POLITICS: The General v. Generals

For months Eisenhower supporters have believed that Douglas MacArthur was preparing a blow at their candidate. It was expected to land with an earthshaking thud, probably in the course of MacArthur’s speech to the Republican Convention. Last week, in a speech to the Michigan legislature, MacArthur unleashed his missile. He named no names, but his remarks boiled down to a warning that a military man should not be President.

Said MacArthur: “The history of the world shows that republics and democracies have generally lost their liberties by way of passing from civilian to a quasimilitary status. Nothing is more conducive to arbitrary rule than the military junta. It would be a tragic development indeed if this generation was forced to look to the rigidity of military dominance and discipline to redeem it from the tragic failure of a civilian administration. It might well destroy our historic and wise concept which holds to the supremacy of the civil power.”

Apparently the old soldier has changed his mind about generals as Presidents. In March 1948, not long before the Wisconsin presidential primary (in which he was roundly defeated), he announced that he was available for the Republican nomination. Only last March, while saying that he was not a candidate in this campaign, he referred to another statement in which he said he would not “shrink . . . from accepting any public duty.”

Perhaps because the public remembered his own past willingness to run, perhaps for other reasons, the MacArthur thrust failed to create any great stir. Among the great man’s well-deserved laurels nestled a bunch of slightly sour grapes.