The Old Soldier

(See Cover) A hush fell over the assembled Congress of the United States and the crowded galleries. In the silence, the Doorkeeper's voice came clear: "Mr. Speaker, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur." In a great wave, the applause and cheers burst upon the erect figure who strode down the aisle. Democrats, Republicans, and the crowds in the galleries rose as one, clapped and shouted on & on. Across 8,700 miles, through cheering crowds, clouds of black headlines and storms of angry argument, Douglas Mac-Arthur had come to this podium to make his stand before the nation and to state his case to the world. He stood in a trim Eisenhower jacket without ribbons or medals, back rigid, his face stony -- a dis missed commander conscious that history plucked at his sleeve, peered down at him from the lenses of the television cameras. He waited, impassively. As silence fell, he began to speak slowly, in a deep, reso nant voice. "I address you," he said, "with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading twilight of life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country." Applause welled up again, interrupting him as it was to do again & again -- in all, some 30 times.

Douglas MacArthur spoke with a native eloquence that the nation had not heard in years, without bombast or gesture. The resonant voice sometimes rasped, some times sank almost to a whisper, but never rose from a low, confident pitch.

Global. In his first ten minutes, he disarmed critics who accused him of ignoring Europe, or of wanting to reimpose a discredited past upon Asia. "The issues are global," he said, "and so interlocked that to consider the problems of one sector oblivious to those of another is to court disaster for the whole. While Asia is com- monly referred to as the gateway to Eu rope, it is no less true that Europe is the gateway to Asia . . . There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts ... I can think of no greater expression of defeatism."

MacArthur swung a majestic glance backward at Asia's past. "The peoples of Asia found their opportunity in the war just past to throw off the shackles of colo- nialism and now see the dawn of new opportunity . . . This is the direction of Asian progress and it may not be stopped."

In China, MacArthur found "a new and dominant power in Asia, which, for its own purposes, is allied with Soviet Russia, but which in its own concepts and methods has become aggressively imperialistic." In Japan, "the Japanese people since the war have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history . . ." In the Philippines, "we must be patient and understanding and never fail them, as in our hour of need they did not fail us." On Formosa, "the government of the Republic of China has had the opportunity to refute by action much of the malicious gossip which so undermined the strength of its leadership."

"I Strongly Recommend." Since the war, said MacArthur, the U.S.'s strategic frontier has shifted to embrace the whole Pacific. It now runs along an island chain held by the U.S. and its allies from the Aleutians to the Marianas. "Any major breach of that line . . . would render vulnerable io determined attack every other major segment . . . This is a military estimate as to which I have yet to find a military leader who will take exception. For that reason, I have strongly recommended in the past . . . that under no circumstances must Formosa fall under Communist control." Republicans applauded wildly. On the Democratic side, members were stolidly silent.

Then Douglas MacArthur turned to the crucial issue of Korea. "While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea," he said, "that decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one." The enemy was hurled back, and victory was complete when Red China intervened. "This created a new war and an entirely new situation . . . which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere." Such decisions, said MacArthur bitterly, "have not been forthcoming."

MacArthur flung down his challenge and his program. "While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China ... I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary i) intensification of our economic blockade against China; 2) imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast; 3) removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's coastal area and of Manchuria; 4) removal of restrictions on the [Chinese Nationalists] on Formosa, with logistical support to contribute to their effective operations against the Chinese mainland.

"For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces committed to Korea and to 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." The Republicans rose as a man and cheered. Democrats sat in unhappy silence.

MacArthur went on with his scorching indictment. "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 succor from without, and if there were to be no hope of major reinforcements, the position of the command from the military standpoint forbade victory."

Victory, Not Indecision. As he spoke, MacArthur kept his hands firmly anchored to each end of the lectern, except to turn pages. Only once, when he reached for a glass of water, did he show the slight hand tremor he has had since the middle of World War II. To his critics who charged him with wanting to start a world war MacArthur retorted emphatically: "I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting . . . But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory."

Attempts to appease Red China are useless, said MacArthur. "They are blind to history's clear lesson . . . Like blackmail, [appeasement] lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative. Why, my soldiers asked of me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field?"

He paused dramatically, then said: "I could not answer.

"Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all-out war with China. Others, to avoid Soviet intervention. Neither explanation seems valid, for China is already engaging with the maximum power it can commit, and the Soviet will not necessarily mesh its actions with our moves.

"Like a cobra, any new enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military or other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis."

Douglas MacArthur had hurled his challenge, and was ready to make his farewells. "I have just left your fighting sons in Korea," he told his hushed audience, "and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every way . . . Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always."

He dropped his voice a little, and went on. "When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams . . . The hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks 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. Goodbye."

It was a spine-tingling and theatrical climax, audaciously beyond the outer limits of ordinary present-day oratory. In the wild crash of applause, many a legislative eye was wet. So were many other eyes across the land as the nation turned from radios and television screens back to office duties and neglected chores. Douglas Mac-Arthur handed his manuscript to the clerk, waved to his wife in the visitors' gallery, then strode through the cheering rows of Congressmen. History would remember this day and this man, and mark him large.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.