1961-62. It was later (1974) published as an oral biography of Truman: Plain Speaking. Some said Truman then began to “slow down, even slip a little,” especially to those who had known him from the years past in White House and in Independence and Kansas City.

But Merle Miller was apparently willing to exploit Truman to make sensational story. Miller said, “My God, he [Truman] is not old at all.” Truman indeed lived another 10 years or so after the initial interviews. But he has since passed away (1972), when Plain Speaking was published in 1974 and the TV specials were run in mid-1970s.

I hate to say Truman didn't tell the truth, but telling the untruth he did. David McCullough had a better assessment in his TRUMAN.

“Truman still told stories wonderfully and with an infectious enjoyment. He was also inclined to exaggerate, even invent. Miller was reminded of Huck Finns comment about Mark twain. “He told the truth, mainly. There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”

It was said that President Truman disliked all generals especially those coming from West Point (the military academy that he tried to get in but couldn't), the only exception that I know is Omar Bradley, who was also at the Wake meeting.

It is well known that Truman despised and prejudiced against MacArthur, in Truman's diary, we read, “Don't see how a country can produce such men as Robert E. Lee, John J. Pershing, Eisenhower and Bradley and at the same time produces Custer, Pattons, and MacArthur.” Truman often called MacArthur “Mr. Prima Donna”, “Brass Hat”, “Five-Star MacArthur” and “a play actor and bunco man”.

In David McCullough's TRUMAN we read, “Of Eisenhower, he could hardly say anything without resorting to profanity.” What Truman told Merle Miller about the story of Eisenhower and Kay Summersby [Ike's war time chauffeur, a British] had no base. Trust me I read several books regarding this topic some years and was sure what Truman said was fiction. This is also the opinion of many credible historians. I mention this to back up my assertion that Truman was telling the untrue story intentionally or not.

I read it somewhere:

“when Merle Miller sat down with Truman to take Plain Speaking, his 'oral biography' of Truman, who was then fast approaching senility, the former President would claim that Ike had written to Marshall requesting permission to divorcing Mamie and marry Kay, and that he and the Army Chief of Staff had discussed the matter, agreed it was out of the question, warned Ike that they would destroy his career if he went ahead, and then destroyed the letter.”

The NY Times book review article of “American Caesar” has a title of “A Brilliant but Flawed Conqueror,” which is a fair assessment of MacArthur. American Caesar though he might be, he is a patriot known to have “extraordinary physical courage, towering intelligence, rigidly disciplined devotion to duty.” His island-hopping strategy and campaign saved lots of American lives.