Bill O'Reilly's pathetic (thanks to his sidekick, researcher Martin Dugard) KILLING THE RISING SUN needs a new subtitle: "BASHING MACARTHUR." The book is full of old buckets of recycled myths, lies and aspersions thrown at the good name of the General. Here is a sampling:
(1) Chapter 2 opens with “So MacArthur, well known for his ego." This introduces us to one of the principal characters in the book as having an out-sized ego. But calling someone “egotistic” is purely subjective and nothing more than a biased, flippant and dismissive chatter. It's the weakest form of argument that attacks the attribute of a person rather than the substance of the argument itself. Besides, what may be "egotistic" to someone is "forthright" to another. "Egotistic" is usually linked, quite properly, with a public figure who is rude, obnoxious, foul-mouthed, quick-tempered and boozy (think HST). Traits not found in MacArthur's persona, in public or in private.
(2) p. 17 O'Reilly's book claims “MacArthur likes to refer to himself in the third person as simply ‘MacArthur’… As he does every day, the general wears a freshly pressed khaki uniform. He fastidiously maintains the creases on his shirt-sleeves and trousers by changing clothes frequently, and has just donned a fresh uniform for the landing.”
Narrative of this kind quickly falls flat on its face. One can easily see the characterization as spurious and uncorroborated - a worn-out yarn advanced by his detractors intent on marginalizing MacArthur's war record.
Here's the real deal. Between 1942 and the retaking of the Philippines three years later, MacArthur conducted 87 amphibious operations, considered the most complex of all military maneuvers. Each was successful, masterful AND decisive. Once captured, no enemy territory was allowed to be retaken – a record unmatched by any WWII theater commander in the entire war! MacArthur achieved all this in spite of the fact that his SW Pacific theater command was last in the pecking order of re-supply - behind Ike's European theater and Nimitz' South-Central Pacific.
(3) Book mentions that in 1935, MacArthur and his wife Jean “lived with their three-year-old son in an opulent penthouse atop the Manila Hotel.”
To push the media narrative of a "vainglorious" MacArthur obsessed with luxury, O’Reilly’s book is silent on the fact that MacArthur made no such demand for "opulent penthouse" to the fiery, flamboyant and popular Filipino President Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina. A similar press-driven controversy ran at the start of his 1942 New Guinea campaign when it was reported that MacArthur had built - and moved to a “luxurious villa atop a jungle-covered hill in Hollandia.” Photos taken later proved the report was completely bogus.
The “opulent penthouse” was a perk included in the job of Military Advisor to the Philippine Commonwealth President, tasked with preparing the country, a U.S. territory, for war. MacArthur did not go around the world scouring for opulent penthouses. There was a far more compelling reason. Realizing he would need MacArthur in case war broke out with Japan, thus putting America's geopolitical presence in the Pacific at grave risk, FDR urged the General to accept Quezon's offer. In 1934, MacArthur retired as FDR's Army Chief of Staff. The following year he started his job as the new Philippine commander. Yearly salary of $33,000 ($590,000 in 2017) was hardly exorbitant considering that today’s cable TV business reporters such as popular CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla make that much. (Wikipedia)
(4) MacArthur’s Leyte landing in the Philippines was reportedly “staged.” CBS correspondent William J. Dunn was on Red Beach that day, hotly disputing this canard. He said “the photo was a one-time shot taken within hours of the initial landing not something repeated sometime later for the perfect picture.” MacArthur’s biographer D. Clayton James agreed, noting that “MacArthur’s plan for the drama at Red Beach certainly did not include stepping off in knee-deep water.” (Historynet.com/Shore Party).
Another "staged" photo controversy emerged three months later. It centered around MacArthur wading ashore at the big island of Luzon (larger than Ireland). U.S. forces, aided by Filipino guerillas, were on their way to retake the Philippine capital city of Manila. Famed LIFE's Carl Mydans took the shot. He was working at the time with the navy invasion press pool. As such, he worked as free-lancer, not tied with LIFE. Years later and and back at LIFE, apparently hell-bent on advancing his career-enhancing Lingayen landing shots, Mydans claimed that the General spotted him on the beach. MacArthur then slowly walked over to Mydans and whispered how much he appreciated his taking a few "dramatic shots" of the General and his staff wading ashore.
Problem with the story is it has remained totally uncorroborated to this day. Mydans even admitted there was no one around to witness the meeting. MacArthur "bashers" happily ran with the story but serious historians quickly dismissed Mydans' take as mere "hearsay." Besides, it's totally uncharacteristic, even absurd and comical, of an American theater commander to anxiously search for beach photographers in the midst of a massive invasion force involving hundreds of ships, planes, submarines and tens of thousands of combat-ready U.S. servicemen. Meanwhile, not far away deadly eyes were watching closely. The Japanese were armed to the teeth, waiting and ready.
