Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  c On September 20, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt promoted Captain John J. Pershing to brigadier general, jumping 257 captains who were senior to him, 364 majors, 131 lieutenant colonels, and 110 colonels. TR had great affection for Pershing, whose black 10th Cavalry had led the way up San Juan Hill. The fact that Pershing was the son-in-law of Wyoming senator Francis Warren, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, was scarcely an impediment to his advancement. Pershing’s promotion unleashed a firestorm of criticism, and no president since TR has tampered so drastically with the Army’s promotion roster. Vandiver, 1 Black Jack 205, 390–91; Gene Smith, Until the Last Trumpet Sounds 54, 92; Donald Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing 53 (New York: Scribner, 1973).

  d Report of the War Policies Commission, March 5, 1932, National Archives and Records Administration. During World War II the emergency powers of the president were fleshed out by congressional legislation rather than constitutional amendment. The Second War Powers Act (56 Stat. 176), passed in early 1942, authorized the president to allocate facilities and materials, and furnished the statutory basis for consumer rationing. The Emergency Price Control Act (56 Stat. 23) provided for price controls on almost all commodities, and the Renegotiation Act (56 Stat. 984) permitted the War Department to recapture excess profits from defense contractors. Only the latter was seriously challenged on constitutional grounds, and was upheld. “The constitutionality of the conscription of manpower for military service is beyond question,” said Justice Harold Burton for the Supreme Court. “The constitutional power of Congress to support the armed forces with equipment and supplies is no less clear and sweeping. The mandatory renegotiation of contracts is valid, a fortiori.” Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742 (1948).

  e Eisenhower’s postpresidential reflections on his 1930s relations with MacArthur have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Considering that Ike’s mentor at the time was George Moseley, it is scarcely credible that the senior officers he knew “always drew a clean-cut line between the military and the political.”

  f During and after World War I, the Army general staff developed a rainbow of battle plans to meet any possible contingency: Red—Canada and Great Britain; Green—Mexico; Gold—France and the French islands in the Caribbean; Black—Germany; Orange—Japan; Maroon—Italy; Pink—Russia; Yellow—China; Tan—intervention in Cuba; Brown—Philippine insurrection; Purple—Central America; and White—domestic insurrection. Henry G. Gole, The Road to Rainbow: Army Planning for Global War, 1934–1940 166 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003).

  g On July 5, 1932, Conrad H. Lanza, an Army intelligence agent in upstate New York, notified the adjutant general that the BEF intended to occupy the Capitol permanently, provoke an armed clash with authorities, and instigate fighting in the streets, which would be a signal for Communist uprisings in all of the nation’s major cities. Lanza further advised that “at least part of the Marine Corps garrison in Washington would side with the revolutionaries”—which perhaps explains why units at the Marine barracks, some eight blocks from the Capitol, were never called upon in the days ahead.

  Lanza’s memo was closely guarded by the Army and was not declassified until 1991—some fifty-nine years after the event. It is reproduced in Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic 142–43, 321 (New York: Walker, 2004).

  h Most accounts of the Bonus Army eviction report that MacArthur appeared in dress uniform festooned with medals and decorations. That is incorrect. The Army’s dress uniform in 1932 was blue. MacArthur wore a Class A service uniform (“pinks and greens”), which was standard garrison attire at every post in the country. The ribbons he wore were customary on that uniform and reflected his wartime service. His boots and Sam Browne belt were polished, but that, too, was customary. MacArthur’s judgment would prove flawed that day, but the uniform he wore was the correct one.

  i An analogous incident involved John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s secretary of state, who in 1947 vigorously advocated detaching the Ruhr from Germany. Later he became a staunch supporter of keeping Germany intact. As General Lucius Clay recalled, “Foster and I were sitting beside one another at a Lincoln Day Republican dinner, and he leaned over to me and said, ‘Lucius, do you remember how you and I fought to keep them from detaching the Ruhr from Germany?’ And he really believed it. As Secretary of State his thinking had so changed that he couldn’t realize, or couldn’t remember, that he’d been the principal advocate in 1947 of detaching the Ruhr from Germany.” Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay 418.

