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The General's Views. One question on which the Miller letters threw no light was whether General MacArthur is an isolationist. This question was of serious concern since much of his support has come from such extreme isolationists as Colonel Robert R. McCormick.† Then last week Manhattan Lawyer Henry Breckenridge, onetime Democrat and onetime close friend of Charles A. Lindbergh, shed light on this issue. In a letter to the Herald Tribune, he quoted a telegram General MacArthur sent from Manila in 1940 to William Allen White's Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Said General MacArthur, at the height of the interventionist -isolationist debate: "You have asked my military opinion as to whether the time has come for America to give continued and further aid to England in the fight for civilization. The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words, 'too late'. . . . The greatest strategical mistake in all history will be made if America fails to recognize the vital moment. Such coordinated help as may be regarded proper by our leaders should be synchronized with the British effort so that the English-speaking peoples of the world will not be broken in detail. The vulnerability of singleness will disappear before unity of effort."
Aside from his current place in political discussion, General MacArthur's military record now stands as one of the best, and perhaps the longest, in U.S. General Staff history. He was first in his class at West Point (1903). With his father, Lieut. General Arthur MacArthur, he was an observer in the Russo-Japanese War. In World War I he organized the famed Rainbow Division, became the youngest (38) division commander in France. In 1919, at 39, he was the youngest Superintendent of West Point in history.
Herbert Hoover made him Chief of Staff in 1930; Franklin Roosevelt kept him on for an extra year—the first Chief of Staff to serve more than the usual four-year tour of duty. In 1935, Manuel Quezon invited him to reorganize the Philippine Army; in 1941, after retirement from the U.S. Army, he was recalled to head American-Filipino forces in the Far East. He commanded the forces on Bataan until ordered to Australia. Lukewarm toward air power before War II, he changed his mind quick to work hand in glove with his air chief, Lieut. General George C. Kenney, one of the most brilliant developers of air warfare (TIME, Jan. 18, 1943). And some of his campaigns in the South Pacific, a series of victories won with small forces and low casualties, are already regarded as tactical masterpieces.
† In the March 26 Sunday Chicago Tribune appeared a new photograph of General MacArthur inscribed: "To Colonel McCormick, with the admiration and deep regard of his old comrade-in-arms, Douglas MacArthur."