(5) Book further implies (as does PBS' flawed TV docu-series, PACIFIC, WAR) that MacArthur is to blame for the unnecessary Peleliu invasion due to its “importance” in protecting MacArthur’s flank heading to Leyte invasion on October 20, 1944.
Peleliu was no longer important. Adm. William F. Halsey, commander of Western Pacific Task Force, strongly recommended canceling the invasion (MacArthur concurred). After conducting raids and sweeps of the vast area from the Bonin Islands to the Philippines in August to early September 1944, the aggressive Halsey found Japanese air defenses to be only a “hollow shell” and told Nimitz, his CO, there was no justification for invading Peleliu since the weakened state of Japanese air power there posed no serious threat to MacArthur’s upcoming Leyte invasion.
Nimitz, however, overruled Halsey. His decision may simply reflect the expectations of Nimitz’s own superiors, leading up to Admiral Ernest King (Chief of Naval Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff), to “not upset the apple cart.” “Nimitz decided not to upset the apple cart and 10,000 Marines and soldiers paid the price for his ill-considered Peleliu decision.”
(6) The book’s narrative on Patton is fuzzy and ambivalent.
While Patton lobbied vigorously during his stay to go to the Pacific and fight the Japanese, his requests, which went all the way up the chain of command to a personal meeting with newly installed President Truman, were denied. Some have written that MacArthur did not want Patton in the Pacific, which may be true but cannot be authenticated. It was General George Marshall, MacArthur’s boss, who denied Patton his request – which appears to be "one of the more curious decisions at the end of the war.” (p. 335, Robert K. Wilcox, Target: Patton. 2008)
(7) Book’s coverage of the Korean War is so replete with inconsistencies and blatant lies favorable to Truman that time and space prevent me from covering such a target-rich subject for now. But one can simply argue that “Truman got the country into a war in Korea, and couldn’t get us out for 2 ½ years. Eisenhower was elected president and ended the war in six months” - by threatening to use the nuclear option MacArthur had long advocated.*
For more on the Korean War (and related subject), you may look up my 1) Amazon.com Customer Review of Arthur Herman's DOUGLAS MACARTHUR AMERICAN WARRIOR (I gave the book 5 stars - see page 1) and 2) Bret Baier's THREE DAYS IN JANUARY dated Feb 2 2018 (I gave FOXNEWS anchor Baier 4 stars - see page 9).
CONCLUSION: I wish to recommend these two definitive books for future “fair and balanced, spin-free zone” coverage of subjects ranging from MacArthur to World Wars I & II and to Korean War.
Herman, Arthur. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: American Warrior. NY: Random House, 2016 (“brought to the fore MacArthur’s seminal contributions to geopolitics: foresaw the growing importance of Asia to the U.S. and to a rapidly changing world” -- Dr. Henry Kissinger)
Duffy, James P. WAR AT THE END OF THE WORLD. NY: Penguin Random House, 2016 ("vivid and well-researched chronicle of this 'forgotten war' crucial to Allied victory ... gives those who were part of this forgotten fight the recognition they deserve" - The Wall Street Journal)
______________
* ENDNOTE Technically, the Korean War is not over. Parties agreed to an armistice in 1953 at Panmunjom that should have included the full use of America's strategic assets, i.e., nuclear option, in the event of non-compliance by the other side. "Future non-nuclear development" by the enemy should have been added to Article 12 section (d). Any violation of this clause would be met with the full force of U.S. power. As a negotiating leverage, use of the nuclear option would most likely ensure full armistice compliance. America had both the military capability and public support to strike a decisive military blow against her enemy. U.S. was therefore in an unchallenged position at the time to negotiate a non-nuclear proliferation treaty in Panmunjom that would be entirely favorable to U.S. strategic interests, at least while the country enjoyed the world's sole super power status.
From end of WW II through the 50's, the U.S. enjoyed such status. Stalin had no atomic arsenal, navy or strategic delivery system that could threaten the U.S. The Soviets were light years behind the U.S., still recovering from the immense ravages of WWII. Yet this window of opportunity was, for the most part, squandered in Washington. The general who advocated leveraging this opening was thwarted. Politicians in Washington, starting with the self-limiting administrations of Truman and, to some degree, Eisenhower, were ambivalent on the Pacific region's strategic geopolitical role vs. that of Europe, further impeded by Truman's policy of containment and the strenuous, often contentious, alliance with the U.N.
Summing up, had America's unchallenged global power in the early decades of the Cold War been effectively leveraged to prevent future nuclear development by enemies such as North Korea, the Kim Il Sung dynasty would have been nipped in the bud and the world would have been blissfully better for it.
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