  j According to Moseley, “Mr. Hurley directed me to inform General MacArthur that the President did not wish the troops to cross the bridge that night. I left my office, contacted General MacArthur, and as we walked away, alone, from the others, I delivered that message to him and discussed it with him. He was very much annoyed in having his plans interfered with in any way until they were executed completely. After assuring myself that he understood the message … I returned to my office. Later, I was asked from the White House if I had delivered the message, and stated that I had. Still later, I was instructed to repeat the message and assure myself that General MacArthur received it before he crossed the Anacostia Bridge. I sent Colonel Wright … to repeat the message to MacArthur, and explain the situation as I had it from the White House. Colonel Wright contacted General MacArthur immediately, and explained the situation to him fully. As I now recall, Colonel Wright reported to me that the troops had not crossed the Anacostia Bridge but were advancing on the bridge.”

  After Colonel Wright departed, MacArthur exhibited his displeasure. He told Eisenhower he did not want to be “bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders.”

  General Moseley’s comments are from volume two of his unpublished manuscript “One Soldier’s Journey” at pages 144–45, Moseley Papers, Library of Congress. Eisenhower’s are in At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends 217 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967).

  k MacArthur brought a libel action against Pearson and Allen, claiming they had wrongly described his treatment of the Bonus Army as “unwarranted, unnecessary, arbitrary, harsh, and brutal,” and had generally depicted him as “dictatorial, insubordinate, disloyal, mutinous, and disrespectful of his superiors.” He asked $1.75 million in damages. MacArthur withdrew the suit when Pearson threatened to publish the fact that MacArthur had brought a stunning Eurasian concubine from Manila and installed her in an apartment at the fashionable Chastleton, on Sixteenth Street, ten blocks north of the White House. MacArthur apparently did not wish his mother, “Pinky,” to learn of the affair. William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 156 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978).

  SIX

  Manila

  I gather I have reason for a divorce, if I want one.

  —IKE TO MAMIE UPON HER ARRIVAL IN MANILA,

  October 28, 1936

  Douglas MacArthur’s four-year term as chief of staff expired in November 1934. The two leading candidates to succeed him, both recommended by John J. Pershing (to whom Roosevelt habitually turned for such advice), were Fox Conner, who was commanding the I Corps Area in Boston, and George Moseley, at IV Corps in Atlanta. FDR offered the post to Conner while on an inspection tour through New England in the summer of 1934, but Conner declined.1 And the president wanted no part of Moseley, whose antagonism to the New Deal was scarcely a secret.2

  The Army chief of staff served a four-year term. By tradition no one was appointed to the post who had less than four years to serve before retirement—which was mandatory at sixty-four. Moseley barely fit in since he was scheduled to retire in 1938. But rather than pass over Moseley, who had many supporters within the military,3 FDR resorted to a subterfuge. MacArthur had requested an extension of his term, and FDR agreed. “I am doing this,” the president told his press conference on December 12, 1934, “in order to obtain the benefit of General MacArthur’s experience in handling War Department legislation in the
coming [congressional] session.” MacArthur was to serve “until his successor has been appointed,”4 and when his tenure stretched well into 1935, Moseley became ineligible.5 a

  For Eisenhower, the extension of MacArthur’s term meant another year in Washington. Ike had become a fixture in the chief of staff’s office, and MacArthur found him increasingly indispensable. Mamie also welcomed the extension because she couldn’t bear to break up their comfortable apartment at the Wyoming—their first real home, which she had renovated and decorated at considerable expense.6

