American Caesar (Part I)

Rating:
Summary: Highly Readable Biography of a Fascinating Subject
Review: AMERICAN CAESAR is a highly readable biography of a fascinating subject. Manchester has plenty of good material to examine from both the personal and professional aspects of MacArthur's life. MacArthur's genealogical background is also interesting since one of his ancestors is shared in common with both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

MacArthur is portrayed as a brilliant innovator as exemplified by his masterful manuever in jumping from Hollandia to Leyte in World War II and of course the Inchon landing during the Korean War. The author by necessity tells the story of the U.S. Army's role in the Pacific during World War II mostly from the army's point of view. In that respect AMERICAN CAESAR serves as a useful adjunct to Samuel Eliot Morrison's HISTORY OF UNITED STATES NAVAL OPERATIONS IN WORLD WAR II.

Rating:
Summary: America's Ultimate Soldier
Review: An extremely well written bio of perhaps the USA's greatest battle field commander and strategist. Like many great writers, Manchester leaves the reader with a vivid, well balanced depiction of MacArthur, his warts and brilliance. MacArthur was a genuine war hero many times over during his 50-year military career. He was absolutely fearless in combat, unpredictable and bold in battlefield planning, remarkably open to new technologies and techniques, and a visionary leader and administrator. He was controversial and vain--traits of many great men and women throughout history. The title of the book truly sums up the man: An "American Caesar" (or at least the closest one that the U.S. has had to date). Easy reading of a remarkable, larger than life individual.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular account of a complex and remarkable man.
Review: In the annals of American and Military history, there are few men who are more complex, enigmatic, fascinating, and terrifying than General Douglas MacArthur. The General, as preferred everyone (including his wife) to call him, is well known for his heroics during World War II in the Pacific Theater and for his ignoble firing by President Harry Truman during the Korean War. Many people are familiar with some of his famous quotes (¡°I shall return¡±) and his regal bearing. Yet, the typical scholastic history books and the majority of historians merely gloss over the details of MacArthur and just seek to present him from a distant point of view. MacArthur, himself, through his own memoirs, presented his life through his own rose-filtered perspective. Author William Manchester (¡°The Last Lion¡±) sought a more ambitious goal. He cut through the gloss, the pomp, and preconceived notions to produce what is, without a doubt, the definitive work about the life of General Douglas MacArthur, called ¡°American Caesar¡±.

The book¡¯s title provides an interesting insight in the character of the man who would fascinate and confound generals, presidents, and the public alike. As much as Julius Caesar was a great man who had an unwavering belief in his own destiny for greatness, so to was General MacArthur. The grandson of a nationally respected jurist, the son of a Civil War hero, MacArthur¡¯s destiny would seem to be preordained. Yet, let it not be said that he achieved all he did by any other means than hard work, perseverance, unshakable faith, and the occasional scathing letter from his mother. A graduate of West Point at the turn of the century, he had already achieved the rank of brigadier general during World War I (he achieved flag rank after less than 15 years in the service). Unlike many of the generals who directed the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I, MacArthur felt he should fight alongside his soldiers instead of safely planning strategy in a chateau far behind the line. This did not endear him to the other generals, but it did make him much beloved among the soldiers. His bravery garnered him 5 Distinguished Service Crosses and spurred many a man to greater feats of accomplishment during the battles they fought. After the war, he preserved his wartime rank of brigadier general by becoming the superintendent of the West Point and making into a more modern academic institution (in addition to its military functions). He went on to become one of the youngest Army Chiefs of Staff and had long since achieved his forth star prior to becoming the Philippines military governor in the late 1930¡¯s. His exploits in World War II are quite well known, as is his failure in Korea. MacArthur craved the action and would never run from a fight. Even when the Japanese where bombing Corrigedor and with snipers still a threat when the Allies reclaimed the Philippines, the General insisted on being out in front in the midst of the danger with his men.

