Douglas Macarthur

Douglas MacArthur, the son of the high-ranking military figure, Arthur MacArthur, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 26th January, 1880. Although previously a poor scholar, in 1903 MacArthur graduated first in his 93-man class, at West Point Military Academy.

Commissioned in the Corps of the Engineers, MacArthur was sent by the United States Army to the Philippines and by 1904 had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. Later that year he joined his father who was serving in Far East before becoming aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

MacArthur was assigned to general staff duty with the War Department and was an official observer with the Vera Cruz Expedition. On the advice of General Leonard Wood, MacArthur was promoted to major.

In the First World War MacArthur commanded the 42nd Division on the Western Front and was decorated 13 times and cited seven additional times for bravery. Promoted the the rank of brigadier in August, 1918, three months later he became the youngest divisional commander in France.

After the war MacArthur returned to the United States where he became brigadier general and the youngest ever superintendent of West Point in its 117 year history. Over the next three years he doubled its size and modernized the curriculum.

In 1922 MacArthur was sent to the Philippines where he commanded the newly established Military District of Manila. At the age of forty-three MacArthur became the army's youngest general and in 1928 was appointed president of the American Olympic Committee.

MacArthur was appointed chief of staff of the US Army in 1930. Once again he was the youngest man to hold the office and over the next few years attempted to modernize America's army of 135,000 men. MacArthur developed right-wing political views and at one meeting argued that: "Pacifism and its bedfellow, Communism, are all about us. Day by day this cancer eats deeper into the body politic."

In June 1932, MacArthur, controversially used tanks, four troops of cavalry with drawn sabers, and infantry with fixed bayonets, on the Bonus Army in Washington. He justified his attack on former members of the United States Army by claiming that the country was on the verge of a communist revolution. Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton also took part in this operation.

The radical journalist, Drew Pearson, was highly critical of MacArthur's actions. MacArthur's ex-wife, Louise Cromwell, provided Pearson with confidential information about her former husband. This included the story that MacArthur's promotion to major general had come through the political intervention of her father, Edward T. Stotesbury. After publishing the story Pearson found himself being sued by MacArthur for $1,750,000.

Pearson looked to be in trouble when Louise Cromwell refused to testify in