The Verdict of History

General Douglas MacArthur’s Reminiscences have been glowingly praised, with the reservation being made in most places that they are the “raw material of history,” not “history itself.” The distinction implies that MacArthur was not an objective judge of the meaning of his own career. But nobody has yet pointed out where he went astray in his judgments, and with every bit of news from South Vietnam that slips past the Establishment’s “management” machine, MacArthur looks more and more like the man who has pronounced history’s verdict. We are still losing needlessly because we lack the will to win.

These reminiscences hit the high spots, and the prose is, on occasion, theatrical. But MacArthur understood the uses of theater; as he once put it, it is sometimes good to be “a bit of a ham” in order to convince large audiences. In any case, the importance of this book is that it blocks out some large truths in a bold way. It may be disappointing that the story of MacArthur’s early years is sketchy, and that he eschews details about his personal life at all points (his first marriage, which ended in divorce, gets exactly one sentence). But surely a public character should be allowed to follow the formula adhered to in Albert Jay Nock’s biographies of Jefferson and Henry George, sticking to the “public thing” and letting the nosey reader go whistle for what he will never get.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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General Douglas MacArthur’s Reminiscences have been glowingly praised, with the reservation being made in most places that they are the “raw material of history,” not “history itself.” The distinction implies that MacArthur was not an objective judge of the meaning of his own career. But nobody has yet pointed out where he went astray in his judgments, and with every bit of news from South Vietnam that slips past the Establishment’s “management” machine, MacArthur looks more and more like the man who has pronounced history’s verdict. We are still losing needlessly because we lack the will to win.

These reminiscences hit the high spots, and the prose is, on occasion, theatrical. But MacArthur understood the uses of theater; as he once put it, it is sometimes good to be “a bit of a ham” in order to convince large audiences. In any case, the importance of this book is that it blocks out some large truths in a bold way. It may be disappointing that the story of MacArthur’s early years is sketchy, and that he eschews details about his personal life at all points (his first marriage, which ended in divorce, gets exactly one sentence). But surely a public character should be allowed to follow the formula adhered to in Albert Jay Nock’s biographies of Jefferson and Henry George, sticking to the “public thing” and letting the nosey reader go whistle for what he will never get.