MacArthur

Angebote / Angebote:

As laudatory as The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur by Frazier Hunt (1954) and MacArthur: 1941-1951 by Willoughby and Chamberlain (1954), this leaves us wondering still when MacArthur's real story will be told. Roughly, General Whitney, whose account recently appeared in Life in shortened form, follows the familiar outline of campaigns and personal achievements that filled the decade between Pearl Harbor and the Korean War. His text is written with a combination of military precision and romanticized appraisals of his chief. Beginning with the prelude to the Japanese attack there are strong criticisms of an inattentive, ambiguous Washington that obviously knew no reinforcements could be sent to the Philippines yet never revealed this fact and left MacArthur to be edged back and finally out and down to Australia. Playing up the drama of his comeback, General Whitney puts color into his panorama of the New Guinea campaign, final victory and the occupation of Japan. The benefits of political and economic freedom MacArthur brought to the vanquished are presented as sound evidence for the practical execution of his ideals of unified command, loyalty and the sovereignty of the military in certain prescribed areas. Called to duty again in Korea, MacArthur receives full credit for a brilliant display of military coordination, full vindication for the insubordination of which he was so unjustly accused, again by a mis-motivated Washington. Partisanly written, this record nevertheless fails on what it does not say and the brush-off of the many criticisms of MacArthur. (Kirkus Reviews)