  It was already agreed that when his tour as chief of staff ended, MacArthur would go to the Philippines. In 1934, Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, granting commonwealth status (limited self-government) to the Philippines and providing for absolute independence in 1946.7 Shortly after he signed the Tydings-McDuffie bill into law, FDR invited MacArthur to Hyde Park for a private luncheon. This was an extraordinary invitation, and over lunch Roosevelt suggested to MacArthur that he become the first American high commissioner to the Philippines Commonwealth. MacArthur was thrilled at the prospect, but when he returned to Washington he was advised by the judge advocate general that if he accepted the post, he would have to resign his commission. MacArthur reluctantly wrote the president that he was “somewhat dismayed and nonplussed” to discover there were legal impediments that would prevent him from taking the position.8 Two weeks later orders were cut appointing MacArthur military adviser to the Philippine government—a post incoming Philippine president Manuel Quezon had long urged him to take.9

  In his new post MacArthur would remain on active duty while at the same time serving as the principal military adviser to the Philippine government. By an act of the Philippine legislature he also became commander of the Philippine Army. His headquarters in Manila was freestanding and was not part of the Philippine Department of the United States Army. The Philippine government provided MacArthur with a rent-free, seven-room penthouse suite in the sumptuous Manila Hotel (one of the jewels of the Orient), and a monthly stipend of $3,000 (roughly $40,000 currently)—which he would draw in addition to his monthly pay of $667 ($8,772 currently) as a general officer in the American Army.10

  From the time it became clear that he was going to the Philippines, MacArthur insisted that Eisenhower accompany him. “He said that he and I had worked together for a long time and he didn’t want to bring in somebody new.”11 Despite his later regrets, Ike was delighted to be going to the Philippines. He had requested assignment to the islands when he graduated from West Point, and again when he submitted his assignment preferences in 1919. And as the assistant military adviser to the Philippine government (his new job title) he would draw an additional stipend of $980 monthly (roughly $13,000 currently), plus a smaller suite at the Manila Hotel. Eisenhower does not mention the additional emolument in his memoirs, but it was more than double his salary as major and made him the second highest paid officer in the Army (MacArthur being first).12

  Ike assumed that wherever he went, Mamie would accompany him. Unfortunately, Mamie thought otherwise. Remembering her unhappiness in Panama, she wanted no part of the Philippines. Under no circumstances, she said, was she prepared to leave her comfortable surroundings at the Wyoming and venture into the tropical unknown. Initially she hoped Ike’s job would not pan out, or that his back would “play up” and he would request a transfer. “Whatever the reasons,” wrote Susan Eisenhower, “Mamie was doggedly stubborn about staying behind, at least for a year, and there was little Ike could do about her decision.”13

  Ike, for his part, yielded gracefully. “I hate the whole thought of being separated,” he wrote Mamie’s mother in Denver. “I know that I am going to be miserable. On the other hand, Mamie is so badly frightened at the prospect of going out there, that I simply cannot urge her to go. My thought is that either I will be able to send her favorable reports as to the conditions of health, education, etc. that she will be willing to come next June, or that I will come home within a reasonably short time.”14 Young Johnnie had another year before he finished school at John Quincy Adams, and that provided a plausible reason to explain Mamie’s absence from Manila. She was remaining at home until he completed the next school year and was ready for high school.

  A saving feature for Eisenhower was that MacArthur permitted him to select a fellow officer for the mission, and Ike chose his old friend and classmate Major James B. Ord. Ord—whose grandfather had commanded a corps for Grant at Vicksburg—fought with Pershing in Mexico, where he won the Distinguished Service Cross for valor. He also studied at the École de Guerre in Paris, later served as assistant military attaché to France, and spoke French and Spanish fluently. He was currently an instructor at the War College. Ord was accompanied by his wife and two young children and, like Ike, was thrilled at the opportunity.15

  Before leaving Washington, MacArthur wrote Ike a special letter of commendation.

  My dear Major Eisenhower,

  My high official opinion of the services you have rendered during your period of duty under me in the War Department is duly recorded in regular efficiency reports. Nevertheless, upon relinquishing the position of Chief of Staff, I want to leave a written record of my appreciation of certain important considerations connected with your work which have not been easy to describe in normal reports.

  You were retained by the Secretary of War, and later by myself, on critically important duties in the Department long past the duration of ordinary staff tours, solely because of your success in performing difficult tasks whose accomplishment required a comprehensive grasp of the military profession in all its principal phases, as well as analytical thought and forceful expression. In this connection, I should like to point out to you that your unusual experience in the Department will be of no less future value to you as a commander than as a staff officer, since all problems presented to you were necessarily solved from the viewpoint of the High Command.

