Speeches that Changed the World

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

Born 26 January 1880 in Little Rock, Arkansas, the son of a general.

He graduated first in his class at West Point Military Academy (1903), becoming a second lieutenant, and was stationed in the Philippines and Japan. He was much-decorated in the First World War, serving as Chief of Staff of the famous Rainbow Division and later as Commander of the 84th Infantry Brigade. In 1919 he became Superintendent of West Point: he broadened the curriculum and raised standards. He was Commander in the Philippines (1922–5) and US Chief of Staff (1930–5). MacArthur returned to the Philippines in 1935 to prepare the islands against possible Japanese invasion, becoming Field Marshal of the Philippine Army (1936). Retired from the US Army in December 1937, until recalled in July 1941 to command of all the US Army forces in the Far East: he liberated the Philippines in spring 1945. Having witnessed Japan’s formal surrender, he became de facto governor of postwar Japan until 1949. He commanded UN forces in the Korean War in 1950–1, before his dismissal (and retirement) for ostensible insubordination. He settled in New York, and was frequently consulted by US presidents.

Died 5 April 1964 in New York.

In 1950, the growing East–West political divide, between the communist and non-communist blocs, reached a crisis point. In that year, the Cold War turned hot as Soviet-backed North Korean forces surged across the 49th Parallel and into US-backed South Korea, in an attempt to unify the country under the North’s communist regime. The temporary absence of the Soviet Union from the United Nations Security Council enabled a UN resolution to mount military counter-measures. It was the start of an American-dominated fight-back, and the man chosen to lead it was the United States’ most glittering general, Douglas MacArthur.

After a distinguished record during the First World War, MacArthur rose to become chief of staff in 1930. He retired in 1937, but was called back to mastermind the US Army in the Far East shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought war. It was MacArthur who oversaw Japan’s formal surrender on 2 September 1945, and who presided over the country’s US occupation and administration over the next five years. Although arrogant, aloof and egotistical, MacArthur was also warm-hearted, courageous, self-sacrificing and capable of inspiring loyalty. He was also staunchly anti-communist.

The counter-offensive in Korea was successful, with MacArthur landing forces audaciously behind enemy lines. The North Koreans were pushed back above the 49th Parallel, and by late October as far north as the Yalu River, the border with China. But it was perhaps too far, and – whether feeling threatened or just determined not to see a fellow communist regime toppled (historians differ) – China responded with massive force, sending over 1 million men pouring across the border, overwhelming the Americans and their allies, and re-taking the South Korean capital, Seoul.

The US leadership was faced with a new crisis, which would cause a deep rift. MacArthur felt that the route to victory was to take the war to mainland China using US airpower (potentially even including nuclear weapons) and co-opting the anti-communist Chinese forces on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). His political superior, Democratic President Truman, regarded this as over-adventurous: he feared that such a widening of the war risked direct conflict with the Soviet Union, the latter now a nuclear power. When MacArthur continued to propagate his views in letters and statements, including to Republican politicians, it appeared to the president as subordination, a contradiction of the democratic principle that military commanders defer to their elected politicians. MacArthur was dismissed from his command. It seemed an ignominious end to a glittering career.

MacArthur remained, however, hugely popular at home, and he was courted by the Republican Party as a possible presidential candidate. Congress invited him to give a televised speech on 19 April 1951, where – constantly interrupted by applause and ovations – he made a farewell address after 50 years of soldiering.

I ADDRESS YOU WITH NEITHER RANCOUR nor bitterness in the fading twilight of life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country.

. . . While I was not consulted prior to the president’s decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint, proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.

This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not contemplated when our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders; a situation which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the realistic adjustment of military strategy. Such decisions have not been forthcoming.

While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.

Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize the sanctuary protection given the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary: first, the intensification of our economic blockade against China; two, the imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast; three, removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China’s coastal areas and of Manchuria; four, removal of restrictions on the forces of the Republic of China on Formosa, with logistical support to contribute to their effective operations against the common enemy.

For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces committed to Korea and bring hostilities to an end with the least possible delay and at a saving of countless American and allied lives, I have been severely criticized in lay circles, principally abroad, despite my understanding that from a military standpoint the above views have been fully shared in the past by practically every military leader concerned with the Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I called for reinforcements but was informed that reinforcements were not available. I made clear that if not permitted to destroy the enemy built-up bases north of the Yalu, if not permitted to utilize the friendly Chinese Force of some 600,000 men on Formosa, if not permitted to blockade the China coast to prevent the Chinese Reds from getting succour from without, and if there were to be no hope of major reinforcements, the position of the command from the military standpoint forbade victory.

. . . Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said, in effect, that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history’s clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war …

I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met all tests there, and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every way.

. . . I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfilment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away’.

And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.

‘I have just left your fighting sons in Korea’