"Somewhat Extraordinary"

General Douglas MacArthur's statement began:

"When confronted with press reports from the U.S. and England implying that his part in the war was to be progressively curtailed and his command reduced to a secondary and subsidiary role, General MacArthur said:

" 'It makes little difference whether I or others wield the weapon just so the cause for which our beloved country fights is victorious. However subordinate may be my role I hope to play it manfully. . . .

" 'My strategic conception for the Pacific theater . . . contemplates massive strokes against only main strategic objectives, utilizing surprise and air-ground striking power supported and assisted by the fleet. . . . Island-hopping with extravagant losses and slow progress--some press reports indicating victory postponed as late as 1949--is not my idea of how to end the war as soon and as cheaply as possible.' "

He concluded: "I have no personal military ambitions whatsoever. ..." "Bataan Speaking." Douglas MacArthur is a remote, proud man. After Bataan he became the idol of two countries --the U.S. and Australia. Admirers in the U.S. talked of him loudly as a candidate for President. The very least they expected was that he would be given overall command of the Pacific war. MacArthur, the country's best known four-star general, expected that too. With his sense of drama he saw himself marching back through the Philippines. People who telephoned his headquarters in Australia were startled by the greeting: "Hello, Bataan speaking." Bataan was his passionate aim; after that, Tokyo.

Last week correspondents in Australia were able to say some things through the censorship of MacArthur's headquarters which clarified his cryptic wording. According to the correspondents he saw the Pacific theater divided into three commands and his own role obscured. In the west a Briton had emerged as chief of Southeast Asia. In the division of men and materiel large Allied resources would go to Lord Louis Mountbatten for a drive which would overshadow and overlap MacArthur's plan. In the east was Admiral Chester Nimitz assembling strength which would necessarily denude MacArthur of needed ships for any amphibious operations.

Just who was about to commit the blunder of "island-hopping," the General did not say. Island-hopping has been denounced by all. So far the U.S. has been unable to assemble enough strength in the Pacific to do anything else. But developments had apparently convinced MacArthur that when forces for "massive strokes" were assembled they would be entrusted to someone else. He was to be overshadowed, overlapped, inadequately supplied and relegated to a pipsqueak holding campaign.

Washington Answering. Australian newspapers were convinced that there was political niggering in the woodpile. Said the Sydney Sun: "You must remember that 1944 is a Presidential year." Australian newspapers felt that political boosters of MacArthur had done him a disservice.

Official public reaction in the U.S. was chiefly an icy silence. General George Marshall, Chief of Staff, paid MacArthur the compliment (without mentioning his name) of remarking in a speech that New Guinea had become unhealthy for the Japs. General Marshall also indicated that he was thoroughly satisfied with the adopted Pacific strategy.

Privately, official Washington was pained and surprised. In its opinion, the New York Herald Tribune's Lewis Sebring Jr. had understated when he cabled from Australia that the statement was "somewhat extraordinary." High Washington sources declared that nothing had happened to change MacArthur's status; the broad decisions reached at Casablanca were still being carried out; the plans for the Southwest Pacific were even based on General MacArthur's own recommendations. Those recommendations, Washington asserted, were adopted virtually intact. This sounded like a lawyer reading a contract back to a man who might have overlooked a loophole when he signed it.

The outstanding point was that Douglas MacArthur, supremely confident in his own abilities (with some justification --see p. 32), angry at the role assigned to him, had once again dared publicly to question the decisions of Washington. He had gone much further than any other field commander had dared, further than most could go without risking their jobs.

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