Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. xii, 320 pp., US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8014-4939-0.
Douglas MacArthur altered the history of every Asian country he served in. In the Philippines, he helped solidify the power of the local oligarchy and destroyed Manila upon its “liberation.” In Japan, he implemented large-scale land reform and led the formation of a postwar constitution that renounces war. His final military act—a defense of Syngman Rhee’s Republic of Korea—solidified the borders of a divided nation.
Hiroshi Masuda’s superbly researched book on MacArthur’s exploits in Asia rehearses transnational history through biography. The ambitious work reveals a continent confronting the major events of mid-twentieth-century world history: from World War II to the beginnings of the Cold War. Ostensibly the narrative that unfolds concerns MacArthur and his cordon sanitaire: the “Bataan Boys,” or the group of fifteen officers who escaped the Philippines with the general in 1942 (ix).
Contrary to what the preface may lead one to believe, however, the book is not history refracted through the lens of military homosociality. The stories of the individual Bataan Boys and their relationships with MacArthur are, in fact, incidental. Though Masuda is too modest to make the claim himself, the book is actually an account of events that shaped modern Asia. And, in this respect, the book is a success.
Masuda’s thorough research is most evident in the chapters about the American occupation of Japan. Japan after the war became a social laboratory for a budding American international technocracy. In Masuda’s postwar Japan, New Dealers, economic liberals, pacifists and political conservatives vie to determine the future of the defeated nation. The ultimate triumph, however, belonged to the newly emergent Cold Warriors of the US State Department, who eventually sidelined the recalcitrant MacArthur.
The occupation of Japan began with a purge of conservatives in the government and the military, coupled with a strong resolve on MacArthur’s part to completely disarm the country. But the mainstreaming of anti-Communist containment among American policy makers resulted in an increased support for conservative politicians (hence the rise to prominence of the Japanese Liberal Party, which would constitute one half of the now hegemonic Liberal Democratic Party) and the partial rearmament of Japan, foreshadowing the right-wing, militarist direction of US Cold War-era foreign policy.
The relevance of Masuda’s research exceeds merely providing new insights into the life of a celebrity general. Through the book, we see the contours of late twentieth-century world history. Unfortunately, Masuda is more interested in analyzing MacArthur the person rather than examining the broad historical patterns the general’s biography was emblematic of. The temptation, of course, is to present the narrative as one of hubris, with MacArthur’s miscalculations in Korea serving as the tragic ending to a storied career.
For most of the book, Masuda is ungenerous towards MacArthur, claiming that most of his actions were obscured by political ambition and partisanship. For instance, MacArthur’s attempt to move northwards to Pyongyang after a successful defense of South Korea, we are told, was a result of pride. The loss in Korea and MacArthur’s dismissal from the army could have thus been prevented by more levelheaded decision making.
In later testimony, MacArthur claimed he did not anticipate Chinese intervention, thus emboldening him to extend the war—a justification eminently persuasive at the time. Mao Zedong had yet to be exposed as a politically reckless ultraleftist, and many thought the Great Helmsman would not risk going to war with a nuclear power. Yet Masuda is unconvinced, claiming:
MacArthur’s testimony was unconvincing and undeniably [emphasis mine] misleading. Rather, with the midterm election coming up just two weeks later, MacArthur’s indifference was probably a reaction to Truman’s political strategy. He suspected that Truman would use the success at Inchon to secure a victory for the Democratic Party. As a Republican, and one who had experienced a sense of frustration in the 1948 presidential election, MacArthur had naturally no intention of sharing the victory with Truman. (265–266)
The connection Masuda tries to draw between MacArthur’s miscalculation regarding China’s intervention and Truman’s “political strategy” is barely comprehensible. But what he seeks to insinuate is clear enough: that political considerations rather than military tactics informed MacArthur’s decisions in Korea. This, uncharacteristically for Masuda, is an undocumented claim, and it serves as a bizarre climax to an otherwise superb book.
Perhaps in an attempt to balance his assessment, Masuda’s concluding chapter showers inordinate praise on MacArthur. The earlier achievements of the book—revealing the lasting impact of MacArthur’s governance on the Japanese political system, illustrating the continuities and discontinuities between the administration of the Philippines and that of Japan, telling the Pacific War through the lens of the Bataan Boys—all these recede in favour of an exposition of MacArthur’s Boy Scout qualities. In the final chapter, Masuda concludes: “MacArthur’s personal qualities as a hero in war and in peace can be summed up under seven headings: courage, decisiveness, loyalty, dignity, intelligence, leadership, and conviction” (175). Because there is much to learn from MacArthur the person, Masuda even assesses MacArthur’s health, explaining in the third to the last page that “the key factor in MacArthur’s good health was his indoor walking” (283). Maybe the American obesity crisis made Masuda want to leave his American readers with health tips.
The book, as such, not only traces MacArthur’s career, but also mimics its trajectory: from promising beginning, to towering achievement, to final failure. Like the military career it documents, however, Masuda’s book should be regarded in its totality.
Lisandro E. Claudio
Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines
pp. 376-378