Douglas MacArthur Research

Document Type:Research Paper

Subject Area:History

Document 1

MacArthur was a US general, and a Philippine army field marshal. The government had decided that it will not give room for N Korea to outrun the non-communist S Korea. As a result, MacArthur decided to antagonize the Chinese without consulting Washington. This attempt was seen as a rogue attempt by MacArthur and he further went ahead and leaked the news to the congressmen about his plan to conquer the Chinese and hence North Korea, an act which could inflame the PRC which was against the diplomatic policies of Truman. Despite the fact that General Douglas MacArthur was celebrated as a military leader, some of the decisions he made were contrary to the respect accorded to him. This was seen as a catalyst for China's involvement and they could possibly bomb the US airfields in North Korea.

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Bombing China would cause hostility and the Soviet Union would be dragged into the war (History. State. Gov, 2018). A veteran officer of the army was not expected to order his troops to attack war veterans based on luck. This command was deserted to the Japanese by the president of the United States (Roosevelt). The plans were negotiating the neutrality conditions with the Japanese, but MacArthur could not follow this for he did not consider listening. He then manipulated the public opinion and got an option of escaping from the Philippines. He manipulated the media and established a public relations office. During the Bataan siege, as his troops were fighting, MacArthur promoted an image in the mind of the Americans as the Pacific hero.

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It is, however, not the case as in most cases the leader ends up making a decision that sometime may cause serious repercussions to the subjects. One of the major decisions that are known to have exposed the General's flaw character was on taking on the Philippines first in order to satisfy his ego. He was consistently quoted saying that he would return and surely he did with his general. The actions made the war to prolong and it took more time to defeat the Japanese as it would have if they had taken on them first rather than returning to the Philippines. The main purpose of returning to the Philippines was to have the General satisfy his ego on fulfilling "the silly" promise he had made to himself.

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Easia. Columbia. Edu, 2018). The general did not make a consideration of the kind of negative effect that the announcements he made would have upon his fellow soldiers and the people that he was fighting. The killing of the tens of thousands would have been avoided if the generals listened and agreed to use a different tactic. General MacArthur was hypocritical. He had prepared and practiced for his Philippine Leyte landing and had a dramatic wading on the invasion beach and re-boarded his flight so that cameras could capture him right. A retired army officer confessed that he got General MacArthur degrading his job due to his misbehavior and his fight with Truman. Despite his successful mission against Japan, his son renounced him due to the embarrassment.

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