The ringing of the telephone awakened Douglas MacArthur just after 3:30 a.m. in his air-conditioned six-room penthouse atop the Manila Hotel. Japanese bombers had just ravaged Pearl Harbor, the caller said. "Pearl Harbor!" echoed MacArthur. "It should be our strongest point!"
The 61-year-old "Field Marshal" asked his wife Jean to bring him his Bible, and he read in it, as he did every morning, for about 10 minutes. It brought him little comfort. At this moment of crisis, facing a threat that imperiled his life, his command and his whole world, America's greatest living military hero, the bemedaled veteran of bayonet...