In December 1960, I had the experience of interviewing Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his vast New York apartment. He granted interviews to only three historians and agreed to see me because I was writing a biography of Gen. Peyton C. March, who had been chief of staff of the Army late in World War I and a good friend of MacArthur's. His wife met me at the door and took me to meet the general in the living room, which stretched from one side of the Waldorf-Astoria Tower to the other. There were large Japanese hangings on the wall. I was surprised to find that his voice was hoarse, though he would occasionally come out in the booming voice that I had heard over the radio or in newsreels. For two hours he told me about March, other officers he knew and his own experiences.
MacArthur (1880-1964) is of course one of the most famous generals in American history. His leadership in World War II and his success in rebuilding Japan afterward were remarkable, though overshadowed by his having been fired in 1951 by Harry Truman for publicly undermining the president's Korean War policy. But as he mentioned to me that day, he had nearly left the service long before. After World War I, March had made him superintendent of West Point, and he retained his wartime rank as a brigadier general. In 1920, the War Department decided that it was going to reduce the very few who still retained the rank. MacArthur said that he was not going to return to his major's rank and had decided to accept the vice presidency of a bank in New York. Fortunately, he and a few others were made regular brigadier generals.
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