William Manchester¡¯s prose captures the greatness of this man while also deconstructing the motivations that drove him. He reveals how the vanity and paranoia that eventually brought MacArthur¡¯s downfall also powered him to achieve incredible things. ¡°American Caesar¡± is an extraordinarily long book, coming in at just over 850 pages. Yet, not for one single moment does the book lag. Manchester intersperses wonderful anecdotes with the stellar chronology of this man¡¯s life. One shows how unyielding he was in dealing with the ¡®bonus marchers¡¯ during their infamous 1932 eviction from Washington, while at the same time, this four-star general in his 50¡¯s kept a clandestine affair secret, lest he would have to fast the withering glare of his mother. Manchester weaves wonderful accounts of how MacArthur faced the vicious Japanese invasion of the Philippine in 1942 while still finding time to dote on his young son. The author does not take sides in the controversy over the kind of man MacArthur was. He merely presents the man as he was, warts and glory. It¡¯s the readers¡¯ task to make their own opinion of General MacArthur. Reading ¡°American Caesar¡± makes that task quite enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: An insightful, empathic biography of an enigmatic leader
Review: Manchester always writes a great book--he is a superb stylist and has an unusual knack for placing a historical figure in the context of his times. (I have previously read his biographies of H.L. Mencken and Churchill as well as Death of a President and The Arms of Krupp.) In this book, he really attempts to explore what motivated Douglas MacArthur, an extremely complex warrior-statesman. Especially good is his review of the famous Truman sacking of the general during the Korean War; in Manchester's eyes, this incident evolved out of ambiguous directions from the Joint Chiefs and the Chiefs' unwillingness to confront a powerful, winning senior officer. Especially amazing is the breadth of experience MacArthur had throughout his life--from Wild West stations with his general father through the post-Spanish-American War period in the Philippines, then the trenches of World War I, and finally the general's phenomenal recoveries after early disasters in the Philippines in World War II and in Korea. This is a balanced though sympathetic review of MacArthur's life--Manchester concedes that he was both a vain popinjay with a touch of paranoia, but also a brilliant military strategist and a true old-style liberal democrat in his viceregency in Japan after World War II. This is a "must read" for anyone interested in World War II and is a good companion to Manchester's personal account of his own experiences as a Marine in the South Pacific.

Rating:
Summary: Ardennes through to Inchon
Review: Some subjects are a gift to the biographer: such a man is Douglas MacArthur, General of the Armies, conqueror of Japan and arch-nemesis to President Truman. As Manchester himself notes in his preface, everything MacArthur did was done with an eye to posterity: there was not a single photo in which he didn't conciously affect a pose; he uttered not a single word, not a single speech and not a single memo, that could be called "off the cuff" or candid. He created his own self-image: rigid, correct, brave, proud, uncompromising, and he unfailingly sought to fulfil it. Many (if not most) of these characteristics were to haunt him in the aftermath of President Truman recalling him from the Korean theater; even in the face of the disastrous retreat from the Yalu, he was loathe to concede a single strategic error.

Manchester examines the Korea years with all due thoroughness, yet much of the real fascination in this book comes from his early life, including his debut in the Mexican War of 1916, his distinguished campaigns in World War One, his superintendency of West Point an his suppression of the 1930s veterans march on Washington. From there, MacArthur is transferred to the Phillippines in the mid-1930s, where he serves as virtual proconsul.

As Manchester points out, MacArthur's career was in virtual sunset in the late 1930s. Then, in December 1941, disaster: in 24 hours the Japanese attack and destroy the main Phillippines airbases and soon overrun the archipelago, leaving MacArthur sealed off at Corregidor. Escape to Australia, and redemption: the masterful conquest of New Guinea and his famously promised reconquest of the Phillippines. Manchester is quick to stress the lives that were constantly saved by MacArthur's shrewd planning and attention to detail; he also makes no attempt to mask MacArthur's unattractive traits, including his (eventually fatal) insubordiation to superiors and tendency to histrionics. In many ways Douglas MacArthur brings to mind not Julius Caesar, but Arthur, Duke of Wellington, another gifted commander who won the public's love and respect for his ability to win battles economically, who also defeated a great tyrannical enemy, yet who sank into the political morass in later years for his rock-hard political conservatism.