Douglas MacArthur - Legacy

Legacy

MacArthur is not remembered as a victorious general. In the Philippines in 1942, he suffered a defeat that Gavin Long described as "the greatest in the history of American foreign wars". Nor is he considered a reformer; his reforms at West Point were soon discarded, although gradually restored over time. His broad concept of the role of the soldier as encompassing civil affairs, quelling riots and low-level conflict was passed over by the majority who fought in Europe during World War II, and saw their role as fighting the Soviet Union. Unlike them, in his victories in New Guinea in 1944, the Philippines in 1945 and Korea in 1950, he fought outnumbered, and relied on maneuver and firepower for success. A later generation would rediscover his philosophy of war, and see it as far-sighted. It was his relief that had the greatest impact, as it cast a long shadow over American civil-military relations for decades to come. When Lyndon Johnson met with General William Westmoreland in Honolulu in 1966, he told him: "General, I have a lot riding on you. I hope you don't pull a MacArthur on me." MacArthur's relief "left a lasting current of popular sentiment that in matters of war and peace, the military really knows best," a philosophy which became known as "MacArthurism."

MacArthur remains a controversial and enigmatic figure. He has been portrayed as a reactionary figure, although he was in many respects ahead of his time. He championed a progressive approach to the reconstruction of Japanese society, arguing that all occupations ultimately ended badly for the occupier and the occupied. He was often out of step with his contemporaries, such as in 1941 when he contended that Nazi Germany could not defeat the Soviet Union, when he argued that North Korea and China were no mere Soviet puppets, and throughout his career in his insistence that the future lay in the Far East. This implicitly rejected contemporary notions of racial superiority. He always treated Filipino and Japanese leaders with respect as equals. At the same time, his Victorian sensibilities recoiled at leveling Manila with aerial bombing, an attitude the hardened World War II generation regarded as old fashioned. When asked about MacArthur, Blamey once said that "The best and the worst things you hear about him are both true."