  The numbers of personal requests for your services brought to me by heads of many of the Army’s principal activities during the past few years furnish convincing proof of the reputation you have established as an outstanding soldier. I can say no more than that this reputation coincides exactly with my own judgment.

  With personal regard,

  Sincerely,

  DOUGLAS MACARTHUR16

  On October 1, 1935, MacArthur and his party departed Washington’s Union Station for San Francisco, where they would board the President Hoover for the three-week crossing to Manila. In addition to Eisenhower and Ord, MacArthur was accompanied by his eighty-four-year-old mother, Mrs. Arthur MacArthur, his sister-in-law, and his longtime aide, Captain T. J. Davis. MacArthur still wore four stars as chief of staff. His War Department orders stated that he would continue in that post “until relieved from duty as of December 15, 1935.”17 MacArthur believed it was important that he arrive in Manila as chief of staff, and then step down to assume his duties with the Philippine Army. He instructed the adjutant general to cut his orders accordingly. FDR, who had been advised of MacArthur’s wishes by Secretary of War George Dern, agreed. On July 18, almost three months before, he notified Dern: “I see no reason why you should not tell General MacArthur that the plan meets with my approval so that he can make his plans accordingly.”18

  Two days out of Washington, as the Union Pacific rumbled into Cheyenne, Wyoming, MacArthur received a telegram from acting secretary of war Harry H. Woodring. “The President has just informed me,” Woodring wired, “that he has appointed Malin Craig Chief of Staff, effective this date.”19 MacArthur was stunned. He was not only instantly reduced in rank from four stars to two (his permanent rank of major general), but Craig, a former cavalry officer, was a longtime rival and a favorite of what MacArthur regarded as the Pershing clique in the Army.b If FDR wanted to signal a change from the MacArthur era at the War Department, he could scarcely have found a better way to do so.

  MacArthur’s arrival ceremony in Manila. Eisenhower stands in the second r
ow. (illustration credit 6.1)

  MacArthur recognized that Roosevelt had outfoxed him. According to Eisenhower, he erupted into “an explosive denunciation of politics, bad manners, bad judgment, broken promises, arrogance, unconstitutionality, insensitivity, and the way the world had gone to hell.”20 After blowing off steam, MacArthur recovered his composure. He telegraphed the president that Craig’s appointment was “not only admirable but timely.” To Craig he wired, “The entire Army will look forward with keen anticipation to what cannot fail to be a successful tenure of office.”21 MacArthur needed the support of Craig and FDR in the Philippines, and he groveled accordingly. For Eisenhower, it was an unforgettable insight into the nature of Washington politics at the highest level.

  MacArthur’s party landed in Manila on October 26, 1935, to a rapturous reception. President-elect Quezon and the entire leadership of the new Philippine government were at the dock, as was much of the American expatriate community. To complement the lavish living quarters that had been provided, the mission was soon established in the headquarters of the old Spanish garrison in the fortress wall of the city—a seventeenth-century relic whose massive stone balustrades and high ceilings provided natural insulation from the tropic heat. MacArthur occupied the spacious office of the former commandant, with majestic views overlooking Manila Bay on one side and the city on the other. Eisenhower and Ord had smaller offices, and Captain Davis, who in addition to serving as MacArthur’s aide performed the duties of adjutant, sat in a large outer office with a sergeant major and a few clerks.22 Later they would be joined by Navy lieutenant Sidney Huff, who served as MacArthur’s naval aide. With Ike as chief of staff and Ord as operations officer, the mission ran with remarkable harmony. Davis, a relaxed, even-tempered South Carolinian, provided a useful buffer for the mercurial MacArthur and became one of Ike’s closest friends. Between them, Davis and Eisenhower would work for MacArthur for a total of eighteen years in the 1930s and developed the capacity to communicate instinctively, often with a nod or gesture.c